discussion Female model representation in Age of Sigmar

[shinros]

2 minutes ago, michu said:

Look at it that way. Southland is Old World's Africa. What faction is the most prevalent in the non-egyptian, non-arabian part of it? Wild brutes that are too stupid to use something better than stone spears. Not the best picture.

And I've already said it twice - AoS solved that problem - Bonesplitterz are not related to any real-world culture. They're their own thing.

But they still have the very "tribal" elements that are essentially "racist" anyway.  So what does it matter with the setting change? They haven't changed in attitude and culture really when it comes to AOS. I know I wrote their lexicanum page.

 

[michu]

2 minutes ago, shinros said:

But they still have the very "tribal" elements that are essentially "racist" anyway.  So what does it matter with the setting change? They haven't changed in attitude and culture really when it comes to AOS. I know I wrote their lexicanum page.

 

They have tribal elements, but they don't live in AoS counterpart of Africa and I think that their culture changed a lot. Sure, the belief of protecting warpaint is still there but Bonesplitterz are less "even more primitive than regular orcs" and more "nomadic beast-hunter pilgrims". They're not simple(r) brutes, they have an actual culture now. That's what make this incarnation better than old one.

[Overread]

Orks have always represented that wild tribal element of barbarians. Perhaps you see African; perhaps you see the tribes of Germans from the times when the Roman Empire fell; or Tribes from further wet of angry scots coming down from the hills or tribes from America? 

 

There are so many jumbled up themes that you can't really link them to any one faction. I'd say that to do so is simply looking for insults where none is intended. Even if they are simple brutes that's a pretty classic ork trait that's been around since orks were "invented" 

[shinros]

3 minutes ago, Overread said:

Orks have always represented that wild tribal element of barbarians. Perhaps you see African; perhaps you see the tribes of Germans from the times when the Roman Empire fell; or Tribes from further wet of angry scots coming down from the hills or tribes from America? 

 

There are so many jumbled up themes that you can't really link them to any one faction. I'd say that to do so is simply looking for insults where none is intended. Even if they are simple brutes that's a pretty classic ork trait that's been around since orks were "invented" 

Yup, this is largely my view.

[shinros]

26 minutes ago, michu said:

They have tribal elements, but they don't live in AoS counterpart of Africa and I think that their culture changed a lot. Sure, the belief of protecting warpaint is still there but Bonesplitterz are less "even more primitive than regular orcs" and more "nomadic beast-hunter pilgrims". They're not simple(r) brutes, they have an actual culture now. That's what make this incarnation better than old one.

Orcs mainly live in ghur the most "savage" part of the mortal realms. They hunt monsters but bonesplitters go so native by waagh energy that the more "normal" warclans kick them out or they leave.

In my opinion overall they're fine in both worlds, but if you really want to see GW's weird past look up pygmies. Considering you know your stuff I'm sure you know what they are.

Edited September 12, 2020 by shinros

[Sartxac]

1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

Most of Cities of Sigmar is in the realm of fire, the others in the realm of life, much of which is a jungle. If you want to restrict race, neither are optimal for pasty white people (with Greywater being the sole exception). They also came from all humans that were in Azyr, so either they should form a melting pot of all races, or all races should be represented. The only reason the Freeguild look as they do, is because GW has only made one Order human since tge start if AoS, which has since been discontinued. The Excelsior Warpriest had distinctly African facial features (as well as the cutest little Gryph hound).

Stormcast harvest their souls from all humans Sigmar wants to take, they should reflect every human the hammergod wants to use.

Slaves to Darkness' aesthetic has nothing to do with historic vikings, so I don't see a reason for racial restrictions.

And yes, I do think Bonesplitters are not in good taste, taking African elements and putting them on the barbaric subhumans that are orcs isn't the most respectful way to treat a culture. Not dissimilar with the mongolian themed ogres.

Sorry, maybe i'm not explaining well mi idea due to my poor english.

I'm not talking about the lore, i explain the armies that i want. I like the freeguild for reasons that i explain this sometimes in this threat.

I don't want a game with all fanciful armies, as a minimum i want a few number of fantasy versions of more realistic armies. Nothing more. Or other versions of popular fantasy armies or characters. 

For example, i prefer slave to darkness with less demons, only barbars and "viking warriors" in dark amours. I prefer this instead of khorne with a lot of daemons and red armours. But is only my opinion. I like khorne, idoneth. and the other armies but i prefer other aesthetics for spend time mounting and painting.

I think that if you want more inclusion in AOS, you need make new armies. In the fantasy movies that treats about china you could see visual topics, maybe if you make a new army exploring this topics this would be attract more of this citizens because they will see their culture represent.  For example, the ogre army of Eorek:

https://www.tga.community/forums/topic/25451-the-khorne-werewolf-guy-bushido-ogre-style/?page=3

I don't know the lore of warhammer fantasy but never i associated their orks with africans... Only with american natives for the appareance of the tattos and clothes, i think as a consequence of the weather the germanic tribes wore more clothes. These had the same type of weapons but a lot of knowledge about maths and cosmology. Maybe the chamans of this orcs could have similar knowledge. I think that this commentary isn't a insult for no one.

For example, i love the flagellants models as a parody of the cristian fanatist, for me are funny with i'm sure that in the next years they will pass to warhammer legends.

I think that we can't stop the creativity of the designers in order to create new armies or recreate realistic fantasy versions of real armies, with the argument that could offend any historical culture. 

Thank's and apologies for read my messages with a lot of english errors.

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Sartxac

[michu]

2 minutes ago, shinros said:

Orcs mainly live in ghur the most "savage" part of the mortal realms. They still hunt monsters but bonesplitters go so native by waagh energy that the more "normal" warclans kick them out or they leave.

In my opinion overall they're fine in both worlds, but if you really want to see GW's weird past look up pygmies. Considering you know your stuff I'm sure you know what they are.

In the legendary words of TTS Deathwatch Calato: "Thanks for remindind me about that. Now I'm going to book in another session with  the mind cleanser."

Yeah, while Savage Orcs are "only" problematic (in the WFB), pygmies are just....

[shinros]

8 minutes ago, michu said:

In the legendary words of TTS Deathwatch Calato: "Thanks for remindind me about that. Now I'm going to book in another session with  the mind cleanser."

Yeah, while Savage Orcs are "only" problematic (in the WFB), pygmies are just....

We may disagree, but something like pygmies is what I personally consider racist. To get back to the point of the thread, overall I think GW are currently handling cultures and representation well. 

Edited September 12, 2020 by shinros

[michu]

10 minutes ago, shinros said:

We may disagree, but something like pygmies is what I personally consider racist. To get back to the point of the thread, overall I think GW are currently handling cultures and representation well. 

And I agree. They are. Unimaginably so. That's why I want to forget someone ever thought it was a good idea.

[zilberfrid]

6 minutes ago, Sartxac said:

Sorry, maybe i'm not explaining well mi idea due to my poor english.

I'm not talking about the lore, i explain the armies that i want. I like the freeguild for reasons that i explain this sometimes in this threat.

I don't want a game with all fanciful armies, as a minimum i want a few number of fantasy versions of more realistic armies. Nothing more. Or other versions of popular fantasy armies or characters. 

For example, i prefer slave to darkness with less demons, only barbars and "viking warriors" in dark amours. I prefer this instead of khorne with a lot of daemons and red armours. But is only my opinion. I like khorne, idoneth. and the other armies but i prefer other aesthetics for spend time mounting and painting.

I think that if you want more inclusion in AOS, you need make new armies. For example, in the fantasy movies that treats about china you could see visual topics, maybe if you make a new army exploring this topics this would be attract more this citizens because they will see their culture represent.  For example, the ogre army of Eorek:

https://www.tga.community/forums/topic/25451-the-khorne-werewolf-guy-bushido-ogre-style/?page=3

I don't know the lore of warhammer fantasy but neves i associated their orks with africans... Only with american natives. These had the same type of weapons but a lot of knowledge about maths and cosmology. Maybe the chamans of this orcs could have similar knowledge. 

Thank's for read my messages with a lot of english errors.

No issues with your language, I don't think I've read something I didn't understand. I myself am not an English native.

I got into AoS with Freeguild, and left because I didn't have confidence GW was going to continue with Order humans (and I'm not okay with a few other things). Necromunda has normal-ish humans, so I'm building that now, as well as a lot of stuff outside of GW (primarily Frostgrave). I would like to have had a gesture that Order humans are worth making models for, bit GW isn't doing that. I love the Landsknecht look, I was even making my LARP Landsknecht before starting these models.

I like historical armour and clothing, but I prefer that to include more diversity, because it's better to reach a wider audience, is more interesting to model and is logical in the lore. There is no reason except hanging onto the past to exclude them.

I just hate the naked dude with horns on their helmet and a loincloth as a "viking" look. That's a lot worse than having a few ladies in a Landsknecht army. And way worse than having an Arabian and a few shieldmaidens in a proper Viking raiding party.

In the old WHFB, Bonesplitters come from the Africa part of the world (look at the map, it's not disguised) and they were the most supersticious and primitive Orks. In AoS it's not as bad though, because it's disconnected from the real world more.

[Nos]

4 hours ago, shinros said:

Why does the status quo doesn't change because many black people believe they can't be succesful. Because most live in broken enviroments, surrounded by crime and violence. Which leads to criminal records and dead careers. Also writers and designers should not be forced to inlcude anything if they don't want to.

Speaking as someone married to a black wife and into a black family, its weird to see a black person asserting a trope that most black literature and culture identifies as problematic and racist. Or to see a black person referring to 'black people" in explicit racial discussion as a monolithic other. Your perspective on these issues within the hobby is profoundly different to those of the people of colour or black people I know of within the hobby or who are outside of it but who I have talked with about these issues and asked their opinion on it.

Obviously people have different opinions and I'm not disputing that you are entitled to it, but in a discussion around representation of under represented audiences my own experience of how black people consider these issues is very different. The issue for example of how Bone Splittas are presented fits into a colonial stereotype and media discussion far far bigger than the hobby which has been central to racial depictions  of Black Africans and those of African descent. My wife pointed out when i showed her some savage orks years ago that she is all too familiar with monstrous depictions of beasts with bones in their hair and war paint etc in multiple formays which are meant to look like her, or her ancestors and cultural touchstones. While I'm not saying of course that GW had any intention whatever of perpetrating that notion when they designed that faction, they were nonetheless borrowing from popularised depictions which come from a deeply racist source which still echoes in various forms to this day.

It's a far far more complex topic than you make it out to be. It was more problematic in warhammer mind you when the good dudes were the ones who were closest to White Europeans. By far one of the best things AOS has done is remove the notion of Classical Europe as being the essential moral compass of the world. Great to see the influences of Bhudddist and ancient Chinese culture in the new Lumineth for example. And the change from Sigmar as being an essentially benevolent Good God of White People to a whiny, capricious dysfunctional hammer chucking Moron.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Nos

[shinros]

6 hours ago, Nos said:

Speaking as someone married to a black wife and into a black family, its weird to see a black person asserting a trope that most black literature and culture identifies as problematic and racist. Or to see a black person referring to 'black people" in explicit racial discussion as a monolithic other. 

Be clear, what are you trying to say here? Because I can tell you I have been around people both black and white people stating they can't do x because of xyz. They've also tried to put me down as well.

Anyway, lets hope you never have the courtesy to be threatened at knifepoint by two fellow black people. They wanted me to steal a woman's purse in order to be let go. Yes that happened to me thankfully another black person saved me, who is also a community worker in said community who wants to combat these issues.

Unfortunately met them again they punched me in the face and ran off.

Also be thankful, that it seems you are part of a wonderful family instead of growing up with a single mother who had to raise three children by herself and had to deal with a brain tumour.

Also count yourself lucky that you don't have a family member beaten half to death with a pipe and hammer by other black people.

Hell I got lucky in hindsight, the rest of my old friends have done prison and shot their lives into the ground.

Edit:In my eyes painting a model black won't change this. But if they had an affordable hobby to get young people off the streets? That would do wonders.

Edited September 13, 2020 by shinros

[Nos]

10 minutes ago, shinros said:

Be clear what are you trying to say here. Because I can tell you i have been around people both black and white stating they can't do x because of xyz. They've also tried to put me down as well.

Anyway, lets hope you never have the courtsey to be threatned by a knife by fellow black person and forced to steal a woman's purse in order to be let go. Yes that happened to me thankfully another black person saved me, who is also a community worker in said community who wants to combat these issues.

Unfornately I met them again they punched me in the face and ran off.

Also be thankful, that it seems you are part of a wonderful family instead of growing up with a single mother who had to raise three children by herself and had to deal with a brain tumour.

Also count yourself lucky that you don't have a family member beaten half to death with a pipe and hammer by other black people.

Hell I got lucky in hindsight, the rest of my old friends have done prison and shot their lives into the ground.

I'm sorry to hear of your experiences, they sound awful.

I would simply offer by way of reply though that I have had white people do terrible things to me and as a care worker I know dozens of people who have been abused, beaten, stabbed and had lives likewise ruined by the actions of white people.

I would suggest that in all of these respective instances including your own that the nature of the persons race was merely a representation of the wider population demographic in the areas in which it occured.

If working in social care has told me nothing else it is that the world is populated both by wonderful people and awful people and that both can and do come from any background, culture, race, gender etc and therefore that one should be wary of generalisations or Blanket statements about the same. People are complicated. Another reason why AOS would be richer for a greater representation of all of us.

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Nos

[shinros]

6 hours ago, Nos said:

I'm sorry to hear of your experiences, they sound awful.

I would simply offer by way of reply though that I have had white people do terrible things to me and as a care worker I know dozens of people who have been abused, beaten, stabbed and had lives likewise ruined by the actions of white people.

I would suggest that in all of these respective instances including your own that the nature of the persons race was merely a representation of the wider population demographic in the areas in which it occured.

If working in social care has told me nothing else it is that the world is populated both by wonderful people and awful people and that both can and do come from any background, culture, race, gender etc and therefore that one should be wary of generalisations or Blanket statements about the same. People are complicated. Another reason why AOS would be richer for a greater representation of all of us.

 

Sorry, I don't think representation would fix these issues. I'm too cynical and jaded at this point I'm afraid. As I said in my last post what would be far more tangible would be making the hobby more affordable to get more young people off the streets and doing something productive.

When most black people grow up in such situations they are more likely to drift to gangs to find structure. Like what my brother almost did before almost being killed. Like my friends who have ruined their lives and now have criminal records.

 Most of my current black friends don't even know what warhammer is and when I show it to them, they say it looks cool but turn off upon seeing the prices. Doesn't matter what models are there or what is represented.

Hence my opinion.

Anyway this hobby bought me 10+ years of joy. In my anecdote, to be frank I'm not worried about the racists all that much considering what happened in my life. They exist, always will but why let them stop you from enjoying something or succeeding in a craft or field? That was the advice I got from my parents and was repeated by the successful black actor Denzel Washington. Saw two of my brothers to better careers.

 

Edited September 13, 2020 by shinros

[Nos]

22 minutes ago, shinros said:

Sorry, I don't think representation would fix these issues. I'm too cynical and jaded at this point I'm afraid. As I said in my last post what would be far more tangible would be making the hobby more affordable to get more young people off the streets and doing something productive.

When most black people grow up in such situations they are more likely to drift to gangs to find structure. Like what my brother almost did before almost being killed. Like my friends who have ruined their lives and have criminal records.

 Most of my current black friends don't even know what warhammer is and when I show it to them, they say it looks cool but turn off upon seeing the prices. Doesn't matter what models are there or what is represented.

Hence my opinion.

Anyway this hobby bought me 10+ years of joy. In my anecdote, to be frank I'm not worried about the racists all that much considering what happened in my life. They exist, always will but why let them stop you from enjoying something or suceeding in a craft or field? That was the advice I got from my parents and was repeated by the succesful black actor Denzel Washington. Saw two of my brothers to better careers.

 

Thank you for your considered response and for sharing your personal experiences, I I recognise and respect what you're saying although would never claim to be able to understand or speak into them. 

I'm glad that the hobby has brought you so much joy and value and my wish is that you and anyone of any gender, race or whatever who needs or could benefit from the hobby in that sense is able to get that.  

Edited September 12, 2020 by Nos

[Gaz Taylor]

+++ Mod Hat On +++
 

Right folks, just a poke that whilst there has been some good stuff in this topic, can we keep it on topic please. 

[Kramer]

Can I just say this is probably the only place on the internet where you can have this conversation without it escalating. At least the only one I know of. 

[EccentricCircle]

I agree, it speaks to how respectful and considerate this community is that this thread wasn't locked for going off the rails days ago! I know of very few forums that would even risk getting into this kind of discussion. Its great that the conversation here has been so overwhelmingly positive, and so many people are in favour of increasd diversity. That the major debates have been about defining the problem, rather than dismissing it is a welcome change from the norm.

I'd not really considered that AoS' shift away from the use of fantasy counter part cultures serves to dilute the orientalist themes of wfb. That's a really interesting take.

As far as representation in the hobby goes its also worth mentioning that a major target audience is o kids and young adults. Grownups are much better at identifying with people who aren't the same as them than children are. A woman looking to pick an army might find the lack of female representation offputting, but cope with it. For a little girl it is likely to be a deal breaker. Part of that is cultural, due to the way kids toys are gendered, and from what I hear that is gradually improving, but kids do self segregate and will tend to go for the options they see themselves in to a much greater degree than adults.

[Overread]

31 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

As far as representation in the hobby goes its also worth mentioning that a major target audience is o kids and young adults. Grownups are much better at identifying with people who aren't the same as them than children are. A woman looking to pick an army might find the lack of female representation offputting, but cope with it. For a little girl it is likely to be a deal breaker. Part of that is cultural, due to the way kids toys are gendered, and from what I hear that is gradually improving, but kids do self segregate and will tend to go for the options they see themselves in to a much greater degree than adults.

I think there's other elements that go along with it too. For example, far as I'm aware Tyranids are fairly popular with women and yet they aren't overly femenin in nature. Even though they don't have genders as a rule, there's nothing that "girly" about any of them. Even the closest to a female is spewing out guts and gaunts from bloated breeding sacs. 

I'd not be surprised if Skaven were popular with women in general as a more "furry/fluffy" army despite being all male.

I also think that there's a whole presentation aspect to it. For example do they have to identify with the entire army, or would one female general/leader/key character model be enough? If presented to them that they associate with that one model then the gender distribution of the rest of the army wouldn't matter as much. 

 

One issue we have is that most of the data and viewpoints we can get on a forum are going to be from those who have engaged with the hobby. So any boundaries and barriers are harder to identify because we have far fewer examples and those that we do have and have experienced are, by their nature, going to be minor rather than major. We can extrapolate that minor for some could be major for others, but we might also end up chasing minor problems and pushing them up as major; whilst overlooking other major issues or a collection of minor ones that collect together. The whole first impressions and presentation aspect is also key. Someone earlier in the thread already showed that there could be a potential increase in a specific gender taking up an interest in a specific area if, when at a younger age, it was presented to them with a person they could identify with. In that example it was identification via gender (a woman in the story in a key position being the focal point of interest). 

[Warlordounnet]

Just to come back on female representation, I want to add quickly on sexual dimorphism, it is very low in human specie. And I would say that the intra-specie dimorphism is certainly higher than the sexual dimorphism.

Most of the differences are more a question of training and cultural behaviour, not biological. If sport and physical performances were as much valued for little girls as little boys, differences will certainly fade away. 

Some people want to see "historical accuracy" in the way their army works/looks despite being a fantasy game (yes their general can ride a griffin but  a woman holding a pike, no. it is funny to see where people are drawing there line...). Just keep in mind that it is mainly biased toward mainly the last 2000ish years of occidental history at best, more precisely medieval / early modern, while having tens of thousands years of human existence with an enormous diversity in social and cultural behaviour.

Nothing is written in stone, as a cultural animal we are able to decide to change our behaviour.

I think diversity is important and maybe even if identification is not primordial, female (or more likely 10-15ish girls) should feel represented and depicted as an active part of the universe (here in warfare). Story and background is important but miniature and artworks are the first contact to the hobby. Since the fist stormcast undeworld warband  GW is making constant progress, and importantly they are not limiting them to one stereotype but more would be welcome. This has nothing to do with what army people (male and female) will choose. Some will like serious, other funny army, same with male, female, mixed; good or bad...

The how to do it (from an industrial point of view) is more complicated and I don't expect GW to redo recent kit as fyreslayer.  Adding heroes and leader is the most easy, but as they do small warbands in plastic now, they can release 5 etb female models sprue to add to some units (ie vulkite berzekers, liberator...).  Also, for AoS, there is a lot of opportunity when updating/introducing new armies.

If we took the example of city of Sigmar, that is a prime candidate for future update, in my opinion unit should be well deserved in female miniatures, in leader and grunt roles. I tend to see them as the various military corps of attack on titan (even more now with the future release of SoB): voluntary people of any sex or racial background than join the military to defend their city.  The concept of city is so loose that you could have any composition (full matriarchal city that use female soldier to defend their poor laborious men,  Elf based city watch that are here to defend those incompetent humans and I dare to say ... duardins). But you need a representative city as cadian is for imperial guard in 40k. Hopefully this one will be mixed as much as possible but unified in appearance (old world empire or something else).

[NJohansson]

On 9/12/2020 at 12:35 PM, Nos said:

The best Businesses dont cater for what their audience already buys, they make a product that increases that audience or something so good that *everyone* wants to buy it.  

GW already overwhelmingly caters for its existing audience, but the very existence of AOS itself demonstrates that GW has the savvy to do more than simply keep existing customers happy, or even to upset some of them if the return from new customers is greater. 

It can only go one of two ways:

1) GW continues to increase gender and racial diversity and representation in its releases in line with a more globally, less Euro-centric orientated franchise. If you haven't realised it by now GW have been watching what Disney have done with Marvel liscenses and they have learned very, very well how to apply that accessible  "something for everyone" quality to their existing lines and new products, not just in terms of models but in the broader fiction and associated products. I am almost certain that their intention depending post Covid circumstances will be to have the IP be able to sustain itself without model sales in the next decade.

2) The remaining reactionary elements who didnt leave GW when the Old World blew up but maintain an essentially White Males only attitude to the hobby will bog the community down in a culture war which if they win will see GW's strongest emerging markets abandoning it and leave GW vastly less wealthy or going broke altogether.

Different brands/products cater to different audiences. For example at work I generally wear cufflinks (for shirts) and yes there is a market for cufflinks for women - but 99 percent of all cufflinks are worn by and designed for men. It would be a bad marketing/business decision for a company in the cufflink business to start making 50 percent of all their cufflinks to cater for women, especially if they are the biggest company in said market.

Yes most successful businesses do their best to attract new audiences (in GWs case women is a major opportunity) but you generally do so by introducing new lines (as in armies) that will attract said customers (for AoS this seems to be various Elven races), while maintaining you focus on the existing and most profitable segment (young males) for whom you create the majority of all models. Changing the existing brands to cater to a new audience is generally done very slowly/carefully or if the current audience is disappearing. 

[Mattrulesok]

1 hour ago, NJohansson said:

Different brands/products cater to different audiences. For example at work I generally wear cufflinks (for shirts) and yes there is a market for cufflinks for women - but 99 percent of all cufflinks are worn by and designed for men. It would be a bad marketing/business decision for a company in the cufflink business to start making 50 percent of all their cufflinks to cater for women, especially if they are the biggest company in said market.

Yes most successful businesses do their best to attract new audiences (in GWs case women is a major opportunity) but you generally do so by introducing new lines (as in armies) that will attract said customers (for AoS this seems to be various Elven races), while maintaining you focus on the existing and most profitable segment (young males) for whom you create the majority of all models. Changing the existing brands to cater to a new audience is generally done very slowly/carefully or if the current audience is disappearing. 

Look, using cufflinks as your example of a stable business model might not be the best idea when most cufflink brands are diversifying into other accessories and in particular women's accessories as the number of men buying cufflinks is decreasing year on year, largely because there are no new customers coming into the business. 

[Sartxac]

I think that now this topic don't generate new opinions and seems the beginning of a bucle.

I think that most of the players wants more diversity but the diffence is how do this. I view two different positions, the people like me that wants new armies with specifical tematics and the people that want put diversity in the majour of the armies that now exist. 

Edited September 13, 2020 by Sartxac

[EccentricCircle]

The question of how to quantify what the most significant barriers to entry are is a tricky one, but not necessarily intractable.

Certainly the people posting on warhammer forums are the ones already engaged with the hobby, so whatever we report is anecdotal at best. However we could ask the question of a wider audience. There are lots of hobbies which are adjacent to fantasy wargames in one way shape or form. Off the top of my head; RPGs, CCGs, board and card games, comic books, fantasy fiction and tv, historical wargames etc. The chances are that most of the potential audience for warhammer already has one of those interests already, and I bet many of us here are active in multiple communities.

So you could make a basic anonymous survey which collects basic demographic data, and asks what games yiu enjoy, which communities you are active in, and what your thoughts are about wargames ( and others) what the key barriers to entry are, whether better representative would help, and what could get you involved.

Between us I'm sure we could post it in a lot of places ranging from the other big geekery forums, to smaller gaming groups and more niche communities. How far it would spread, and how many respondents we'd be likely to get I don't know. I'm also not sure how you go about processing that sort of dataset in a useful manner (I'm a physical scientist, not a social scientist, so while I can run stats, collating that sort of data is outside my area of expertise).

Maybe something to consider though, if we really want tk know what is keeping people out of the hobby. 

I'd be willing to bet cost isa big factor.

[Sartxac]

35 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

The question of how to quantify what the most significant barriers to entry are is a tricky one, but not necessarily intractable.

 

Between us I'm sure we could post it in a lot of places ranging from the other big geekery forums, to smaller gaming groups and more niche communities. How far it would spread, and how many respondents we'd be likely to get I don't know. I'm also not sure how you go about processing that sort of dataset in a useful manner (I'm a physical scientist, not a social scientist, so while I can run stats, collating that sort of data is outside my area of expertise).

Maybe something to consider though, if we really want tk know what is keeping people out of the hobby. 

I'd be willing to bet cost isa big factor.

If you are physics as me, you have enough capacities for learn about multiple areas that use science. 

I only participate in this web. But in the comic-book the editors of american super-hero comic have the same problem of new readers (players in the case of this forum) and they thought that problem instead of the bad quality of the majority of theirs historys was the poor diversity of etnics in the main series. They try to change the sex or etnic of a lot of characters, or contract more people of a lot of countries. This strategies as you could imagine didn't works well, only works well the creation of new characters as Kamala Khan (sorry i say Kamala Harris in my first message 😅). Saddly other good new characters as the ultimates of Al Ewing didn't have good sells and was canceled with a hurried final. 

For example, in a lot of big cities of south american as Mexic the sells of the collectibles with good stories and good prices have more sells than in north america. And the same occurs with the manga, in  a lot of famous manga the characters are asiatics or caucasians but have a lot of good sells in south-america. Isn't a problem of inclusion, is a problem of quality.

In our hobby i know a lot of youtube mexican channels about AOS, but they say that are mexican with enormous salarys in compariosn of their citizens. In spain our middel salary is 1/2 of your salary, but for mexicans the middel salary is the 12%. Is imposible introduce this game in their country. GW only thinks in USA and UK.

PD: in usa i don't know for what but in the comic book a overrepresented % of the best writers are of UK. I don't want quotes of spanish, germanics, chinese, mexicans, etc. I want writers with the same quality.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Sartxac