Primaris were met with huge outrage at the time, with the most common sentiment being that they should have just released truescale loyalist Marines as they had with Chaos instead of adding an enormous Mary-Sue in the form of Cawl who could outdo the Emperor (and invalidate Marine armies, the most common among players, in the process) to add a whole new design language, which also didn't have a good looking model until Bladeguard.
They could've just had it so that some old-school Space Marine veterans who have shown exemplary courage, honor, and cunning in battle were volunteered for a ''special experiment'' on Mars, then they come back as Primaris Marines a century later. Just as with your Batman example, they could easily have Batman walk around in a bigger suit a la BVS.
Ironically I remember skimming a recent book description on TV tropes that basically confirmed they do secretly go out and operate on their own wherever they feel needed. The whole book conflict was over the perception that the high lords were holding them back (incorrect) and the lords reluctance to give up power to ultra Rob. (Correct)
If it were me, the Custodes would be controlling the lords from behind the scenes to ensure less corruption and the Imperium running smoothly. I mean, this is what royal guards used to do when they do get too much power; they start controlling the government just like Praetorians of Rome did. Ironically enough, the Custodes were the one instance where that would've been for the better, instead of it just being another example of corruption.
Pretty much, the average normie gives as much of a fuck about a franchise as any other. Most people in a hobby, let alone the world, don't engage with the community beyond seeing highly rated posts that is highly rated for one reason or another. "They see 'x', they soypog, and then they leave."
Exactly. As far as they can tell, your average normie probably sees 40K the same way kids do the Pokemon TGC. Something to play with on the side. If they truly got mad with the lore re-writes, they would've boycotted the Primaris. Instead, GW turned in one profitable year after introducing those lore-breaking bad boys. To the point where Primaris Marines were given action figures.
Well said, the people who boycott are barely a fraction of a franchise, the whales only amount to so much regardless. No big influencer who disagrees with this retcon will openly state it unless they're already blacklisted from GW or the community (Arch Warhammer for example), or else they'll lose any sort of actual influence they have as they're listed as "not a sheep." To truly "kill" a franchise is to either purge it from your mind and forget about it, or for the company to make a decision that the majority of the people who fund them will revolt against. It's the only way, no amount of 3D printers and upset true fans will matter if the majority of normies don't care. Blackrock can probably sustain "losing" money with ESG for years, because their income probably easily sustains them.
Blackrock is rich enough that losing money is something they can tank. They know what they're doing is unpopular; they're losing money on SW and Marvel. And the fact that GW kept selling well despite going after fan animators and jacking up the price tag goes to show that the normies won't care about Fem Custodes, Fem Marines, or any such nonsense. As for influencers or major youtubers, the fact that Arch was dragged through the mud and it didn't really so much as cause a fuss among the buyers goes to show that Arch's fans weren't the ones buying product by the truckload anyways, so GW could afford to lose them.
There are no sells to correlate though. It's why this move is extra shifty. GW has always taken decisions based on their release schedule. But there is nothing to release here. Women custodes are a thing now, but if you look at the model range only, you would be none the wiser. Ursual Creed wasn't just name dropped, you had her ugly mug right then and there day 1 with the Guard release. This was purely a virtue signal to the faggots asking for female space marines and they will get asspats for a day till the thirst for their blood comes back louder than ever since they bent the knee for effectively nothing.
We'll have to see future sales and how they work. Again, if future sales are impacted and start to go down, then yes, Fem Custodes and Fem Marines are not a popular decision among the consumers. But if the next box set gets sold out within a week, well, that just goes to show this controversy is a nothingburger for GW's real fans-the whales.
Also, 40K is a strange beast since it's the only wargame that is not just about the wargame. You can be a 40K fan and only read the novels, or be a 40K fan and only play the videogames.
That's my point. Just as there are 40K fans who have never played the tabletop game and have only read the books or played the video games, so too can there be 40K consumers who have never read the books and only care about the model kits or playing the game.
Pokemon adding so many new monsters into their roster pissed off the old-guard fans who miss the day when there were only 150-250 Pokemon, but that sure as hell didn't stop kids from buying the cards by the truckload.
