End of wargamer.com

[Gusington]

^If I didn't, I'd be left with nothing!

[Redwolf]

How long ago is it that Slitherine/Matrix let go of wargamer.com?

[Jarhead0331]

How long ago is it that Slitherine/Matrix let go of wargamer.com?

I would approximate about 8 years or so. It was acquired by Network N.

[Dammit Carl!]

Egad.

:-\

[hellfish6]

How long ago is it that Slitherine/Matrix let go of wargamer.com?

I would approximate about 8 years or so. It was acquired by Network N.

I thought it was a lot more recent than that, but I never payed attention too closely. I lost interest in the site when Matrix/Slitherine took them over because it felt like they were just shilling for that one publisher, and it has taken a long time for me to become comfortable with M/S since then.

[Sir Slash]

Maybe we should throw them a Wake? I'll start tonight with a double Bourbon.  :hug:

[ArizonaTank]

You've got to wonder what the discussion was:

It must have been a discussion held in a room full of MBAs.

I'd be willing to bet that there was also marketing weenie discussion about the "wargamer.com" URL as an "asset."  The URL is mighty close to "wargaming.net"... the "World of Tanks", "World of Warplanes" and "World of Warships" guys.

But regarding the business side of this, historical war gaming in particular is such a small niche that much of the growth seems to be moving to social media. This will make monetization harder than it already was. So I think the corporate guys behind this acquisition will inevitably push the site towards eurogames and console FPS/RTSs.

[Jarhead0331]

You've got to wonder what the discussion was:

It must have been a discussion held in a room full of MBAs.

I'd be willing to bet that there was also marketing weenie discussion about the "wargamer.com" URL as an "asset."  The URL is mighty close to "wargaming.net"... the "World of Tanks", "World of Warplanes" and "World of Warships" guys.

But regarding the business side of this, historical war gaming in particular is such a small niche that much of the growth seems to be moving to social media. This will make monetization harder than it already was.

Social media and video formats. Young people don't read anymore.

[CaptainKoloth]

You've got to wonder what the discussion was:

It must have been a discussion held in a room full of MBAs.

I'd be willing to bet that there was also marketing weenie discussion about the "wargamer.com" URL as an "asset."  The URL is mighty close to "wargaming.net"... the "World of Tanks", "World of Warplanes" and "World of Warships" guys.

But regarding the business side of this, historical war gaming in particular is such a small niche that much of the growth seems to be moving to social media. This will make monetization harder than it already was.

Social media and video formats. Young people don't read anymore.

But if there's no money in it why bother trying to string along the domain at all? I mean, if you want to make lots of money on Twitch streaming Call of Duty and whatever garbage MOBA is all the rage this week, whatever, but create some other site to do it. You don't buy finewinesandcheeses.com to try to create a TikTok competitor.

And let this be an object lesson to you budding media editors out there about the importance of framing and messaging: I suspect there is some way they could have done largely the same thing they're doing and presented it as a way to keep wargaming journalism alive in the rapidly changing internet landscape, etc. But the way they're going about it, actively bragging about moving away from wargaming content, eliminating their entire archive of material, and otherwise disavowing the legacy of the website whose skin they are now wearing- surely the only asset that domain still possesses-  they are very effectively driving away whatever tiny audience they might have had left.

[Pete Dero]

Young people don't read anymore.

They think Call of Duty is a war game and complain that they ask $80 for a game like Command Operations while the graphics suck.

A Slitherine/Matrix stream on Twitch has around 200 viewers while a chick with a pool stream generates over 5K.
Maybe there aren't enough people like us around to keep real war gaming and war gaming sites profitable.

[FarAway Sooner]

I'd echo Hellfish's sentiment above.  I kind of stopped trusting any editorial content relating to Matrix/Slitherine products.  Running a free-to-users website whose primary product is honest game reviews but whose funding comes from game advertisers creates some real adverse conflict within your business model, even before you're actually owned by a gaming company....

I wish the folks luck in their new endeavor.  Clearly, if the old wargamer site had been able to sustain itself, it wouldn't have gone the direction it did.  The fragmentation in the industry makes it hard to run even a break-even business for too long.

As for their welcome to the new page, the fact that it was put out with a ton of garish advertisements and pop-up ads isn't  what I'd call a best practice.  Which all points back to that money thing...

[Jarhead0331]

Maybe there aren't enough people like us around to keep real war gaming and war gaming sites profitable.

Very true...sad, but true.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...

Here at Grogheads, we don't do it for the money and profit. We do it for the free alcohol and for the ladies.

[IICptMillerII]

I don't generally like reinforcing negativity or something I do not like. My (admittedly new) philosophy is to not give legitimacy to bad things by engaging with them and instead just ignoring them. Especially these days in a world of cancel culture and outrage mobs, it is usually best to just compliment the things you like and ignore the things you do not.

But wargamer... man. I was worried a few months back when they were talking about the transition, and some of the more outward statements they were making in regards to political correctness and all that, but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, a lot of that talk nowadays is just posturing to try to avert the outrage mob. Sadly though it appears they really have decided to fundamentally gut the heart and soul of the website.

To me, the most frustrating aspect of this is the "plebitization" of the platform. They are essentially dumbing down their content and expanding into new areas such as Magic The Gathering and Warhammer in an attempt to attract a larger reader base. I really despise when I see this happen. One of the reasons wargames are niche is because they tend to be more complicated than your average game. The intent is to entertain as a result of thinking and knowing, as opposed to entertain by looking cool and being flashy. But, most people just want to sit back, turn their brains off, and be entertained by games. Not a bad thing of course, but for those of us seeking something more specific like wargames, having the wargames themselves dumbed down to appeal to a larger audience is not the right answer in my opinion.

Unfortunately, I think this new model will end up working for them. They will likely find the reader base they want by watering down their content the way they are, which is the most frustrating. I've seen it happen before. For example (and highly ironically) the Wargame series of games did exactly this. The first game was a very new and interesting look at an under-developed period of warfare using unique systems and had enough elements of realism to make it a wargame in my opinion. The second game was an improvement in every way and really refined the system. Then the developers realized they could greatly expand their playerbase by dumbing down the game and making it accessible to the masses by making it a more "competitive multiplayer RTS experience." The Total War series essentially did the same thing, starting off as a wargame with decent realistic aspects before dumbing itself down and turning itself into just another game for the mindless masses.
None of that is meant to insult anyone who enjoys the modern Total War titles or the most recent Wargame title, they are just examples used to explain a trend. A trend that it appears Wargamer has decided to follow in the name of more clicks.

Oh well. To end on a more upbeat note, Grogheads is still a bastion of wargaming goodness, and a lot of my wargaming news ends up coming from these forums anyways. I'm no mind reader, but it would appear JH has no intention of drastically and fundamentally changing Grogheads any time soon. And who knows, maybe wargamers loss is Grogheads gain? Maybe this is an opportunity for Grogheads to fill the niche that wargamer has now abandoned.

[al_infierno]

What really strikes me about the new content they're pushing is just how generic and low-level it all seems to be.  How to manage your forces in Hearts of Iron IV?  Introductory guide to Gloomhaven?  How to build a Magic: The Gathering deck?  Who the hell wants to read this crap? 

[SlagDog]

Hi All,

I knew this day would finally come when I actually got involved and registered to post. Hi, I'm a lurker of more than two decades (I can say that I have visited the Grogheads site everyday (excluding weekends) since it went live. I was a lurker on the Wargamer site before 2000. Freak, it's been a while since then. And I've been a lurker here on Grogheads ever since it's creation. But this post has brought out the nostalgia in me. I really enjoyed Wargamer.com way back when. I rarely go there now because it seems more like a veiled commercial for certain games then an open discussion about wargaming in general. Way back when, I thought it was very informative, entertaining and had great discussions about wargaming. Plus I loved the nut-ball immature humor that was laced throughout all of the reviews and forum posts. But Grogheads is where it's at now for me.  \m/

<Slinking back into obscurity>  ;D

Mike