Is the Imperium a Metaphor for Games Workshop?

I don't think this is meant to be ironic, but...

Now I'm probably not the first person to have thought the Imperium could be a metaphor for Games Workshop itself, and I'll probably not be the last. Hell, I'm probably not the first person to commit the idea to paper or the Internet, however I am a lazy bastard at times and I can't be bothered to go search around the place looking at other people's thoughts on the topic, especially when I have so many of my own opinions, thoughts and yes, my own brain dump to achieve. Yeah, I'm sorry this is going to be another one of my "its in my head and it needs to come out" posts, so if you're one of my readers who couldn't give a flying feck about what I think, you may as well go do some painting or something...

Blood Bowl by Yogh-art - Here

If you're still here, put some music on and make yourself a drink, this is going to be a long one. Why am I dumping my thoughts on Games Workshop into a stream of consciousness? Well, I was talking to a friend and he said that my blog should return to the subject of my displeasure with Games Workshop, because it struck a chord with so many people, and that if a few readers could just see that I'm genuinely like them, that I once loved Warhammer and 40k, that I actually brought Gorka Morka and all the iterations of Epic, that I ran Blood Bowl leagues and Necromunda campaigns, that I care, then maybe, just maybe, all my other points and articles might hit home. Yes, I love the 40k fluff. I still think it's great. Yes, I love the back story and characters of the Old World no matter how generic and formulaic it might bloody well be. I love it. I grew up with it. It made up much of my childhood. So yeah, I'm like much of you... except I've seceded from the Imperium. It's also been partly inspired by chats I've had with Jake Thornton over the last few months, and the HoP blogger SinSynn, so I'm acknowledging their involvement here as my inspiration, so to speak.

So why has this idea of the Imperium being a metaphor for Games Workshop suddenly occurred to me? Well, it hasn't; I first thought it might become some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy right about the time the British Higher Education system and I finally got bored of each other and we decided to go our separate ways around 2002. I looked around at the gaming landscape here in the UK and I saw this big, supremely bloated organisation, Games Workshop, dominating the wargaming landscape. They'd crushed out all independents, pretty much, in exactly the same way the Emperor's Crusade had united the known human galaxy (by dubious means of course - he's an emperor not a UN Peace Envoy). Games Workshop had managed to unite wargaming with some of their own questionable methods, primarily buying up exclusive rights to importing products and then... not stocking them. They also at various times stopped independents selling Games Workshop stock and opened their own stores where independents appeared to be doing well... but lets not go into the details too much!!!

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