Dice Men: Games Workshop The Early Years 1975-1985

Zhu Bajie

Baron
Ian, Steve and Jamie Thompson are putting together a book on early GW, a story I assume is familiar to many here, but will be nice to see it told in a single volume.

Currently crowdfunding (at 107%)

https://unbound.com/books/games-workshop/

From the site:

A full colour, highly illustrated hardback 288 pages long, A4 (210mm x 297mm) printed on 140gsm gloss art stock, colour printed endpapers and bookmark ribbon.


Ian Livingstone, Steve Jackson and John Peake were the three games geeks who founded Games Workshop in their flat in Shepherd’s Bush. Not being a fan of D&D, John left the company, and Ian and Steve turned Workshop into a fantasy games specialist.

And that's what this book is about. A history of Games Workshop, not just the business narrative but the story of its founders and their journey, along with all the people they picked up along the way.How did Ian and Steve do it? How did they get to that first Workshop store? What's the story behind Dungeons & Dragons coming to the UK, starting a whole new hobby? How did Games Workshop grow after that? It's now so big that it spans the globe. And along the way they invented an entirely new book publishing genre, too!
 
When was this funded? Unlike Kickstarter and Indiegogo, I don't see a date. The campaign Q&A mentions the last day for pledges being March 2018, but it looks like I could still pledge at the $80 level for The Warlock of Firetop Mountain? Is the cutoff point the publication date and if so, when is it? ATM, I've got funds allocated for subscription renewals and Amazon pre-orders, so might not be able to pledge till January or March 2019. Anyone know how much is shipping to the US? It's £4 in the UK, £14 to EU addresses and only a mention of it being higher for US and RoW. Back in 2016, I ordered an hardcover from a Swiss bookseller for around $80 and shocked to find the shipping was increased by $40 to $62. :o It's a rare title, so went ahead with the transaction and while Royal Mail isn't as pricey as Swiss Post, but would like to avoid surprises.
 
So yeah, I ended up selling 4 of military history books that I decided to dispose of and buying it on Blackwell. Since they have free shipping. Got it in the beginning of November after three weeks of waiting. Unfortunately it turned out that cover has lots of small damage, including stuff like this on multiple sides. Sigh. Somehow I doubt the damage occurred in travel...
Got a 20% refund since replacing it would take, like, a month or more with shipping and wouldn't guarantee it won't be damaged again.
dm damage 6.jpg

The book is completely different that what I thought it will be when I first heard of it. It's so big and has so much colour photos in it. Sort of amazing how much photographic documentation of early GW exists.
Also, a look into the kind of people the founders of GW were and what diverse things they were doing in life (but also some looking like nerds from old movies). Also how weird and scrappy the beginnings were XD .

I got to page 44. Very weird stuff. Nice to read history of something aspirational for a change, though.

It's sort of like a sequel to Heroes for Wargames but much more focused on business and biographic side rather than hobby side.

dice men.jpg
dice men 2.jpg
dice men 3.jpg
 
I've got it on my Christmas list... I suspect I already have all the photos in various White Dwarfs and Fantasy Miniatures books but it would be nice to have them all in one place, in better quality and sensible order with commentary from people who were there.
 
Fimm McCool said:
I've got it on my Christmas list... I suspect I already have all the photos in various White Dwarfs and Fantasy Miniatures books but it would be nice to have them all in one place, in better quality and sensible order with commentary from people who were there.
Click to expand...
There aren't that many miniature photos. It's mostly documenting GW as a business. Like a lots of photos are nerds/hippies in travel/office/conventions/stores. There are also pictures of some early zines, business documents, etc. Yeah, there seem to be some pictures from ads though which were published in WD.
 
It was an interesting read, nice to learn some of the background. It’s written from ILs perspective and you can really feel that his relationship with BA was not healthy. Also I saw a post on a facebook group or Amazon or similar from the third member of the original GW and he is quite scathing about the formation of the company and ILs recollection of events. I’m quite interested in the Robin Dews ‘Talking Miniatures’ book as well but will have to wait for a windfall before I invest.
 
The Amazon review apparently from John can be found here. Copied below for reference:

Hello,

I’m John Peake, the co-founder of Games Workshop with Steve Jackson. Having read the first thirty or so pages of Dice Men I realise I need to tell things the way I remember them.

It's now over 47 years since Games Workshop came into being, and I’ve kept quiet all this time. But much of the account of the founding and early days of Games Workshop given in Dice Men does not align with my memories of that time, which remain clear. In particular, the account given on pages 27 and 28, including the handwritten notes (which I think are fabrications), of how Games Workshop came into existence, is not at all the way I remember it.

Games Workshop was founded in early January of 1975, during an evening chat between Steve and me, in the front room of the 15 Bolingbroke Road top-floor flat. Ian was out, at a Conoco event. Given that I’d been making and selling backgammon boards, on my own, since September 1974, in order to supplement my meagre salary as a trainee civil engineer, and because Steve was so knowledgeable about games, we wondered whether we could start a games business. We could expand the range of wooden games I was making, Steve could write a newsletter/fanzine, and perhaps we could even start a mail-order business. And, with the impetuous of youth (23 and 24), we thought we could.

The next question that arose was a name for the business. Steve suggested we should both write down three possible names for our new business on a piece of paper and then reveal our ideas and choose one. I could only think of one name: Games Workshop, inspired by the state of my bedroom, and that the word ‘workshop’ suggested a place where new games ideas were explored and developed. Steve had two names on his paper: Gamut of Games, and Games Garage. But, on seeing my suggestion, he wholeheartedly agreed, without hesitation, that our new business should be called Games Workshop. And that’s how it all began! There weren’t ever any ‘company-name brainstorming sessions’, as claimed. Nor were there any ‘beer and a board game’ sessions either.

When Ian arrived home later that evening we excitedly told him of our plans, but it took him about 10 days or so to come around to the idea, following much cajoling, mainly by Steve.

I feel strongly that Dice Men almost completely ignores my pivotal role in those early times, not only with conceiving the name, but also the crucial financial contribution I made in the first twelve months, producing wooden games for sale and thereby funding our fledgling business. The profit (or loss) from Owl & Weasel was negligible, and the income from mail order was tiny. I know I’m banging my own drum, but without my initiative, Games Workshop would not exist, and I regret that this fact is ignored in the book. Given the sub-title: The Origin Story of Games Workshop, I would have expected a much truer version of events.
Click to expand...

I did wonder if Ian wasn't keen to suggest he had been less than enthusiastic at the beginning. Not sure what to make of the claimed fabrications. If John is right and one is being kind I wonder if they actually came from a later "maybe we should rename the company" session or something between Steve and Ian and memories have simply faded, then those were found when rummaging for old notes to go in the book?

Sleepysod said:
I’m quite interested in the Robin Dews ‘Talking Miniatures’ book as well but will have to wait for a windfall before I invest.
Click to expand...
I've nearly finished it and have been enjoying it. Well worth it I think when you can get a copy.

I've only three gripes if I am being picky: 1) They should have had a lovely bit of art on the cover and made it look like an old rulebook set. 2) A few of the rulebook page scans are less than perfect (shadows from the spine, etc). 3) More .... I would love to have had even more, but maybe they will do another volume now people like John Blanche have retired. It's a weighty set of books as is!

Recent times have been a bit of a goldmine of old GW/Citadel history interviews, I'm rather enjoying it.
 
That does sound more like what I've heard of Peake's point of view. Problem is.. How many people have that clear a memory of something that happened a year or so ago? let along.. erm.. 40+ years ago.

Livingstone and Jackson were always clearly buddy-buddy with the same kinda interests so one following the other makes sense, even if it needed a bit to push to make it into a career. I find if you do the old 'Take HALF of the story from one side, and HALF from the other and you get closer to the truth, then it's still.. different and interesting.

Of course, you don't have to go far to see that Livingstone and Jackson were very Media friendly.. It's like the problem in US Comics.. Stan Lee isn't as great as he and alot of people say, and he did some bloody nasty stuff including stealing and getting people fired to get where he wanted, but he isn't quite as bad as some say.. But he was very Media Friendly so he pushed himself forward alot at the expense of others.
 
EricF said:
3) More .... I would love to have had even more, but maybe they will do another volume now people like John Blanche have retired. It's a weighty set of books as is!

Recent times have been a bit of a goldmine of old GW/Citadel history interviews, I'm rather enjoying it.
Click to expand...
I can't help an impression they are trying to secure their legacy now that they are getting very old.

Speaking of John Blanche:

Blanche :The Rise of Grimdark :Unlimited PREORDER - £39.99 : RPE Miniatures and games, The new Ral Partha Europe Online Store

RPE Miniatures and games Blanche :The Rise of Grimdark :Unlimited PREORDER - This is a preorder for the unlimited version, the limited set with signed postcard has now sold out Blanche: The Rise of Grimdark The official, authorised biography of renowned fantasy and science fiction artist and...
www.ralparthaeurope.co.uk
 
ManicMan said:
from what I know, John Peake has a very... different view on the very early days of GW then Livingstone or Jackson
Click to expand...
Jordan done an interview with John Peake, which I shall be watching this morning at some point.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Will it agree with the Amazon 'review' I wonder
 
might watch it later cause I just started and he made a mistake within the first 50 seconds ^_^ not a major but one.. enough to make me think, I'm gonna watch it later.. not now
 
Only just seen this thread. Very interesting about John Peake's comments, particularly the Amazon 'review' shared above. Even before seeing this, I couldn't help being skeptical about Ian Livingstone's account having read Dice Men. Particularly following hearing the obituary comments Ian made on BBC radio after Bryan Ansell passed - which said virtually nothing about Bryan, but rather blew his own trumpet in the vein of Dice Men, seemingly diminishing Bryan's role in making GW what it became.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top