Message from Jervis Johnson on the official epic forums:
Fanatic support for the Specialist Game Range will be moving primarily online in the New Year. Work has already started on an exciting new Fanatic web and community site, and we will be announcing the precise launch date for the new site in the coming weeks. This is an exciting time for Fanatic, and will enable us to concentrate our resources on supporting the existing Specialist Games community via the web.
As part of this process Fanatic and the main Games Workshop Studio are being reorganised into a single integrated team. Over the last five years the Fanatic studio has taken the Specialist Games Range a long way, and I think we’ve done an excellent job of working with the online communities that have grown up around the Specialist Games Range. However, by bringing support for the Specialist Range into the main Studio and taking Fanatic online we will be able to greatly improve the quality of the support that we provide.
I’ll be staying on as Head Fanatic along with some of the members of the existing Fanatic team. Other members of the team will be going off to join other departments and do new jobs. I hope that you will join with me in wishing them well in the future. I know that they will do Fanatic proud!
What won’t be changing is Games Workshop’s commitment to provide ongoing support for all seven Specialist Game systems. All of the games and miniatures will remain available through Games Workshops Direct Sales operations and Online Stores, and we will also continue to bring out new releases, though we do plan to reduce the sheer quantity of new models that we make so that we concentrate on improving the online support that we provide. Even so we have some great new releases coming up over the next few months, highlights of which include the Swordwind supplement and Eldar army for Epic, and the fabulous new Battle of Five Armies game by Rick ‘Warmaster’ Priestley.
If you have any thoughts, comments or feedback about this evolution in the way that Fanatic is going to be providing support for the Specialist Games Range, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. I can be reached by email at jervis@games-workshop.co.uk. Although I can’t promise to reply to all the emails I receive, I do read all of the correspondence I receive and I would love to hear from you.
Best regards,
Jervis Johnson
Head Fanatic
In my opinion, this is not evolving, this is cutting back…
Maybe it is the cynic in me, but my business background tells me this all about cost cutting.
Reduce staff
Reduce production
Move support from paper to online and let people develop and plan the games for free.
This should save money…
If Fanatic were doing well and making money then they would be expanded and staff increased.