Project Business Information Ecosystems: The Tabletop Gaming Industry and Warhammer Brand Program Libraries Term Academic Year 2025 Status Closed Research Area Information Studies, Business, Game Studies Description This project connects information studies to business research, exploring the idea of industry-specific information ecosystems. In so doing, it responds to critiques of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Beatty (2014) challenged the Framework "crisis rhetoric" of ecosystem and marketplace metaphors, for example, while Reed (2024) questioned the Framework's assumption of a monolithic single ecosystem. Extending such work, we will roll conceptual dice and actually map an information ecosystem: the tabletop game industry exemplified by Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer. Leveraging scholarly research from game studies and marketing studies along with generative AI, we will first design logic map and customer journey visualizations of the industry's information characteristics. For example, gamers congregate in information-saturated affinity spaces and disseminate feedback that in turn drives product development. Promotional information co-created by companies and influencer channels adds signal density as play becomes work and DIY amateurism converges with big business via brandjacking, crowdsourcing, and a participatory customer journey framework that spans a vast "phygital" terrain: Discord, BoardGameGeek, virtual tabletop software analytics, mega-events like Gen Con, and much more. We will next drill down to write an article submission for the peer-reviewed journal, Games and Culture (Sage), focusing on a top 100 UK company: Games Workshop (GW). Floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1994, GW's annual revenues now exceed half a billion dollars. However, business researchers have largely ignored the world's most successful tabletop game company aside from one marketing scholar. At the same time, humanities scholars have explored paratexts - information artifacts that surround a central text - as well as the "metagame" of discursive spaces orbiting games. But never in business terms. We will assert that GW's 1994-2002 magazine, The Citadel Journal, and their recent web subscription service, Warhammer TV, constitute an information-centric operational throughline and an overlooked, foundational business strategy of the tabletop gaming industry. The strategy hinges on monetizing paratext information and actively co-creating the metagame via corporate-channeled consumer participation. By demonstrating this strategy, we also offer a way to re-read the history of Dungeons & Dragons product development including Dragon Magazine and today's D&D Beyond online marketplace. The proposed article builds on an in-press book chapter (Baker, 2025) that analyses how GW monetizes wayfinding information in their product and service portfolio. The project mentee will be listed as second author. The logic map and customer journey visualizations of the industry's information characteristics will be used in a poster presentation submitted to the Indiana Library Federation annual conference in Indianapolis (one day TBD between November 9-11) - the aim is for the project mentee to co-present the poster. Project Keywords: content analysis, business primary sources, corporate history, data visualization, marketing channels, information monetization. Baker, N. (2025 in-press). The Warhammer product and service portfolio: Wayfinding information as competitive advantage. In M. J. P. Wolf (Ed.), Navigating imaginary worlds: Wayfinding and subcreation. Routledge. Beatty, J. (2014). Locating information literacy within institutional oppression. In the library with the lead pipe.https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2014/locating-information-literacy-within-institutional-oppression/ Reed, E. (2024). Only one information ecosystem, or many? Examining how information privilege in the framework impacts international students. College & research libraries news, 85(10), https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.85.10.412 Supervisor Neal Allen Baker Mentor Neal Allen Baker Type of work required 1. Design logic map and customer journey data visualizations.
2. Perform close analysis of primary sources: back issues of The Citadel Journal magazine, current Warhammer TV streaming episodes, Games Workshop annual reports and half year results (financial regulatory disclosure documents).
3. Assist with the concept development and writing of a peer-review journal article submission to Games and Culture.
4. Co-present poster presentation at the Indiana Library Federation annual conference, if submission is accepted, one day between November 9-11. Websites https://warhammertv.com/
https://investor.games-workshop.com/annual-reports-and-half-year-results Qualifications Demonstrated familiarity with the tabletop game industry. Design interest and experience is a plus. Credit Hours 0 Weekly Hours 3 (estimated)