NurglesFirstChosen Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 11 hours ago, PlasticCraic said: Yeah I find that part really interesting...as someone who grew up in the UK but lives in Australia, I am very aware of the different connotations of "middle class" in different countries. I've seen responses to that aspect ranging from "Middle Class??? You don't have to be driving a Rolls Royce and holiday on the Moon to afford Warhammer!" through to "Middle Class??? People eating canned spaghetti for tea can't afford this stuff!" It’s true, ‘middle class’ has become an extremely broad term in the past 10-20 years, and probably has 3-6 sub classes (haha abit like the hero phase post aos 2.0). Its probably has something to do with the fact that much of what is referred to as the ‘working class’ no longer work. Unemployment levels in the UK are worryingly high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAntsAreBack Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 No, unemployment levels hadn't been this low since the early seventies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 Unemployment is a tricky term because its not all that honest. From what I recall there's a really low number of hours per week that government requires for a person to be considered "employed" with regard to the stats. I seem to have something like a few hours every two weeks in my head as the value. So yes whilst the unemployment rate might be low, it doesn't mean all the workforce is actually fulltime employed in a viable job. As for class a huge part of the system has basically fallen apart. You've sort of got some of the social aspects still there, but its not as overt as it once was. My father can still recall the end era of it when you still had classes. A Middle Class person would not talk to a Lower Class. They'd greet them and be polite and hire them for work etc..., but you'd not stop to talk about the day, chat, socialise or generally associate with them. It was not the done thing. Same, but a bit lesser, for Upper to Middle; and even more extreme for Upper to Lower. There were also loads of other bits that got attached on as well; for example it was possible to fall from your class (it wasn't directly tied to money, but money would often be a root element, but so was marriage - you could easily lower your class forever if you married a lower class person; or just find yourself not invited to events and associated with). However rising up was immensely hard. You could be super rich and still only be a Green Grocer middle class person even if you lived in a mansion and earned a fortune (often such people had to marry into upper class - finding an upper class family who were down on their financial luck). To the Manor Born is a comical show that shows just this very class divide. Today we've nothing like the old class system at all; we've bits here and there and a generalist (if TV led) understanding of its basic core concepts . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mosquito onthe TenthFloor Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 2 hours ago, TheAntsAreBack said: No, unemployment levels hadn't been this low since the early seventies. He probably meant poverty levels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nos Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 2 hours ago, TheAntsAreBack said: No, unemployment levels hadn't been this low since the early seventies. I think he probably meant working poor. It was revealed yesterday current government are classifying stay at home parents as in employment, so yeah, it’s far from straight forward employment in reality. What I will say though is that I believe GW is probably the cheapest it’s ever been, from the perspective of pure model buying. If you just want to buy some cool soldier models-not collect an army or get into it hardcore or anything-you can buy a dozen easy to assemble brilliant models for circa £15. When I was getting into the hobby as an 8 year old that simply wasn’t an option. 2 lead terminators for 7.50 in those days. Or £40 for Space Crusade, Heroquest etc. The flip side though is that by the same standard everything else From my childhood is still cheaper by several orders of magnitude. Watch infinite movies for £7 a month rather than buy one for £10. Buy an engaging 60-100 hour computer game for a tenner rather than a 2 hour one for £40, that sort of thing. Although comics have somehow gone from being 30p to £3. Literally ten times the price for a worse product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 @Nos part of that is scale. Computer games, for example, have dramatically gone up in cost and AAA titles are on the whole equal too or more expensive than games were around 20 years ago or so. Back when Starcraft 1 was around the £30 mark many newer AAA titles can now be £40-60. However this is masked somewhat by things like launch day DLC which allows for a lower core product price with DLC to bump it up. I'm also leaving online games totally out of this as they are a totally separate affair. Thing is computer games over that period have gone from something only affluent geeks and dedicated geeks could afford to justify into something commonly considered affordable and mainstream. A PC was once very expensive and a luxury; now they are commonplace and whilst a top end gaming one is still expensive, the are comparably cheaper for far more power. Games have thus have a vast market increase. Of course alongside the AAA have also have a vast production cost increase (they rival films now for development budgets); though the indie and smaller game market ahs picked up a lot of middleground (and they feed right off many of the systems and software AAA developers make and put out into the market - engines and such). Comics I think have likely not expanded their market to the same degree; so you've got rising costs of production, but no vast rise in market itself. At least if there is a rise its nowhere near on the same scale as computer games have had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPjr Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 11 minutes ago, Nos said: Although comics have somehow gone from being 30p to £3. Literally ten times the price for a worse product. no way! I'm going to have to dispute that, I'd say we're in a golden age of comics right now. trust me I was back in the UK at Christmas and found a box of my old ones in my parent's loft from around 88-91 and they most of them were borderline unreadable, there's some exceptional, medium defining, ones from that era but the rank & file books were unmemorable dross. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPjr Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 my bank account would certainly not shed a tear in they were 30p again though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 2 minutes ago, JPjr said: my bank account would certainly not shed a tear in they were 30p again though. And yet even at 30p each you'd still need £600+ to collect all the 2K+ editions of 200AD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
platypus101 Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 Perhaps (not saying you are) many of you don’t remember when gaming was the devils hobby... 😂 no, seriously. Warhammer had all the “anti-establishment” tropes of its time: a game designed for just two people, where the artwork was influenced by sacrilegious thought and Metal music. The articles back in the day would have said that you NEED to get your kids off the “plastic heroin” before Satan took their soul! And that would have been on the nightly news with Dan Rather! (Forgive me, I’m American, don’t know universally known news anchors). Honestly, I’m glad people don’t read the “angry” gamer forums, or they would go right back to that way of thinking. ‘Nuff said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 @platypus101 I think that the whole "devil woreship" angle was mostly a US thing and mostly in specific locations. In the UK Warhammer was only feared by parents and their wallets if their kids ever caught sight of it*. Meanwhile DnD was just pure geek so most didn't care much about it. And yeah Warhammer is greatly at home with Metal Music - heck the Realm system of AoS is something lifted right out of metal album covers. *Oddly the start up costs are less than for a console yet many parents were happier for kids to like consoles and games; even though parents would then complain endlessly about their kids doing nothing but sitting at screens alone; yet warhammer can be quite social - its an odd kinda thing that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPjr Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 I interviewed Ian Livingstone a couple of years ago for a magazine and I remember him saying all the 'Fighting Fantasy/Dungeons & Dragons/etc are the work of the devil' news stories were just about the best publicity he could ever have hoped for and sent sales rocketing over here. Though I think that was probably more true for the fantasy/roleplaying business in the UK which, at least until recently, I'd say tends to not be as genuinely crazy as our colonial friends can be about these things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPjr Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 and tying up the last couple of posts lest we forget Dark Dungeons, one of the greatest, unintentionally hilarious, comics warning parents/children of the dangers of roleplaying games (and of course instantly making it all look more interesting than it has any right to be)... http://www.escapeplan.org/chick/D&D/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamopower Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 It's by the way amazing how big D&D is nowadays. There are actors talking about it in talk shows on major american TV. The new True Detective season seems to be very much about DnD and then there is that whole Stranger things thing. Also at least in Finland, live action roleplaying is very mainstream. It's used in team building exercises etc. in regular companies etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nos Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 3 hours ago, JPjr said: and tying up the last couple of posts lest we forget Dark Dungeons, one of the greatest, unintentionally hilarious, comics warning parents/children of the dangers of roleplaying games (and of course instantly making it all look more interesting than it has any right to be)... http://www.escapeplan.org/chick/D&D/ Becoming a priestess of the craft seems pretty straight forward at any rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 The devilish cult that is DnD! Conspiring to corrupt the young into demonic cults which will practice powerful magics to get their parents to part with vast sums of money - like $200! Honestly the DnD cult is weak.... now Apple and their iCult can get parents to part with hundreds upon hundreds! Every year! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairbanks Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NurglesFirstChosen Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 On 1/25/2019 at 9:20 AM, TheAntsAreBack said: No, unemployment levels hadn't been this low since the early seventies. I know that’s what the black and white statistics say, but I question the validity of the stats, as there are many other factors that the statistics don’t encompass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPjr Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 One hour of work a week and this rotten corpse of a government considers you to be in employment, so yeah fairly meaningless sadly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 They also consider stay at home parents as employed for the stats. Now I'm not undermining the fact that parenting is important, but in this day and age both parties often have to draw an income to make ends meat; so if one is fully out of work that means either the other is in a high paying job; or they are struggling. Plus if its a deliberate choice to not be employed rather than being unable to find work its not really valid (in my view) to be rolled into the general "employed/unemployed" statistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirjava13 Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 54 minutes ago, JPjr said: One hour of work a week and this rotten corpse of a government considers you to be in employment, so yeah fairly meaningless sadly. Nothing to add to this, I just wanted to get the phrase, "rotting corpse of a government" on the page again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 2 minutes ago, Kirjava13 said: Nothing to add to this, I just wanted to get the phrase, "rotting corpse of a government" on the page again. At least its somewhat functional - the US has been shut down for over a month now over an unaffordable impractical wall Anyway this is getting political and the only politics of worth that we should have here are the backstabbing politics of rival skaven! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirjava13 Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 13 minutes ago, Overread said: At least its somewhat functional You are a proper comedian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mosquito onthe TenthFloor Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 8 hours ago, Overread said: At least its somewhat functional - the US has been shut down for over a month now over an unaffordable impractical wall Anyway this is getting political and the only politics of worth that we should have here are the backstabbing politics of rival skaven! Lol functional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Posted January 27, 2019 Share Posted January 27, 2019 I don't know about the UK but in Australia they only count people as unemployed if they are actively seeking work. So no stay at home parents, retired etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.