Warhammer+ has led a troubled life. Released over a year ago, it has struggled along as something of a half-finished product. It has a decent interface but not a lot of content. While GW has been slowly adding to the service, it has been at a glacial pace. Releases seem to be timed haphazardly and quality has been uneven at best and mediocre at worse. One of the more interesting moves done to help the service was the idea to add older White Dwarfs to the site. On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense as it’s an easy way to add content without having to spend a lot of time and money. On the other hand, this is frustrating to long time players who know the sheer amount of content that exists in GW’s vaults. I believe there is an opportunity for GW to give Warhammer+ a true purpose by using it to store and disseminate old books and similar materials.
Idea:
Over the years GW has released and then discontinued an almost uncountable number of books and anthologies. When you factor in the audio books and various Forge World supplements this amounts to a staggering amount of content. I think by releasing this content onto the site it would provide a compelling reason for people to subscribe and it would help transform Warhammer+ into a digital hub. Imagine being able to access Epubs of older warhammer books that are out of print (well except for those C.S. Goto ones). As a Charcharodons player some of their best lore is found in books that GW doesn’t produce anymore. You could also add in certain audio dramas, older Forgeworld books and even old codexes as a way to provide a nostalgia hit for older players.
Challenges:
Now this isn’t a perfect idea. One counterpoint is that many of these older products can already be found online for free. Furthermore, would adding them to Warhammer+ make them easier for people to pirate? To this I would argue that people are often willing to pay a small fee to get content legally if that is an option for them. We have seen with Steam and the early days of streaming how centralizing content in a convenient package can provide a powerful alternative to pirating. Furthermore, the risk of this added content being taken and re-uploaded online free is no more a risk than for any of the other shows that are on the platform already. You would need to be careful to avoid cannibalization, perhaps do not release anything that you do not plan to re-release or that is still for sale. However even if you do end up shifting customers from a physical purchase to Warhammer+ you may end up getting more money from them if they enjoy the platform. There may also be the issue of royalties for the older items but I think these issues can be resolved for a small cost.
While I think this is unlikely to ever happen, I think it should be an idea that GW considers. Many of the out of print items can already be found online and adding them to Warhammer+ gives people another reason to stick around. GW is sitting on a mountain of usable content that people know and enjoy while also dealing with a platform that is starved for material. Imagine being able to access old codexes, Forge World campaigns and old stories in one spot. Wouldn’t that be great? What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Is there anything you would like to see GW make available digitally?
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