New Member Monday - New Members and New Features

Howdy folks!  Were back for another week of fun and amazement here at the house of paincakes!  I'm gonna postpone some of the banter and head straight to the new members as I experiment with new formats!

New Members!

Akihabara Station
Keywords: warhammer 40k, anime, manga, movies, sci-fi, videogames

El Descanso del Escriba
Keywords: Warhammer 40k, Heavy Metal, Insanely huge back catalog of content

Epic Addiction
Keywords: GW Specialist Games (Epic Armageddon, Battlefleet Gothic, Necromunda etc)


New Feature:  Lauby's Thought for the Week

Ok, folks, now that I've moved the new member announcements further up to where I think they belong - being that this is still a blog network and all - it's time for a new feature.  It's been brought to my attention that I don't write enough on this site for some people's tastes.  Giving people nightmare's with pictures of cave spiders is fun and all, but maybe Monday could be more interesting.

Image from Hyperbole and a Half.

So this is an attempt to fix that slash find out if it's true in the first place.

Thought for the day:  The other day I was browsing through the blog rolls and saw a bunch of stuff on the new Tau releases and started poking around to see what the new kits where how the rules were being received by the community.  Long story short - I ended up at the GW mothership looking at Tau models.

Aaaaaaand being absolutely blown away by what the cost of starting a new army in 40k adds up to.  There's been a lot of Infinity these days (preceded by HoMachine and Malifaux before that).  So I hadn't seriously priced an army for even longer than that.  So there's sticker shock explained.

Clearly this is a 'no shit' moment for all of us.  This even occurred to me while it was happening.  I was all like: "ahbjgbkjklkfg WTF".  Followed quickly by: "Oh yeah.  Of course. This is GW. This is roughly what I was paying a year ago."

But that's not the point.  No sir.  The real shocker is what that 5 minutes of sticker shock actually meant for me as a gamer and as a self aware being.

What really got me is that now that I'm about a year out from the cycle of abuse that is GW's business model and now that I've been re-aquanited with what it would cost to build just the heavy support section of a Tau army... It's dawned on me how many excuses and rationalizations it took (back on the day) on my part to spend so much money on a game I hardly played. And didn't enjoy as much as I do the new stuff I've been into.

Was I fully participating in a sunk-cost fallacy?  Was I just too caught up in GW's pervasiveness?  Just what was going through my head that I could justify spending a grand on an army I used 4 times?  I dunno.  But the more I look around the intertubes, the more I see people waking from the same bad dream.

Not to bash GW unduly, but if you're the kind of person who complains about GW's shitty rules and insane prices:  try something new.  Even just a demo.  I'm not saying you should quit cold turkey.  Take it slow.  And think on this:  are you really happy with your hobby if complaining about the manufacturer and worrying about the next rules update are major parts of your 'enjoyment"?