Arch Warhammer Provides New Update on Email Campaign To Save Warhammer

John F. Trent |

Jul 22, 2020

YouTuber Arch Warhammer provided a new update on his email campaign to save Warhammer.

For those unfamiliar with this ongoing email campaign, Arch launched the campaign in response to the Warhammer Community’s divisive ‘Warhammer Is For Everyone’ message in the wake of riots, looting, and protests following the death of George Floyd.

While Arch didn’t object to much of the message, he took issue with Games Workshop’s final sentence telling longtime Warhammer fans to sod off if they happened to disagree with the statement, effectively nullifying the whole idea of Warhammer Is For Everyone.’

As you can see below the final part of their statement reads, “And if you feel the same way, wherever and whoever you are, we’re glad you are part of the Warhammer community. If not, you will not be missed.”

In response to this message, Arch decried the message explaining that it’s part of a larger culture war where “the infiltration, the subversion, and the politicization of hobbies has been a pretty damn common occurrence over the last few years.”

In order to combat this “infiltration, the subversion, and the politicization,” Arch launched the email campaign explaining, “I think we have one last chance to send a bit of a warning shot across Games Workshop’s bow to simply say, ‘Stay out of it. Don’t get involved. Stay neutral. Simply keep producing the universe and the miniatures that we all love and we will all be happier for it.”

Arch would go on to share an email template for his followers and others to use to send to Games Workshop at CustServ@gwplc.com urging them to stick to “producing the universe and the miniatures that we all love.”

That email template read, “Warhammer is for Everyone, This sentiment was never in doubt in the Warhammer community, Warhammer Fantasy and 40k have been played in stores and hobby rooms all across the globe by people of all races, religions and genders. We were all brought together by our common love for these deep, dark and complex worlds! It superseded our differences and united us with a common love for the game and the universe! In all its grim glory!”

The email continues, “But then, on June the 5th, the Warhammer Community Team stated that we were wrong. For the first time ever Warhammer was NOT for everyone. For the first time ever Warhammer chose to close its doors for some. For the first time ever Warhammer chose to say “If you feel the same way, we are glad to have you, and if you don’t, you will not be missed”. For the first time ever fans of Warhammer were attacked for their opinions.”

It then adds, “The spell was broken, and the community immediately descended into vitriol and witch hunts. A little over a month after the statement the community has never been more fractured, it has never been more divided. And everyone is wondering who is up next on the chopping block.”

The email concludes, “It is time for Games Workshop to step up and say. Warhammer is for Everyone, No “if you agree” No “you will not be missed” No ifs no buts. Warhammer is for everyone, including people like me.”

Shortly after launching the email campaign, Arch would provide an update indicating the email campaign was working.

He explained, “We are already having some excellent effect on target. Yes, we are indeed. So bit of a moral boost is probably in order.

He added, “Within hours of launching the campaign, we managed to make the GW customer support page go belly up. Yes, indeed we crashed that little bastard. We made it go the way of the dodo. That is impressive.”

He then stated, “And it shows you that there are a lot of people out there that do indeed agree that Warhammer is for everyone. And no, we don’t want your nonsense politics in this. Keep your real life nonsense out of our hobby. There are a lot of people that agree with that sentiment and it is awesome to see.”

Now, Arch is back with a new update about a week after the first one.

He begins the new update saying, “The email campaign has been picked up by a huge number of people. Both YouTubers, websites, and Facebook groups…We have had quite a lot of reach on this.”

Arch continued, “This is a very, very, very rough estimate. I would assume we probably had the campaign in front of well over 100,000 perhaps 200,000 plus eyes. And so if just 1 or 2% of all of those decided to send an email, we are talking a thousand, two thousand plus emails. That is a lot of electronic mail heading Games Workshop’s way.”

Later, Arch would state, “Let’s spitball a little bit here. What kind of effect may we have had on this?”

“Well, we know we’ve sent a lot of emails to the point where we actually managed to crash GW’s page for a short period of time. Where they had to fix their shit a little bit. 404 errors were being sent out to the people trying to send emails,” Arch detailed.

He continued, “As one person noticed, we disrupted Games Workshop business infrastructure.”

He would later add, “Now then, Games Workshop also immediately started sending out emails stating that due to a large number of emails being sent, it would take them up to 10 days to actually respond.”

Arch elaborated, “Now in all due likelihood that is actually the case. And they don’t really have an immediate line on hand to send out to these emails. They don’t have an immediate response. And that is a good thing.”

He explains, “Because if they didn’t care. If they were just going to write it all out and ignore it they would have written an email template saying something like, ‘We know and understand…we think that Warhammer is for everyone, inclusivity, diversity, blah blah blah. Empty bullshit. You know the usual corporate rhetoric.”

He continued, “But that has not started to arrive yet, it appears. Which seems to indicate that GW is still mulling this over as to how they are gong to react. This is good. This is very good indeed.

Arch then questioned, “Will we receive a proper response? Well, I don’t know. I think we’ve certainly done more than enough to warrant one. But GW is a multi-million dollar company. If they wanted to ignore this, they absolutely can.”

He then expressed his hope that “GW will actually engage with this message openly and fairly and actually go you know what, ‘Okay. Fine. Warhammer is for everyone. No ifs. No buts. It’s just for everyone.”

He elaborated, “That would be the ideal circumstance, of course, because that would allow anyone who wants to be apart of the hobby to be apart of it. For everyone who loves Warhammer there should be a place.”

Arch then detailed that a counter email campaign has been started.

Arch explained, “There has been launched a little bit of a counter email campaign as well. Best of luck to you. Please, go ahead. Send even more emails GW’s way. I think they would appreciate it.”

Arch then read a message encouraging the counter email campaign.

It reads, “In response to the email petition organised by Arch, I sent my own email to CustServ@gwplc.com. I encourage you to do the same.”

The email template then reads, “Please don’t listen to Arch. Arch says that the statement that GW made in support of BLM etc. adds unwanted politicisation to the game and that Warhammer is now not for everyone. What he means though is that his specific and abhorrent views about race are no longer welcome in the hobby.”

It continues, “No one I know agrees with him and are all glad that he and his type have no place in the hobby we love. He casts us all in a bad light as angry, impotent, basement dwelling troglodytes when in reality people in the hobby are probably more well balanced and thoughtful as a result of painting and playing.

The email concludes, “Warhammer should really be for everyone but that is not what Arch wants. At the end of the day he is just a massive Archhole.”

Arch would address the points in piecemeal in the video.

He began by breaking down the claim that Games Workshop made a statement about BLM, “I don’t recall them making a statement on BLM. I presume he’s just point towards the ‘Warhammer is for everyone but’ comment.”

He then responds to the claim that he has “abhorrent views about race.”

Arch states, “Oh no! My abhorrent views on race. You mean how I think that skin color should be the least important aspect of a human being and how it should not matter in the slightest when it comes to your ability to play a hobby that you like.”

He continued, “Abhorrent indeed. What kind of opinions must this guy have on race if that’s abhorrent. Holy shit! I didn’t know that there were this many hardcore racists in the extreme far-left extremists part of the hobby.”

In response to the final sentences, Arch stated, “No, no but. You don’t get to go Warhammer should be for everyone but. No, nien, nicht. Stop.”

Arch then stated, “Overall, I definitely think we are having an effect. The fact that they are trying this hard. I mean if they thought that we weren’t going anywhere they would just ignore us. They wouldn’t b**** on Twitter. ”

He continued, “They wouldn’t ban Facebook posts, they wouldn’t ban people who talked about it. They wouldn’t be going full censorship. And they wouldn’t be doing stuff like this filled with ad hominems.”

He added, “Yes, we are clearly having an effect. And we are clearly scaring the absolute pants off all the right people.”

At the end of the video, Arch then encourages his followers to send a follow-up email if you don’t hear from Games Workshop after 10 days. He says, “Keep hammering them.”

What do you make of Arch’s latest update on his email campaign to save Warhammer?

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