Games Workshop declares war on best customers. Again.

Dan sez, "Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces -- many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games. GW did this shortly after building a lot of good will by re-releasing their out of print game 'Space Hulk' to much hoopla. And it's not their first attack on their biggest fans"

No doubt those of you who have supported Games Workshop in the past by creating files for use with their games will have noticed they are all being deleted from BGG at the behest of their lawyers.
So here's a little paeon to the games that I spent many hours creating rules summaries and reference sheets for that are no longer available here. They're still at my personal site, but I don't imagine they'll be there for long.
No doubt they'll be more items on this list before long.

The Games Workshop Files Purge of '09

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Action • ripoff • takedown

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JollyOrc

As dorkhero stated, Games Workshop is the mastermind of draining customer-cash, but not really anything more. I had this revelation when I saw them selling “Games Workshop Basing Sand” in bags for 10 bucks each. The bags contained… sand. Like you can find on any construction site.

And a month later I wandered into one of their shops and was greeted by a drone that asked me if I was interested in the “Games Workshop Hobby”, or if I was just there to pick something up for a kid. (I wasn’t even thirty at that time dammit!)

No more Games Workshop for this Orc anymore! :)
- Anonymous
  
  @JollyOrc: Actually it’s a hell of a lot cleaner, but I definitely see your point!!
Lukewarmer

I’ve just been down the list reading all the comments on this subject, some made me laugh, some made me nod my head in agreement, and some just made me shake my head in puzzlement..

My background I was a Games Workshop employee from 2000-2008 in my time I have been a part-timer and full-timer and 5 years as a store manager in 2 different stores..

(IP protection)
The Bottom line is (and will always be) Games Workshop “WILL” protect it’s IP rights no matter what. So if that means they make Websites remove articles that infringe their IP then they will, Yes “Gamers” get annoyed about this, and they have every right to but it doesn’t prevent them from using any material they come up with themselves in their own homes or even at any Gaming Club they may go to it just prevents them from “Publishing” it to a wider audience.. (Staff on the other hand have to Offer Games Workshop all IP rights over any drawings, writings and Ideas that they may have whilst they are in Games Workshops employ) which i believe is one of the reasons Gav Thorpe left before he released his Star Ship troopers games

A couple off of topic points.

As a manager in the 5 years i was there i had to deal with the over-staffing of both the stores i managed and in total i had to fire/make redundant 17 staff members, not because they were crap at their jobs but because the “LOTR bubble had burst” But i never experienced any 1/2 year burn out, i sent more staff on to the management training course than left for any other reason. Games workshop “Store” staff from my experience are “Gamers” first and staff second and they work bloody hard for very little reward now that they have removed the “Staff Weight” purchase price.

The Lord of the Rings “Bubble”
Did any off you really expect it to last?
Did any off you really expect to still see it in the stores now?
Tell you what none of the staff i’ve worked with in GW expected it to go past 2004, we all thought GW was going to do it and take the money and run, but they are still milking it for all its worth.

The biggest impact of the bubble! its all of you out there every single gamer and model builder/painter, Games Workshop got so much investment during the “Bubble” years that it spent on new offices and extra staff, that now it is still struggling to pay stock dividends that it had to withhold/delay and postpone. even though they did have a good year last year with pretax profits of Â£3.5

Most stores in the UK are now 1 man stores open 5 days a week and they aren’t opening during the early evening when you can possibly get down for a game or a chat after work because you “The established gamers” aren’t making them the kind of money they need to make. Its a very sad fact that a new person into the “Hobby” will spend up to 5x the amount of money that established gamers do.

And an even sadder fact that they know they can release a limited run of a “Classic” game like Space Hulk for an immediate cash injection… and when you think that games workshop has so many “Classic” games it still holds IP rights on….

Do you really wonder why they fight every IP issue.

Any questions just ask
dssstrkl

That’s why I’ve been a fan of Palladium Books since grammar school (TMNT FTW!). They actively engage with their fans and have had a liberal policy on using their stuff for years (http://www.palladiumbooks.com/policies.html). That and their games are super fun!
- mgfarrelly
  
  Right on. Kevin Siembieda is a peach of a guy and he basically IS that company. The only sad thing is how many of his intellectual properties could be developed in other media (video games, movies, animation) and just never have. Seriously, a “Rifts” game? Glitter Boys versus Dragon Lords on a future earth ravaged by inter-dimensional warfare? YES.
Anonymous

Well Games Workshop, you finally dropped the straw that broke the camelâ€™s back. I donâ€™t believe I need to list the reasons leading up to this point as Iâ€™m sure you have heard it all before. Us gamers are a very outspoken lot about our hobby and many have been complaining about your corporate greed for years now.

I am a customer who bought my first army via phone order and had huge box of lead shipped across the pond before your games were even widely available in the U.S.. I was there in the beginning with you guys in the 80â€™s, I was with you through the 90â€™s and up till now, I loved your games and fluff so much that I put up with your corporate shenanigans. But all people have a point at which they finally get sick of being taken for granted as a customer. The BGG incident is the last straw for me. If you are so wrapped up in profits and litigation that you trample on your customers and fans trying to create fan material to help themselves and their friends enjoy the game better, then you have become too corporate oriented for me. It seems as if you are letting your lawyers steer the ship and not the creative people who started your company. When greed so totally outweighs the fun and creativity of the game, itâ€™s no longer fun. I wish you luck in the future and if someone over there ever gets their heads out of their collective arses and starts steering the company with the right mix of artistic fun, consumer support, and an invisible legal staff who has a shred of common sense, I may consider coming back. I wouldnâ€™t count on it though. Right now, with your prices so high, I can sell my armies for a pretty penny and still beat your prices, so by the time you may get your act together, I will probably have moved on to something else and will not have the desire to restart collecting your game.

In other words:

Bugger off!

Sincerely

Dennis H. Foos Jr.

Former player of:

Ultramarines
Blood Angels
Black Templars
Imperial Guard
Chaos SM
Tyranids
Orcs

Fantasy:
Orcs
Gobbos
Dwarves
Empire
Tomb Kings
Dark Elves

Space Hulk
Man Oâ€™ War
Epic
Warmaster
BattleMasters
Heroquest
Advanced Heroquest
Warhammer Quest

Former purchaser of:
White Dwarf
Citadel Terrain
Citadel Paint
Forgeworld products
Codexes
Games supplements such as Apocalypse, Planet strike and Cities of Death (as well as buildings, bunkers, terrain etcâ€¦ associated with them)

P.S. There is a saying here in the U.S. about not stepping over the dollars to pick up the pennies, but I guess you have proven that you couldnâ€™t comprehend that anyway, so I wont go into it.

CC OPEN
manicbassman

GW really do not like user created content… it gets in the way of their business model.
Anonymous

It is very understandable that they’re scared. I imagine that plastic 3D printing will completely destroy their business model in 5-10 years. Anyone can then make any model for almost nothing.
wormbaby

Remember this is a company with this humdinger in their IP policy

“This also means that we cannot allow tattoos as an acceptable use of our IP as a third party necessarily has to perform the “service.”

They havn’t sued anyone for getting a space marine tat but they want you to know that they can!
mark.leaman

I remember WizKids sending out tons of Cease and Desist notifications, effectively shutting down almost all rule variants posted by fans. Hardcore internet boardgamers fall back on using Vassal (a tool that allows you to play your boardgames online). There was a Warhammer 40K module for Vassal until Games Workshop shut that down.

http://gamingdead.com/2009/07/26/games-workshop-shuts-down-vassal
Mike The Bard

Sent the following to their customer service department:

Dear sirs,
I will no longer be purchasing any of your products. This is a direct result of your decision to pursue the removal of fan created materials at boardgamegeek.com and other websites. Materials like these were what sparked an interest in your games for me in the first place, and you are doing a great disservice to you biggest customers by taking action against them.
As a published author and musician with four albums currently in print, I understand as well as you do the necessity and seriousness of copyright. I also understand that penalizing your customer base for their own loyalty to your product is extremely counterproductive.
I am not alone in this. I could point out the rise of independent artists such as myself who embrace file sharing- and whose profits are rising as the major labels fail; or the epic dynasty that is Star Trek- maintained in large part through fan activity; but to be honest, I’m simply done with your company.
-M
ledfloyd

I just hope that with all of the gamers that will be turning to Privateer Press’ WarMachine (Steampunk Robots) & Hordes (Huge Warbeasts) games due to GW’s Draconian Policies won’t cause PPress to turn into the next Vampiric Hobby/Gaming company when the $$$ starts flowing in.
Everyone that I know who has played WarMachine/Hordes has really enjoyed it. They have either quit The GW games they were playing or wished they could but couldn’t because of all the time and $$$ they have forked over to GW
Run-on Sentences ftw.
Anonymous

This may come off as naÃ¯ve, but can’t BGG respond with a Fair Use defense? I mean, it’s not like they’re selling this content. And yes, they may still get a C&D letter, but in many cases (at least according to a few colleagues who do video remixing) if you respond with a Fair Use defense and cite the statute, they almost never fire back.
Anonymous

Chaos God? Malal! Old school Warhammer fluff FTW!
Jugglepunk

Games Workshop are, frankly, batshit crazy. I still love the games, and have some very old friends who work for the company (thankfully not in any of the paranoid managerial roles) so I will continue to buy their products, but their strategy of late has been mental. Clamping down on an already derivative IP, price hikes above and beyond the norm to save the company because, I quote, ‘The Lord of the Rings bubble burst’ (Come on, you didn’t need elf eyes to see *that* was going to happen) and their hugely aggresive in-store hard sell policy have put me off actually going into the shops at all. I do all my buying through 3rd party retailers now, who are cheaper.
If only they had the sense to check the GW fan forums now and again and actually listen to what their customer base has to say, then maybe they would have an easier time building their poorly managed company up again after their recent problems.
Anonymous

Not a huge suprise, given how they treat their staff : http://tinyurl.com/yhp9k5f
Destructor

My letter to GW:

from Daniel Nicholls
to Hobbyservice@games-workshop.com.au,
orders@games-workshop.co.uk
date Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 10:55 AM
subject Please stop destroying the fan base

Hi there,

Listen, I’ve been a loyal games workshop customer for over 20 years. I’ve spent literally tens of thousands of dollars on your products. I was extremely disturbed today to see that you were removing fan-created and out-of-print material from the fansites that pretty much keep the GW fanbase alive.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/28/games-workshop-decla.html

A great example of this are the older Space Hulk missions. They’re out of print. You have no plans to republish them. I just shelled out over $500 on two copies of the game plus additional models and paints to supplement it. Why shouldn’t fans swap older material to supplement the game and make it better for them? It will make me buy more product. I want to underline that: it will make me buy more product. The stronger the community, the more people to play with, the more product I buy. Instead, right now, I am so angry at the company that it’s very likely I will never walk into another GW store again, unless it’s to go and make this complaint to staff directly. In addition, the community is going to shrink now, because of this anger.

I simply can’t fathom the stupidity of this move. It’s not helping your bottom line, it’s hurting it. It’s not catering to the fanbase, it’s causing us to resent you and the way you treat us.

Rethink your policy, and do it fast.

Yours sincerely,

etc
Anonymous

Twenty years ago Palladium offered to sue me if I published any material I’d prepared for a guide to RPGs. Larry Niven said “use whatever you like”. About this time White Dwarf published tons of fan derived D&D and Traveller material. Intllectual property didn’t seem to bother GW when the boot was on the other foot!
Mike Stanmore
xsulacox

This is absolutely appalling.
I can understand GW going after websites making huge profits off of their ideas, but to try to shut down fan created items and out of print scans is just evil.

This is why I play and support Privateer Press games. They recently released the latest WM rules version to the public for free so that people can tweak and test play the rules and give feedback, even though it has huge potential to kill profits when they release the finished revised rulebook. Companies that do stuff like that need to get more support. They understand this “business” is like no other, and its the fans that keep it alive.

I for one am tired of GW constantly treating us all like this, and even tireder of the goons that defend them (especially with the worn out and incorrect “luxury hobby” defense of GW). I would love to think that us all sending letters could do something to affect them, but I seriously doubt it. They are all about the profit, and lets be honest, our growing horde of miniature addicts will never get a successful boycott going.

I have been playing WH40K since Rogue Trader but I don’t think I will for much longer.
Anonymous

This all boils down to British IP law To Keep there IP GW have to contest all non sanctioned use of there IP or by law it can be argued that they arn’t maintaining there IP and they will lose all rights to that IP. In the UK there is no FAIR USE get out clause just licensed and unlicensed use and unlicensed use MUST be contested
Anonymous

We had a GW-Shop in town for years. Passed it lots of times, never went in there. They’ve shut down two years ago.
Robotech_Master

Palladium? You mean the ones who would not allow gaming magazines to print anything having to do with Palladium games (reviews, scenarios, etc.) without running it by them first? The ones who sued Wizards of the Coast (back in the early, pre-MTG days) for including conversion stats for Palladium games in their multi-game-system sourcebook The Primal Order?

The ones who claim ownership of all fan-created derivative materials (but graciously grant you permission to use them), and go after anyone who converts any of their material for use in other game systems?

Oh, yeah, they’re much better than Games Workshop.

On a related note, I’m surprised nobody’s yet brought up how the grand-daddy of all RPG companies, TSR, tried to pull something similar to what Games Workshop is doing, back in the early days of the Internet. It was the beginning of the end for them, and not long afterward they were bought out by Wizards of the Coast.
Anonymous

Unlike some previous commenters have suggested: GW is not trying to prevent customers from going bankrupt at all. They’re not interested in old fans. They’re almost entirely aimed at teen-agers. They rely entirely on their cool image to draw new fans who are completely unaware of how old fans have been screwed over.

Old fans have already paid their money, and are having too much fun with old games that don’t get GW any money. GW has no interest in doing anything for you if you’ve already bought all their games. They want the people who haven’t done that yet.
Anonymous

It’s just a hunch, but… Tom Trently was recently promoted to Director of Property from the position of CFO. Notifying him, along with Andy Jones, Head of Legal and Licensing, may do a lot to help the cause. The proof is in the pudding. These kind of tactics almost did White Wolf in. (As mentioned in the above comment.) And ultimately, assisted in the killing of WizKids. (Well, that, and lawsuits from Wizards of the Coast for patent infringement.)

I, just for once, would like to see something Open Sources, GPL’d or otherwise Creative Commons licensed… make it main stream and give these money grubbing corporate types something to think about.

Anyway, you can look at their employee roster here. And pick who you’d like to contact… http://www.linkedin.com/companies/10567?trk=ape_s000001e_1000

p.s., My captcha for this comment was “Aspromonte oddity” =D
- Slickam
  
  There’s a Creative Commons licensed war game coming out next year from Catalyst Game Labs, the company behind Battletech. Leviathans is a steampunk game about flying warships in an alternate 1910. This is the second product they’re releasing under a Creative Commons license (the first was Eclipse Phase, discussed here at http://www.boingboing.net/2009/08/12/eclipse-phase-cc-lic.html )
  
  As a bonus, the company doesn’t treat their customers like dirt either. For example, when a fan of Battletech (and a member of the official forums) passed away recently, they dedicated a book to him and made a custom mech he had designed and used canon.
  
  If you want more information, the site for the game is http://monstersinthesky.com/
killdeer

They could learn a lot from video game companies that support user created content like custom maps, and mods.
- Anonymous
  
  Except of course infinity ward a la cod6
Anonymous

This from the same guys who stole their entire IP from Michael Moorcock? Please.
techsoldaten

You are forgetting, their lawyers are british lawyers. At least their chief legal council is.

The only thing worse than the american legal system is the british legal system it was based on. Absolutely no room for common sense, strict interpretation of every law and hundreds of years of prescedent on every issue. It is like they are continually recodifying 18th century morality.

I mean, this is the only way you get people worldwide to spend an average of $5 on a 1 inch piece of plastic, then go buy 100s of them. You have to have a system that is immune from interpretation, unyielding in it’s tolerance for innovation, and immutable in it’s goal of maintaining the status quo.

M
railroad9

Policies like this aren’t just relegated to game companies, either. The (Frank) Herbert estate brought down the wrath of God on Second Life roleplayers and sim developers.

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/04/enforcers-of-dune.html

Linden Labs got a cease and desist from the Estate for all Dune-related sims and objects on the Grid. This meant that several massive, detailed, lovingly constructed sims had to either shutdown or re-purpose. That Dune-influenced groups had to disband.

What really gets me is, there’s no Estate-cleared mode to roleplay Dune. The Last Unicorn game “Chronicles of the Imperium” will never see the light of day outside of a few hundred demo copies. There aren’t any current-gen video games, either. Given this, I really don’t understand the threat, and I really don’t understand the compulsion to protect an IP to its detriment. By shitting on your most dedicated fans, you diminish the staying power of the IP. George Lucas understands this– one of the reasons for Star Wars’ continuing popularity is the laissez faire attitude LucasArts takes on fan material. For someone to spend unpaid hours crafting an amazingly detailed sim for any IP is an act of love and true fandom. To punish these people for expressing a passion for your property, and wanting to live in the world you create, is just insanity.
Insanity keeping along Herbert’s own opinions (Iron Maiden, anyone?), but insanity none the less.

Of course, reading the “new” Dune novels, it’s pretty clear that those behind the Herbert Estate have pretty much lost all contact with what made Dune great.
Anonymous

“As far as the “good will” for re-releasing Space Hulk, I feel it needs to be pointed out that despite the huge demand for the game they released it in such limited quantities that the entire print run sold out almost immediately.”

Limited? I think they made 70,000 copies. Which is a ton in this industry. It sold out because of pre-orders and because people want(ed) it.
ecurtz

Board Game Geek has not posted the cease and desist for us to read, nor have they told us the content of the letter, other than a “far reaching” cease and desist.

They, like most fan resource sites, did have a ton of files that had official Games Workshop art in them. The BGG admins appear to me to have been overly zealous in their removal of files.

Yes, GW going after fans is dumb. But there are almost no facts available to the regular BGG users, so let’s not call the Inquisition in on GW unless BGG gives us a valid reason to. All of the GW c&d letters posted by other sites have been stupid from a PR / customer stance, but they’ve all been perfectly reasonable in actual content.
Dan Paddock

Not to rain on the Palladium love parade, but isn’t that the company that was sending out C&D letters to anyone who posted conversions from the Palladium house system ( a tragic mis-mosh of D&D 2nd ed and GURPs) to d20 style OGL?

I haven’t heard anything recently but they seemed pretty aggressive a few years back.
Anonymous

I think many people here are missing the point. GW are legally obligated to enforce its copyright and whatnot. If they do not do so, and if someone decides to rip them off with counterfeits, etc, the offending party could negate GW’s claim to intellectual property by demonstrating that the copyright was not enforced in other circumstances. The law simply does not allow you to cherry-pick how and when you protect your intellectual property.

Blame the law, not the lawyers… and certainly not GW for protecting itself from parasites and thieves.
Dan Paddock

@ecurtz – What finally put me over the edge was the letter from GW threatening not to release the next version of the Blood Bowl rules if other companies continue to market their “fantasy football” miniatures as suitable for use with Blood Bowl.

I’m beyond seeing this as a valid attempt to defend IP and have moved into the “GW has contempt for its own customers” camp.
PurpleWyrm

I suspect that the Games Workshop lawyers are just annoyed someone posted their stats (image at the head of the article, second entry under “Secondary Objectives”).
Anonymous

Games Workshop in “behaving like Games Workshop” shock.

I’d enjoy the shock of them not behaving like this, mind you.
Anonymous

They’ve been doing this to dozens of sites, including one I go to, http://www.darkreign40k.com, which is a huge repository for Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader fan rules. Hell, in that case, they said they held rights over all the stuff on the FFG (Fantasy Flight Games) site too, so that couldn’t be used either.

I’m fairly certain they must have a death wish or something, no one could sabotage themselves this much and not intend to.
Anonymous

It always amazes me wham a company spends millions turning their product into a hosehold name and then balks when the product becomes the center of a community.

Do they understand how easily they can be ignored by their existing customers?
ecurtz

@Dan Paddock – Good point, although I’m not as clear on the Blood Bowl situation (since I think BB is rubbish.)

My understanding from the Warseer BB thread is that they were going to remove their support for the official fan updates to the Blood Bowl rules if third party companies continued to market miniatures as specific BB star players. I think there’s a subtle but important difference between “fantasy American football orc linebacker” and “Ripp Toff: Orc Star Thrower.”
Anonymous

This was around 2 decades ago, but Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey both pulled this sort of crap when my group tried to roleplay Valdemar and Pern stuff on tinymu*s. Yeah, in hindsight the books aren’t the greatest, but they were free mu*s to join, and encouraged people to buy their books. The less secure an author is in their work, the more fascist they become.
mark.leaman

Slashdotted…

http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/12/01/070232/Games-Workshop-Goes-After-Fan-Site
mark.leaman

Nice! The meme is growing! http://tweetmeme.com/story/310899797/games-workshop-declares-war-on-best-customers-again-boing-boing

Let’s see if we can get this on Slashdot as well.
mark.leaman

Whups, apparently Games Workshop’s evil has been on slashdot already in regards to the making of fan films.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/07/07/11/1536240/Games-Workshop-Forbids-Warhammer-Fan-Films
cinemajay

Hey Games Workshop, I just canceled a nice, big, juicy order online after reading the above post. I will spend my money elsewhere.
Anonymous

Came here from miniwargaming.com, a store in canada that got me into gamesworkshop games primarily because they seem to care about their customers (or at least pretend to) and free shipping to canada. However, I’ve woken up and have officially quit WH40k and figurine games in general due to pricing and the shit they try to pull with fans.

Btw, surprise, surprise they are attacking miniwargaming by claiming “intellectual property” on the images of boxed sets/figurines. Brilliant play by Gamesworkshop.
Matthew Miller

I’m not a Games Workshop fan, but I read something interesting about them and their business model a year or so ago. I thought it was here, but maybe it was on some gaming site. The upshot was: yeah. duh. Their business model *relies* on driving out “aging” customers, who tend to be more of pain to support and already have big collections — and who tend to be frightening to the parents of the target market: wholesome young teens and their allowance money. So this kind of behavior is not only no surprise, but is in fact carefully cultivated.

Wish I could find the article….
Anonymous

I hear a lot about GW having huge money issues. Does anyone know if this is true? Can we expect to see them around next year or the year after?
Clifton

Some knowledgeable sounding comments on the BGG boards suggest that Games Workshop has included in their C&D games which they don’t even have the rights to – for instance, IP which they had licensed from some other company but have since lost the license to and which some other company now has.

(See for instance the comments under ‘Kings and Things’ on the first page of that thread. I’m not enough of a game geek to verify any of that, but I’m sure someone else on BoingBoing is.)
amwatts

GW also did the same thing to talkbloodbowl.com – a forum for the largest community of Blood Bowl players on the net who have been driving the development of the game for almost 10 years. GW took issue to the inclusion of “Blood Bowl” in the name of the forum. This forum contains the most loyal Blood Bowl fans in the world that have been responsible for this game even existing at all since the late 90s. I don’t understand GW’s mentality at all – they really seem to have it in for their best customers.
Anonymous

GW has been shamelessly ripped off nonstop by Blizzard Entertainment. They are obviously trying to defend their unique product. GW created Orks and Elves!!! Or was it Eldar…

I wonder if Tolkein were alive he would sue GW?
Maybe the Army should sue. That Imperial Guard looks awful familiar…

If you have a good product (let’s face it, GW does) then it ALL boils down to how you market yourself. Blizzard is an amazing company and makes Bill Gates money beacuse of it. Blizzard is the only company in years I can recall that offered custom map making/modding software with their games (Starcraft 2).

GW copied Tolkein, Blizz copied GW now it’s time GW copied Blizz. Squeeze a few more nickles, or gain a dozen more fans?
Wrye

As a long time miniatures wargamer, I find GW’s business model and practices strange generally. The only analogue I can think of is Microsoft, and that’s imperfect – GW is very successful, but they also seem invested in not only making sure that customers play their games and only their games, but that customers never learn that there are, in fact, other games out there, and that wargaming is in fact an long -established hobby that was around well before GW appeared.

That’s why this effort seems particularly strange to me – much of the larger point of the miniatures gaming hobby is DIY projects, making your own scenery, customizing your miniatures and armies, and so on. Sand aside, GW’s model trees and barbed wire, etc, can be pretty high quality pieces; but it’s almost as if GW thinks that people can also somehow be kept ignorant of the existence of say, reasonably priced trees for model railroads. This isn’t fanfiction, and it’s not software piracy: making the game your own is the entire point.
Anonymous

Well maybe the GW staff fully expected the LOTR bubble to burst by 2004 but do they actively have to work towards kicking it to death themselves???
My son got into the GW because of LOTR & from day one the staff at his local shop (& there has been a few, the turn-over is tragic!) have tried to convert him to 40K. In fact on the one day I didn’t take him he came home with a TAU starter pack that a member of staff talked him into because he would have more chance of getting someone to play!
Yeah, it is hard for my son to get a game at his local shop but when the staff don’t know the rules for War of the ring (This includes staff that have been their for years, therefore they are either incredibly thick …..or they have just made their tiny minds up to not bother!) & spend there time talking other kids out of it, what would you expect?!
My son has a 2500+pt Army of Isengard & an over 3000+pt army of Mordor with another 2000+pt selection of allies. This is a large investment in both time & money & I fully expect GW to honour that investment by not having their own staff rubbish this game system while promoting their own personal preference!
Maybe if they want to hold onto their jobs they should promote ALL their products rather than just the ones they regard are for the ‘Established Gamer’!
wackyvorlon

Well, there go my plans to get into warhammer :/

Thanks to everyone who posted some alternatives, greatly appreciated!
Tensegrity

Ah, they could care less about boardgamers. They are going to make money licensing their properties for videogames. They’ve probably made tons more money on that already than they ever did from tabletop gamers. Not saying it’s right, but it makes sense if all they care about is profit. And, well after all, they are a publicly traded corporation.
Anonymous

Someone please explain to me how they have remained in business thus far.
- Anonymous
  
  Their game is like crack!
- Anonymous
  
  they remain in business because they have a good product and that is it. They try to run their business into the ground every chance they get but because we love the warhammer world so much we keep sending them money.
shiva7663

This is disgusting. Those lawyers need to be fired, immediately.
dorkhero

This, and other acts of stupidity such as this, is why I do not give them my money. Their entire business model is based on maximizing customer cash drain without totally bankrupting the individual hobbyist. Kind of like the board gaming equivalent of a vampire. Now as for Magic cards, that’s just an outright zombie plague…
Inkygirl

This latest strategy employed by Games Workshop inspired me to do a new comic:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/debbieohi/4145143618/

Debbie
- querent
  
  cute. :)
  
  lots of good, thoughtful comments here. someone should send GW a link.
  - greengestalt
    
    Careful, they’d SUE or threaten to do so, to have it removed… Ick. They are indeed shooting their own foot.
Anonymous

COMING SOON FROM GW!!

“RETARDED CYBERSPACE CRUSADE”

~Destroy the Loyalists!
~Smash aside Vindicators with Predators!
~Confuse Enemies with Friends!
~Terminate unsantioned allies!
~Hunt down friends and family and ALIENATE THEM!!
~FUN for 1+ lawyers.

It seems that their products are of such quality that no amount of corporate managerial ineptitude can ruin GW.
While they play the lonely, dangerous game above… here’s the game I’ve been playing for years:

1. Hit THEIR store like an imperial assasin.
2. Grab what you need and get out before their pushy, heatgeeking clone can corner you.
3. Take YOUR new purchase to your home and your club and play your games, adding whatever flair and personalization YOU see fit with your friends.

Chaos Rules.
N
mgfarrelly

Interesting. Maybe the folks at GW should look at what happened to White Wolf Games. They essentially went to war with THEIR OWN FANCLUB for years over petty nonsense, including the fact people liked playing an older edition of the World of Darkness games. Lots of bad blood and lost customers later, White Wolf is in full repair mode.A great press release from White Wolf:

http://www.white-wolf.com/index.php?line=news&articleid=1172

Gaming is such a small industry, why would you want to drive away the hard-core fans left?
Anonymous

You know what really burns me about this? Number 4 on the list: 4. deliver up to us any and all articles, component elements and electronic files created by you or in your possession designed or adapted for making products based on intellectual property belonging to GW;
If they put any of this stuff into a book and try to sell it, I cannot tell you how pissed I will be.
Anonymous

As far as the “good will” for re-releasing Space Hulk, I feel it needs to be pointed out that despite the huge demand for the game they released it in such limited quantities that the entire print run sold out almost immediately.
phisrow

So, should we place bets on which of the chaos gods are directing the Games Workshop legal team?
- Anonymous
  
  I’d place my bet on Tzeentch. They hold out their hand to fan based websites: TSOALR, 40k Radio. But they hit other sites with the big stick in the other hand.
- Anonymous
  
  Tzeentch is my choice for god running GW, just loves the confusion.
- MrWednesday
  
  Nergal.
Anonymous

Typical. Given the nature of the small nerd market for this industry, they should allow fans moderate-to-maximal latitude to re-interpret their product, lest they end with:

Absolute control and ownership of a nonexistent product line.

Which seems the goal of all IP ownership. I don’t know why they try to destroy their fans, but the evidence is overwhelming.
Anonymous

You think this is bad…you should see what they actually do to their employees. Not just the performance/fit chart (which is usually for the managers)but the general attitude. I was a GW manager and I believe the term for dealing with employees was turn and burn. Meaning turn over old employees get new ones and burn them out, then turn the team again. GW basically hangs employees for getting into other games (including Dark Heresy)and when the employee has enough of their crap (around a year or so assuming you don’t get fired first) they call it “hitting the wall” and then fire you. I was forced to do this to a few good people in my 2 years there.

The fact that there going after the “beardy” vet community doesn’t suprise me at all.