This study compares analog Warhammer 40k to the way the game is being played on Tabletop Simulator. It focuses on properties of analog and digital gaming as well as player participation in creating both the game and its community. The study uses participant observation and an interface analysis and is based on more than a year of weekly games and participation in analog and digital tournaments. It concludes that the digital version of the game de-emphasizes crafting and making which leads to a reduced barrier of entry. Social interaction is not the same online, but there are moments of collective narrative building. The interface of the game is leveraging the possibilities of digital media and goes in the same direction as design research for table-top games. The biggest difference of that the digital version is networked player creativity that makes it possible to play this game online and improves it.

2. Networked Participation sets the
Game Free – Warhammer 40k on
Tabletop Simulator
2
Patrick Prax (he/him)
Uppsala University
Tomorrow 11am: Gamechangers of 40k -
The Professionalization and
Commodification of Warhammer 40k
Patrick.Prax@speldesign.uu.se

3. Aim
This study then compares analog Warhammer
40k to the way the game is being played on
Tabletop Simulator.
The aim of the comparison is to learn about
(1) the properties of analog and digital gaming
as well as about
(2) player participation in creating game
communities and gaming culture.

4. Previous Work
 Miniature Gaming as Pastime (Carter, Harrop, et al., 2014)
 Many facets and reasons for play like crafting and
collecting, even roleplay (Meriläinen et al., 2020)
 Line-of-sight and physicality of the game table (Tobin, 2018)
 Dice and collective creation of a narrative (Carter, Gibbs, et
al., 2014)
 Kankainen (2016) with a comparison of digital and analog
Bloodbowl

5. Analytic frames
 Crafting and making
 Physicality
 Social interaction
 Competitive play
 Accessibility
 Digital Interface
 Participation as an overarching theme from
the data

6. Method
• Auto-ethnographic play
• Interface study
• Diary during play with screen shots and
notes
• Participation in the competitive community
is a limitation, but it also kind of easily
happened because that is what is visible and
accessible.

8. Crafting and making
• No painting and modeling with analog
models
• No ownership, no showing of for “Best
Painted”
• 3D models build from scratch or scanned
• Maps

12. Physicality
• Aiming over the shoulders of the model
• Less stigma around touching models (except
in a game ofc)
• Digital physicality requires new skill set to
manipulate the table and the miniatures

14. Social interaction
• Still shared story-telling, frequently around
dice rolls
• Discord
• Tournaments as meeting spaces

16. Competitive play
• Innovation of the gaming table as well as
interface features
• Possibility to try new armies
• Harsher meta-game, but also possible to
compete with much less investment

18. Competitive play
• Innovation of the gaming table as well as
interface features
• Possibility to try new armies
• Harsher meta-game, but also possible to
compete with much less investment

19. Accessibility
• Less crafting requirements
• No What-you-see-is-what-you-get
• No minimum paint standard
• No Battle-ready defined by Games Workshop
• Financial limitations specific to the game largely disappear
(at least 400 Euros for analog)
• PC gaming limitations replace them, but are less restrictive
(to me?)
• Hard to find because hidden from GW

20. Digital Interface
Beyond even the cutting
edge of table top design
Hinske & Langheinrich
(2009:103).

21. Interface
This tools is offers exactly what research
on digitally augmented gaming tables
using working on “Spatially Augmented
Reality” (Bimber & Raskar, 2005) has
been trying to achieve using projectors
and experimental technology (Dolce et
al., 2012: 45).

25. Participation
• Rules library made by player
community

29. Conclusion I
The digital game is defined by networked player creativity. (1)
and (2) are the same here.
It not only makes it possible to play this game online with the
freedom to put together any army within minutes.
It is also the source of the table that offers the relevant rules
at the right time.
Player creativity is also the origin of innovative tools that
enhance the game to such a degree that an army that is not
using them is not considered ready to play.

30. Critical look at Accessibility
• Financial and crafting limitations are under-
reported (hardly mentioned even) in
previous work
• Shaming players with ugly paint
• The “Pile of Shame”
• Plastic addiction
• Power Creep
• Lifestyle Games and exploitation

31. Conclusion II
• When playing 40k on TTS, the player
community and participatory design is what
makes your troops battle-ready.
• The difference between the analog and the
digital are:
– Digital information networks
– Freedom of the players to make the game

32. Conclusion III
Or maybe more to the point:
• Games can be awesome when they are set
free.
• Death to DRM!
• Long live the players!

33. Ben Marvin https://www.flickr.com/photos/benmarvin/3552123084
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/#

34. Networked Participation sets the
Game Free – Warhammer 40k on
Tabletop Simulator
34
Patrick Prax (he/him)
Uppsala University
Tomorrow 11am: Gamechangers of 40k -
The Professionalization and
Commodification of Warhammer 40k
Patrick.Prax@speldesign.uu.se