Games Workshop Tries to Crack Down on Internet Sales

heirodule writes "In this messageboard posting internet retailer The warstore says he was contacted by Games Workshop, maker of miniature wargames such as Warhammer 40,000 and the Lord of the Rings Battle Game. GW will be refusing to distribute their product to retailers who sell over the internet after July 1. That's bad enough, but they cited the problem of IP violations (like people posting pictures of their products?) as part of the rationale. The claim is that for GW, this has nothing to do with internet sales offering discounts (yeah, right) but with the 'experience' that GW wants customers to have (of coming into their own stores and getting a hard sell)." The nearest Game Workshop store to me is a 1 hour, 10 minute drive, according to their store locator. The Usenet thread may be of interest.

so

[Graspee_Leemoor]

So if you sell GW stuff on the internet but don't have pictures, just descriptions you should be ok. People can always go to the GW site to see what the stuff looks like, or read White Dwarf.

graspee

Re:so

[Wakkow]

The newsgroup post says this:

"Also effective July 15th, no stores besides their own will be permitted to sell GW products on the internet."

Re:so

[DragonMagic]

I don't see how they can enforce this.

1) My store purchases Games Workshop items through two different distributors, both of whom sell the Games Workshop items through the internet and through order catalogs. We sell them on our website, at trade shows and through our store. We signed no agreement with Games Workshop to agree to their demands.

2) There's no law preventing me from selling goods sold to distributors in America that is not listed on any restricted list by the FTC, ATF or otherwise.

Let them t

Re:so

[SiW]

Well they could if the GW site wasn't so ungodly slow and poorly laid out. I went to show my son the sort of thing I was into when I was a kid and just gave up.

The GW thing is kinda depressing. You'd think that after 17, 18 years there'd be a lot of new content, different miniatures, etc. but I've looked and seen the same figures, just fewer to a pack and more expensive. Note to the pedants: Obviously, there ARE new figures. I just expected to see something completely different.

Things were getting "too corporate" when I stopped being interested in the miniatures and games years ago, when the stores went from being the kind of creepy dives staffed by weirdoes who would rather I just leave so I didn't interrupt their game to the modern spartan things staffed by perky people who wanted to sell me stuff.

So this latest behaviour isn't surprising at all. They want it ALL.

GW wants it all... but does it really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we all agree that Games Workshop wants to eliminate competition from its own crappy online store rather than actually improve their own online store experience.

What I'm curious to know is if this "no other online outlets" policy will apply to TRU/Amazon.com?

Not really...

[WebCowboy]

GW wants to ban ALL 3rd party internet vendors and do it themselves--they want the WHOLE pie to themselves. Perhaps they are trying to become "vertically integrated" (ie. greedy bastards). Theoretically, making, distributing, marketing and selling a product through one big company is supposed to reduce risk of IP theft, possibility of other entities that you depend on going under and so on.

However in todays economy (fast moving, information based, global) "vertical integration" is ineffective and obsolete except in the case of VERY big corporations like GM--and even they outsource (if there is a problem with the outsource, they have enough pull to affect their management or pull out, or even take them over). The "razor blade" theory is also becoming so much bunk too (giving away whe razor and ripping us off on the blades).

In the computer industry I can think of examples where the tactics GW used completely backfired. MITS created the PC industry with the Altair--they were the only player in the game, but success very quickly brough competitors (Proc Tech, IMSAI, Cromemco, Apple, Commodore, Tandy...). MITS tried to aggessivley protect their IP (namely the bus which became known as the S100 bus--competitors started making peripheral cards for it and soon make S100 PCs of their own). Not only was MITS uncooperative with 3rd party vendors--they went as far as to threaten lawsuit. On the sales and marketing side, MITS attempted to make all their dealers exclusive MITS dealers--but soon most broke off that deal as IMSAI (and later Apple) gave them sweeter deals and didn't demand exclusivity.

GW is doing this now. They are vigourously defending their "IP" to the point of crippling their marketing (they don't even want people to put up pictures on their websites---turning their nose up at free advertising!). Furthermore, hey are trying to control everything--they want to have the only website and a bunch of stores with nothing but their own product. Like MITS, GW isn't exactly a high profile company. Also like MITS, their product could be duplicated relatively easily (not cloned mind you, but if GW alientates customers work-alike products will fill the void). GW could be like MITS in a third way in 2 or 3 years--completely gone.

This vertical strategy only stands a good chance of working if you have BIG resources and can take BIG risks. Even Texas Instruments failed with the TI99/4a. From the start they employed a vertical strategy (along with the "razorblade" strategy when sales were slow). Before TI discontinued the machine, they controled manufacturing (the thing was loaded wil all TI chips---CPU, VDP, memory, logic), distribution and sales (making it a bit more difficult to find than say a Commodore, Atari or Apple) and software/peripheral/accessories (they figured they could sell the computer for much less than it cost to make and hose customers on software and hardware accessories--the 3rd party TI market was basically non-existent). TI couldn't pull it off and lost millions. Ironically, in the couple of years AFTER TI pulled out of the market, a small 3rd party industry blossomed around the TI.

If a giant like TI couldn't pull it off, how can a specialty shop like GW handle the whole pie?

Sounds like Apple...

[Delta-9]

Is 'Games Workshop' an Apple company?

Re:Sounds like Apple...

[extrarice]

Why does it sound like Apple?
Just curious...

Uh, what?

[Senjutsu]

I would imagine because Apple has traditionally tried to monopolize the production of their product. If you want a Mac, you have to buy the computer from Apple. If you want a Windows machine, you can buy from Dell, Gateway (ugh), etc, or make it yourself.

Everybody "monopolizes" the production of their product. You can't buy a Dell from Sony, or a Playstation from Nintendo.Games Workshop isn't trying to halt the production of Warhammer products by other companies, or to stop the sale of other companies' mi

Re:Uh, what?

[Senjutsu]

Apple has shut down potentially profitable business plans (such as the clone plan). GW is doing something similar, only with sales channels instead of licensed clones. IOW, GW is shooting themselves in the foot just like Apple did.

So Apple not liscensing their proprietary technology to other companies so that they could make Apple compatible computers is in your mind just like GW refusing to allow online retailers to sell GW products? Huh? There's only two things that I can think of that would make this s

That's Capitalism.

[RatBastard]

GW will find out the hard way that people will not buy what they can not access. There are no GW shops where I live and probably never will be. The only options I have is to either buy on-line or have a friend shop for me, provided I have a friend near a GW shop.

Re:That's Capitalism.

[TopShelf]

This is an incredibly short-sighted decision that will ultimately cut GW off from a large number of customers. Every manufacturer has the right to do something like this, but they don't, for obvious reasons. Instead of merely saying "that's Capitalism," I'd say it's more of a short-term vs. long-term mistake...

Re:That's Capitalism.

[Ed Avis]

Are you sure they have the 'right' to do it? In many countries policies like this (limiting resale to certain outlets, setting a minimum price, etc) are considered anticompetitive and subject to investigation if the company concerned has a large market share.

Re:That's Capitalism.

[superdan2k]

Usually, they have it in a contract. For example, bicycle shops (I've worked in them 3 of the past 4 years) often have a contractual clause with the manufacturer/distributor (not always the same company) prohibiting them from selling the bikes on the Internet. For bikes, the reasons are obvious -- 1.) they come unassembled and require someone that actually knows what they're doing to put them together, and 2.) bike fit is extremely important (there's more to it than standover height, but that's an explana

It's called Price fixing.... Re:That's Capitalism.

[TedTschopp]

In the United States if you demand that a retailer sell something at a certain price, or you try to force the issue, you can go to jail.

That's why it called the manufactureres Suggested Retail Price or MSRP. GW is the manufacturer, they sell to distributers who sell to retailers, who sell to the public.

The problem is that GW doesn't like the fact that the mini's they make for $.25 and are sold to the distributer for $2.00 are being sold by internet retailers for $2.25 +S/H. Becuase at a GW owned store and at most Brick and Mortor stores, they go for $6.00.

Ted Tschopp

Re:That's Capitalism.

[Robotech_Master]

I dunno. We like to think that it's short-sighted, 'cuz, y'know, we want our net stuff. But according to a friend of mine, who is a major name in the gaming industry, having written or edited for many of the major gaming companies (and even written some tie-in novels for at least one of them), GW depends pretty much primarily on the retail outlets to survive--and the Internet sales are undercutting those to a substantial degree. And for a gaming company that's so heavily into miniatures, being able to sh

Re:That's Capitalism.

[Observador]

Try Their Site [games-workshop.com]
I'm sure they have one-click shopping...

Re:That's Capitalism.

[Shabbs]

You will still be able to buy on-line - but only directly from GW.

According to the usenet article by Neal of Warstore, GW informed him that:

Also effective July 15th, no stores besides their own will be permitted to sell GW products on the internet.

Looks like they want to contol all internet sales of their products.

And a good thing too.

[Moderation abuser]

If GW go bust, it'll do the RPG industry a world of good.

They decimate local gaming scenes when they open a store. The independant retailers in the area can't compete on price and also suddenly have enormous difficulty getting GW products which were till then profitable lines for them, they fairly quickly go out of business. Then the product lines available in the GW stores become very very limited and rather expensive.

The independant retailers weren't just shops, they were enthusiasts as well, hosting ga

Ugh.

[NetJunkie]

I hate this "you have to buy from a local retailer" BS. It's like this with a lot of AV equipment. I can't mailorder the speakers I want...they want me to get ripped off at a local dealer. So, I end up ordering from a grey market dealer for 1/2 MSRP.

The problem isn't with the Internet. If you want to charge more locally do it, but I better get some good service for the extra money. Plus, you better stock the exact model I want and not take 3 weeks to get it.

Re:Ugh.

[DownTheLongRoad]

I wish I could remember the marketing term for this. The reasoning is that if a customer can get a product for much less off the internet than in a store, they will waste the stores time getting information on the product(demonstrations and comparisons) and then buy the product online. Because of this, the store will stop carrying that brand of equipment. Compare the price of a laptop on a companies website to the price for the exact same laptop in a store. It's the same principle, keeping your supply chain happy and free from the fear of being undercut. Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, none of this is my opinion, it's from an MBA marketing textbook.

I worked at Circuit City years back and if people had the slightest idea what the mark-up was on some of the AV equipment/Accessories they buy, they would probably be physically ill. To go really off topic for a second, the items with the highest percent mark-up are batteries. That's the reason they are placed all over the store. Just some useless FYI ramblings.

Re:Ugh.

[Mononoke]

I wish I could remember the marketing term for this. The reasoning is that if a customer can get a product for much less off the internet than in a store, they will waste the stores time getting information on the product(demonstrations and comparisons) and then buy the product online. Because of this, the store will stop carrying that brand of equipment. Compare the price of a laptop on a companies website to the price for the exact same laptop in a store. It's the same principle, keeping your supply chain

Re:Ugh. (channel conflict)

[havaloc]

channel conflict [digitalenterprise.org] is the term your looking for, although I don't see it as a problem

Re:Ugh.

[hpavc]

they rip off the local dealer as well with huge quotas, large minimums, no discounting, etc. as if its some privledge in and of itself to have their products.

then enter their own local gw stores which dont have to deal with any of that.

Brick & Moarter costs $$$

[mmol_6453]

The problem is that brick & moarter stores cost a lot more to run than your average Internet shop. A low traffic location will cost you upwards of $200/month. Then you have to worry about keeping the store manned. (Remember, minimum wage means minimum quality) Also, all that equipment being demonstrated sucks up electricity. Even when it's "off." (It's really in standby) Then add shoplifting to your list of costs. There's probably a few things I'm missing here.

You can get managed hosting at Rack

How do these places survive

[gmhowell]

How do these places stay in business? The one near me (about 1 mile if it's any comfort) is in a mall with rather onerous rent. There is a comic book store a few miles away that seems to have the lock on geeks wanting to play games. But how do you pay mall rent by selling a a couple of miniatures? Is there really that much money in these things?

This sort of move (and I haven't read the article, so bite me if I base this solely on the blurb here:) is the 'head stuck in the sand' method that we lambast the RIAA and MPAA, among others, for. I see two possible rationalizations. First, Games Workshop needs to keep paying those mall/strip center rents. Second, they plan on selling online and don't want the competition.

Re:How do these places survive

[Grab]

Simple. The miniatures are bloody expensive, and they market the hell out of the most expensive ones. I quit (well, I'd really quit much earlier, but I totally gave up on ever restarting) when I found they were trying to flog a £20 miniature, and that was 5 years back.

Bearing in mind that GW is exclusively marketed at young teens (15 would be the top-end age) then these prices are phenomenal. I presume only kids with rich daddies can do it now - I don't think I'd bother starting now, given the cos

Re:How do these places survive

[Tony Lau]

I talked to Kyran Henry (Regional manager for GW in North America) 2 years ago and he explained their marketing model.

1. Saturate the retail market with retail stores (currently australia is the only market that is saturated).

2. Increase their own internet sales for the times that the local retailer doesn't carry the mini that the customer wants.

Not only do they already have the monopoly on their games, they also have a very strict retailer ordering policy with high minimum orders and desplay and stocking requirements. This forces retailers to buy insane amounts of mini's that nobody buys leaving 1000's of their wholesale dollars tied up in these worthless figs. Summary: GW subsidizes their mall locations as advertising to give the players the 'experience' while making their money off their internet sales and by making the independant 'local stores' pay for them with large orders for stuff that nobody buys.

Re:How do these places survive

[Guppy06]

They "survive" because in many ways Pudding Workshop operates with a Microsoft philosophy. Every year or so they release a whole new rule system totally incompatible with the previous version, requiring players to buy both new rulesets and new minis to go along with it, each of which include a hefty price tag.

And they get away with it mostly for the same reasons Microsoft does. Whenever you think of minis, you think WH40K and that's about it. You don't see much competition against them partly because of

Cock and Bull!

[Anonymous Coward]

What are they going to do about people selling painted miniatures on eBay and post pictures of the paint job?

Re:Cock and Bull!

[glesga_kiss]

That'll probably still be taken up by them. If you buy a painted miniature, then you haven't bought a new one & associated paint from them.

"Old business" methinks...

You can always go grey market.

[AltGrendel]

GW may try to track them down, but there are always distributors that overbuy stock to get a better discount.

Typical for them

[Captain Rotundo]

Games Workshop has always been way over priced and always used heavy handed tactics with merchants. How is this something new?

Re:Typical for them

[MrResistor]

My thoughts exactly. "Games Workshop is a bunch of assholes". Gee, that's news!

they have the gun loaded and aimed...

[anonymous loser]

And are getting ready to shoot themselves in the foot. I don't buy the "internet discount" theory because no matter what, they are getting their cut from the resellers.

What company in their right mind goes out of their way to make it more difficult for their customers to purchase their products?

When they are looking back at sales figures a year from now, and realize they took a nosedive right after implementing this bone-headed scheme, I'm sure they'll reconsider.

Re:they have the gun loaded and aimed...

[schon]

When they are looking back at sales figures a year from now, and realize they took a nosedive right after implementing this bone-headed scheme, I'm sure they'll reconsider.

No, they'll blame it on "internet piracy", or some-such other BS.

If they're this stupid now, they won't believe they're making a mistake in the future. That's the way boneheads think.

Ahh the glory days are fading...

[johny_qst]

I can remember when wargamers had a slew of options for what game to play. Now FASA is gone and after this little announcement I think WG will fall soon. I love those little miniatures, getting attached to them while painting makes there survivalin the game that much more important... but now I wonder if there will ever be another reason to drag them out and get a game going. Tabletop wargaming was awesome but I doubt I will ever get to play unless I go to GENCON. Thats sad...

Insights into GW and alternatives

[TeaDaemon]

Thought I'd take the opportunity to put my (british) 2p in. I used to play Warhammer 40k, dabbled with Adeptus Titanicus (think Mechwarrior but bigger and darker), and a number of the other GW games. Collected White Dwarf until about issue 130, with back issues down to about #20.

I gave up wargaming altogether at about age 13 when a blister of overscale lead minatures went from GBP 3 to GBP 4 overnight. I still think Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has one of the richest and most interesting backgrounds of any R

I'm so outraged

[greechneb]

I'm not going to buy it!!!!

Not that I could anyway, or probably would for that matter.

games-workshop.com

[microTodd]

I guess I'm missing something here.

www.games-workshop.com has an online store at their site.

Maybe they fear competition?

Re:games-workshop.com

[WankersRevenge]

I think you nailed it right there. I work for a company (who shall remain nameless) who simply loves our online store simply because its all gravy to them. They don't have to pay off reps or dealers. All of the money goes to them.

IMHO, I bet these guys are hurting financially and they are trying to make their website de facto place so they can maximize sales and pour on the gravy.

Just a thought. Correct me if I'm wrong (not that Slashdot would ever do that ;)

Re:games-workshop.com

[Dr Caleb]

Possibly.

I can't figure out their pricing strategy. (Disclaimer: I'm a Warhammer 40k addict) I went to a tournament in Calgary and bought a particular character at both the store in Edmonton (300km away) and at the tournament.

In the store, the box of 1 character is $28.00 CAD. At the tournament, individual frames of parts are $4.00. The character in question comes on 2 frames, so $8.00. Plus $.20 for a frame of the cool little green rods that the character needs. So total $16.20 for the same $28.00

Re:games-workshop.com

[yar]

According to the newsgroup thread, ONLY Games Workshop will be allowed to sell their products over the Internet.

They are using intellectual property theft as a main reason for taking this kind of action... I find that difficult to believe without their being more specific about the matter.

Re:games-workshop.com

[ObligatoryUserName]

I wouldn't doubt it. I've bought Games Workshop stuff, and their online store is very poor - it doesn't even do a good job of keeping items in your shopping cart. So, I'm guessing that poor user experience + higher prices means that all the online sales are going to retailers. Of course, the Games Workshop site usually has more information and better pictures than other online stores so when you're shopping online you still need/want to visit their site.

This action against retailers is not out of character

Smart business model

[grub]

1. Sell millions through internet "e-tailers"
2. Realize that too much profit is bad (for whatever reason)
3. Quit selling to "e-tailers"
4. ???
5. Bankruptcy!

Whatever.

[MAXOMENOS]

Honestly, I've gotten to the point where I could care less about Games Workshop games. The main appeal that they have is that they were set incredibly detailed and fascinating, if somewhat dark, universes. Unfortunately, the games just aren't as much fun as they used to be; they're vehicles for miniature sales, and I'm not into miniatures.

<p>I used to pick up novels set in the WH40k universe at <a href="http://www.powells.com/">Powells bookstore</a>. I guess I can kiss those goodbye. Oh w

"Dark" Warhammer universe

[No Such Agency]

It's still dark. Humanity is constantly battling for its existence against Chaos, but the human Empire is a religious-fascist hegemony which self-destructively purges dissent and heresy, through a perpetual Inquisition. Science is a thing of the past and artisans (re)produce technology with no knowledge of how it works. It almost makes the Orcs' destructive nihilism look at least honest.

But yes, it's very much marketed to 12 year olds.

Shouldn't be too much of a problem

[Otter]

Hey it's not like their entire customer base is hot-headed, demanding nerds with Napoleon fantasies...

Re:Shouldn't be too much of a problem

[protoshoggoth]

Hey it's not like their entire customer base is hot-headed, demanding nerds with Napoleon fantasies...

Actually it isn't. GW's target audience is no longer who it once was. GW sells a huge amount of product to the 12-and-under crowd, especially in the UK. They really don't like catering to demanding nerds, and prefer a more malleable audience with deep-pockets parents.

GW Strong Arm Tactics

[Shadow Wrought]

GW did this to retailers as well, albeit in a different way. According to the local gameshop, to carry GW merchandise you had to buy all of the miniatures for any particular game, not just some of them. And don't even think about returning what doesn't sell!

That's why my friends and I would buy the set, sell the minatures on, and then make cardstock chits for our battles. We just played a 3,000 point Warmaster battle for the total investment of the rules and the 2002 annual (about $50).

Suppose that's a DMCA violation because I made an apparatus to bypass their propriatary miniatures?

Open Source Gaming

[MAXOMENOS]

I'm thinking that if they come after us for playing their games without using their miniatures, the best thing to do would be to invent different rules and keep them under an open content license. After that, companies can compete to sell minis for the new open ruleset.

Re:Open Source Gaming

[Planesdragon]

I'm thinking that if they come after us for playing their games without using their miniatures, the best thing to do would be to invent different rules and keep them under an open content license. After that, companies can compete to sell minis for the new open ruleset.

*ahem*

http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/

An Open Gaming Content minatures system would be great. Unfortunatly, no one's done one yet.

Re:Open Source Gaming

[Shadow Wrought]

I agree whole heartedly. Sometimes it reminds of the Music Industry. If the miniatures were not so expensive, I would go ahead and buy them. For the battle I mentioned above, though, you're talking about a $300 investment! And then you are tied to a single army. My friends and I like to try different armies to get a different flavor each time. At $100-$300 an army (depending on the size of the battle) it just gets cost prohibitive.

Contrast that to Silent Death, a very fun space fighter game. The sta

Re:GW Strong Arm Tactics

[b1t r0t]

That's not all. I had this explained to me last month. If you don't do things "their way", as in stocking their entire range of stuff, and display it prominently, you'll get demoted to a "C" class retailer. For which you don't get much more of a discount than the average Joe who orders bulk direct from GW.

Basically, GW considers themselves to be an entire hobby, rather than being a part of the hobby of minatures gaming. They'd prefer it if people didn't even have a chance to use them as a "gateway drug" for minatures games from other companies.

Think of Microsoft times ten. Imagine if it wasn't just file formats in Office and site licensing that requires paying for Windows based on the number of PCs and Macs at a site. Imagine if they required stores to stock mostly Microsoft stuff, and to stock the entire Microsoft "hobby" line.

Re:GW Strong Arm Tactics

[Spasemunki]

You're not kidding. All of GW's promotional literature refers to it as 'The games workshop hobby'- little or no mention of role-playing, table-top gaming, or the idea that anyone other than GW might have ever thought of it. In addition to the numerous 'official' rules that GW has for retailers, I have heard from employees, owners, and managers of several independent or semi-independent (part of a non-GW chain) hobby shops that GW has a habit of 'loosing' orders from shops that don't stick to the party line (MSRP, for instance).

This is all heresay, of course, but a number of hobby shops in my area have exited the GW market entirely because they could no longer make a profit on it; they were being forced into ordering too much stock from GW, and then felt intimidated into selling it at prices that kept it from moving. They also have probably the highest 'churn rate' (rate of introducing 'new and improved' versions of products, and then discontinuing/depricating old ones) of any gaming company I've ever seen. They ban any miniature more than a few years old from any 'official' competition (cons, tournaments)- not old rules mind you, but old lumps of metal that look almost exactly like the new lumps of metal. Now, only the most dedicated of fans care a whit about these nerd-fests, and these are the people who have invested years, hours, and cash by the fistful in the hobby. And those are the poor saps getting shut out in the cold by GW.

The basic truth that a lot of people feel is that they no longer care about anyone old enough to notice or care about these things; they want to get 10 year olds hooked on it for two or three years, have their parents burn through a couple hundred buck at every holiday/birthday, and then chuck the whole thing in the trash in time for the next product cycle to start. Which is a shame, because long ago GW produced some of the most interesting games on the market (there are episodes of the old Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game that are still classics), but much of their new material (except for that produced by licensees like the all-too shortly lived Hogshead, and that under extreme conditions of creative restriction) is schlock- a conscious choice to aim at the least common attention span. If we're lucky, they'll draconian policy themselves into a turnaround when they realize there's not much money in being overpriced and disliked. . . but I'm not putting any money on it- just like I stopped giving GW any money when it became clear they were getting worse instead of better with regard to both their product and their policies.

Wait till you see how pissed GW will be....

[AMuse]

When they find out that these dirty "retailers" (AKA IP Pirates) have been -profiting- off their intellectual property!

The gaming industry...

[craenor]

Is an industry that is still small enough that I think it thrives off of cooperation and team work, rather then the type of cut throat competition you more commonly find in other industries.

For this reason, I have personally refused to purchase merchandise from GW. I feel that they do more to attack to the industry then they do to build it up.

Once the rpg and/or board game/miniatures industry is even close to being as big as the computer games industry...then by all means, go at each other tooth and n

Games Workshop Hates Customers

[forand]

When I was in highschool and playing WH and the like there was a big split in Games Workshop that resulted in the creation of Warzone which is basically a WH clone but the cost of the figures was MUCH cheaper and the quality much higher. Games Workshop drove their modelers from their company by making the game too expensive to be played by your average High School student and making the working environment intollerable. Games Workshop seems to think they can do whatever they want and the customers will still buy their overpriced product and up till now they have been correct, maybe this will be the straw that broke the camels back. Question: How does this look on a legal front? How can a distributer say that the location of a store is grounds for not distributing to that store? I don't know anything about the relevent laws and thought someone might.

Re:Games Workshop Hates Customers

[anonymous loser]

Question: How does this look on a legal front? How can a distributer say that the location of a store is grounds for not distributing to that store? I don't know anything about the relevent laws and thought someone might.

This will be determined entirely by the reseller agreement. Most agreements of this nature have to be renewed periodically anyway (e.g. once a year, the CEO has to sign on a dotted line to say they're still doing business with XYZ Internet Reseller) so it could be that they will simply

Good question! Bad answer.

[watchful.babbler]

IANAATL (I Am Not An Anti-Trust Lawyer), but...

A deal in which a retailer agrees not to operate an e-commerce site in exchange for the ability to purchase the supplier's goods -- part of a class of contracts broadly known as "non-price vertical restraints" -- is subject to the "rule of reason [findlaw.com]:" the proscription is examined in conjunction with the competitive state of the market to determine if the activity is illegal.

Generally speaking, these contracts have been upheld; see, e.g., O.S.C. v. Apple, 792 F

The only reason for this sort of thing

[Rocketboy]

Is because their retail dealers are screaming about internet (and before the net, mail order dealers,) undercutting them on price. That's the only reason for a manufacturer to take this kind of action, every other excuse is smoke and fluff.

If they survive the drastic drop in sales (which always happens when companies do this,) they'll be back on the net shortly. How quickly it happens depends on how much of their sales came from Internet sources. If internet sales accounted for much of their revenue they'll be back quickly; if not, they may just fade away. They don't have enough retail exposure (enough retailers carrying their stuff) to pretend the play the mass market game.

Re:The only reason for this sort of thing

[ivan256]

Is because their retail dealers are screaming about internet (and before the net, mail order dealers,) undercutting them on price.

Most of the retail dealers *are* the internet dealers. The problem really is that other websites are taking business away from games-workshop.com.

If you ask me, the damned things are too expensive anyway. Especially when you can have just as much fun with a ruleset that doesn't require hundreds of dollars in miniatures purchases.

In other news...

[Bendebecker]

They also have decided that electritic lights and paper money don't give the GW customer the right 'experience'. So from now on they will be using torches and only excepting gold coins (or in the case of japanese made wargames, only gil.)

gw

[Satai]

GW used to be a much different organization. As they became bigger and bigger, it seems like they really lost touch with the gamers, and they kept targetting a younger and younger crowd. I mean, if you can, get your hands on a copy of "Rogue Trader" -- and then compare the feel of the rules to the ones from the latest edition of WH40k. They've added more models, and yeah, they're better models, but it feels like they've surrounded them in a web of dense, arbitrary rules.

I suppose that's necessary, for the climate of gaming nowadays. It's much more important to win than to play, which it didn't feel like when I first got into WH/WH40k oh-so-long ago.

Well, anyway, this doesn't surprise me. TSR went through a phase like this, before WotC bought them out. Remember when all the online D&D supplements were curiously void of any actual references to D&D? I think GW is making that same transition -- from a company made of gamers to a company selling to gamers.

The problem really is

[Shamanin]

that darn ruler doesn't scale well to a computer monitor. With minitures, how can you effectively gauge your movement range, missle fire, etc?

3d printer

[s4m7]

boy am i glad that i invested in one of those 3d resin printers... I've been downloading all of Games Workshop's models off of usenet, where some dude with one of those 3d scanners has been posting them! I have all of GW's catalog and the only money i've spent is on the "printing" resin! Eat that RIAA!

Way to cut out a large portion of sales, GW!!

[analog_line]

Intellectual property protection by not allowing someone to sell a paper book or metal miniatures online? Bwah?

Complete and total lunacy. Howling at the moon. I know Game Workshop has been setting their lawyers loose on people posting PDFs of their books online, and I can certainly understand that, but this is just plain crazy. Saying no one but you can sell on the Internet is a sure way to drive the people who sell your products into the grave. If Games Workshop gets hurt by this (stores just stopping selling GW products) maybe it won't get too far, but I doubt it. If I ran a hobby shop selling Games Workshop material, I'd probably just start closing down, selling off all my stock cheap, and get into a stable, sane industry. Once Games Workshop gets away with it, Wizards, Wizkids, and White Wolf will too, and then no hobby store worth patronizing will be able to have any kind of Internet presence other than "we are located here" with a poorly drawn dragon on their logo. I hope that doesn't happen. I hope GW gets slapped hard, but I doubt it. Their stuff is too popular.

Way to try and turn back the clock on an entire industry.

Games Workshop has always been anticompetitive

[drinkypoo]

For instance, the rules say that you can only use Games Workshop-licensed minatures in games. While you're just playing with your friends it's one thing, but if you want to field three land raiders or something, you have to shell out the $50 each for those model kits. (They're pretty high quality plastic models, but they don't have very many pieces at all, so you're paying strictly for licensing/the name. A similar model from testors or someone would be like eight bucks.)

how channels work

[boskone]

What GW is probably trying to do is protect their resellers' profit margins.

For instance, what a lot of people do is talk to the local guy, use up all his time and ideas, and then buy online from someone who is cheaper because they don't spend all day helping customers and providing a value-add. Therefore, you see the people who were providing all the quality customer service go out of business because they can't spend all that time helping people and compete with the low price guys. The same thing is in retail computer space, that's why the level of customer service is so abysmal IMHO. People would go pick the brains of the people who would spend time with them, and then go and order online or from some cheap guy that doesn't help them.

So, this makes it so that the stores which ostensibly put in the effort to educate customers and generate sales get crushed and the stores that add no value do well... BUT once the stores that provided the value go away, then you tend to get the whole manufacturer's sales go down because no one is helping the customers. You'll get some guys that will keep buying, but you'll not get many new customers.

THere are exceptions to this, and it sounds like they do need more resellers if their nearest one is over an hour away for someone, but they probably do have channel management reasons for wanting to make all their people compete evenly.

Re:how channels work

[ArmorFiend]

Heh,
I don't buy this "value add" thing. Even before the internet all the GW stores I went to had surly, greedy propriators. And why is that? I think its because GW intentionally breeds an "its all about the money" attitude. I once got to read the magazine they produce only for retailers, and it had a few telltale sentaces like: "soon your profits will be ballooning faster than your customer's belt sizes!"

I think warhampster is clearly a money collector just like Pokemon. If you really like miniatures wargaming there are several systems out there that do not require $500 + 100 hours to get into. Pernsonally I like Ogre [sjgames.com]

Pardon my ignorance, but...

[gosand]

For instance, what a lot of people do is talk to the local guy, use up all his time and ideas, and then buy online from someone who is cheaper because they don't spend all day helping customers and providing a value-add. Therefore, you see the people who were providing all the quality customer service go out of business because they can't spend all that time helping people and compete with the low price guys.

Seriously, pardon my ignorance, but why exactly do you need to consult with a salesperson about buying miniatures? What value do they add? Consulting a salesperson on a computer if you don't know much about them? I can buy that. But purchasing miniatures for a game? I don't get it.

I have actually been in a GameWorks, I went to lunch with a couple of friends who were into it and they went in to buy some stuff. To tell you the truth, the place kind of creeped me out. And I didn't see anyone working too hard in there either.

Re:Pardon my ignorance, but...

[Annatar2]

Not sure how much expierence you have with war gamming but there are a lot of factors to take into account. Basically with Warhammer (and a lot of other games), you have several various 'factions'. Humans, Eldar, Orkz, Necron ect. Each faction tends to have different strengths and weaknesses. In those 'factions' you then have tons of different sub factions, also with things that they excel in and things that the do poorly in. For example Humans have the Space Marines and their various chapters. Within these sub-factions you now have several hundred different minatures to choose from, each on has different bonuses and negatives that need to be taken into consideration when fielding an army. Figuring out which faction best suits your playing style, and then which minatures will offer you the best bang for their fielding costs can be an awful lot of work. Just take a look at the many forums run for Warhammer, and all the army advice people ask for. Having someone close by, such as a neighborhood hobby store guy, that you can go in and chat to face to face about the various positives and negatives of a particular army you're thinking of fielding, and what he'd recommend against say a Skink horde is an invaluable resource. The thing is the majority of the players who play at a venue (some place that sells WH), buy from that venue to support it. The more assistance a particular venue offers, generally the more players will purchase from them. The thing with WH though is that from what I've seen, the majority of sales that do not happen from an actual retail location (neighborhood hobby store), take place on e-bay as resale. I'm curious how GW is going to deal with this type of competition.

hahahaha

[B3ryllium]

I wouldn't want to be their marketing people right now.

Screw 'em

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

Dunno if this has changed one bit, but when they were starting to get big, you couldn't buy a complete game from them.

Additional rules, errata, new rules from the magazine they published, etc etc etc. You couldn't play a complete game because no game was ever complete. Nevermind playing a tournament.

I saw them back then for what they are: Money grubbing bastards. Seems little has changed.

one word

[qbproger]

eBay

Bet you can find any of the pieces on there. Let's see them try to stop every Tom, Dick, and Harry from selling their pieces.

gasping?

[MrLint]

While I am not into the gaming scene (anymore), this appearent action by GW seems to walk a well trodden road. Company isnt as successful as they used to be, starts to target resellers, customers, etc that they believe are misuing their whatever stuff. Decides to retake control of their whole market via dumbass maneuvers that piss people off or by legal action. i think most recently we can see this in SCO.

Clever tactic to grow the wargaming market

[Infonaut]

Now, now. Let's not overreact people! This is actually a clever ploy by GW to kick-start the miniature games market. As we all know, tabletop gaming hasn't exactly been growing by leaps and bounds lately. Computer/console games have eaten into their market and cut profits.

So now GW is doing the right thing by making it more difficult for gamers to buy their products. This will grow the market by... uh... wait... by... uh... .

Colossally stupid

[dr_canak]

This is one of the most colossally stupid business decisions I have ever heard of. Miniature gaming is an *extremely* niche market with alot of competition. Cutting off any market share at all just makes no sense whatsoever. Yes I understand that you can still get it online through their website, but it's still remarkably limiting.

I can't imagine where other game companies, like Mayfair, WOC, etc... would be if they forced you to buy from brick and mortar stores. I live in Chicago, and finding the exact game product you might be looking for at the time isn't always easy. To restrict access to your product (a product that only a few 1000 people may be purchasing at any one time) is just plain dumb.

just me .02
jeff

Same GW, different decade

[sandbenders]

Games Workshop is once again trying to funnel money to their own retail stores and their own web site, rather than independent retailers. They have a consistent history, from the late eighties, when I started to play their games, of screwing independents whenever possible- for a while they were forcing game stores to become "Chapter Approved" to sell their stuff, which means you sign an agreement giving them more money.
This policy of only them being allowed to sell their merchandise via the Internet is just more of the same.They are doing their best to become the Microsoft of the gaming world, and it's the reason I quit buying things from them ten YEARS ago. It's a damn shame, too, because their creative arm is the best in the business, by far. I made the switch to pen and paper games, like Gurps [sjgames.com], and eventually computer games.
I think as Games Workshop continues to alienate their customers with sketchy sales practices, aggressive pricing, and constantly re-releasing newer versions of old models, forcing a collector to re-buy his army every few years to participate in tournaments, they will eventually piss off their players to the point that they will seek other things to do with their spare time. There's no shortage of other options, including intelligent, geek-friendly gaming companies like Steve Jackson Games [sjgames.com]. [I have no affiliation, I just think they're cool.]

I may be reading too much into this, but....

[King_TJ]

I have to wonder if this isn't also part of a larger issue?

Namely, the creators of these fantasy/role-playing games and miniatures attained their initial glory and status in the "pre-Internet" era. (By that, I mean, John Q, Gamer wasn't actively using an Internet browser at home or playing many games online.)

Companies like TSR made oodles of cash selling D&D books at $30 a pop through the local hobby shops, and items like the minitatures were soon to follow.

Nowdays, the prevalence of computers,the net, and online gaming seems like it is eating into their market. I guess some companies adapted better than others. (Look at how TSR went into the computer simulation game business in a *big* way.) In general though, I suspect the changes are somewhat lost on them.

I can easily see how they'd view the web and computer gaming as "the enemy" - since it would seem to be drawing folks away from a world of using one's own imagination to game, while establishing a "concreteness" to the whole thing by the purchase of small figurines. (In the virtual world, you simply look at photos of your favorite characters - perhaps as wallpaper or screen savers? The games provide a multimedia experience so you don't need to imagine what some "dungeon master" is trying to describe to you with just words.)

Games Workshop stopped being about fun and games..

[Idimmu Xul]

and became full on corperate whore about 6 years ago.

This totally doesn't come as a surprise.

An experienced business man would say:

[coolgeek]

When you sign up to distribute a vendors' wares, typically this is done under the terms of a contract. The contract is a written documentation of the terms agreed to by both parties.

Most vendors will put a revision clause in, "subject to modification with 90 days notice" (which is generous IMO). Which means that the vendor can terminate the contract with 90 days notice, if merchants refuse to accept a new contract.

So what's to bitch about? Any GW merchants signed a contract, showing their agreement with

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Warhammer

[phantomlord]

I was first introduced to Warhammer Fantasy about 10 years ago. I had started playing by using someone else's minis (I used Bretonnian figures though I play Chaos) but eventually started buying my own. Going to the local gaming store, a single (small) mini was in the $6-10 range while big minis (like the Chaos gods) were in the $45 range.

I started participating in auctions online and collecting an army for roughly half the price of what I was paying at the store. My army grew to more than 120 pieces before GW decided "welp, it's time to change the Chaos rule book and all the minis so we can make more money selling people new versions of what they already have." Fortunately, I only played with friends and not in tournaments since they banned all older minis from the tournaments. I couldn't see any reason to go out and by another Blood Thirster of Khorne when the one I already had was adequate enough.

Even back in those days, GW was trying to strong arm online retailers and auctioners into not giving discount prices. If anything, those prices made it easier for GW to clear out their old stock to bring in the new line. I certainly never would have as many minis as I do now if I had to pay full retail on all of them. Seems like they only want to shoot themselves in the foot. I wonder what they would think about how I created molds and copied some of the minis I had bought for my own use ($6 a pop for infantry level guys gets rather rough).

Old pfart time

[Rocketboy]

I started gaming over 30 years ago. Avalon Hill board games were the big thing then and Strategy & Tactics magazine (with a board game in every issue.) D&D in high school (the original three booklets: #4 when released was a BIG event, the first addition to the rules in a long time.) I spent most of my time with minatures and I played just about everything and anything: Napoleonic era, American Civil War, English Civil War, ancient, medieval, WWI, WWII and modern armor, naval minatures (had the darndest WWI Austro-Hungarian fleet you ever saw -- a Tatra class DD squadron was enormous fun! Trouble was, you only had the one squadron: that's all they built...)

Anyway, I spent most of my post-pubescent years up through the first few years of my marriage with this stuff. A number of years ago my son got interested in one of the fantasy games (I forget which one.) After some research I advised him to not get too heavily into it. There were two reasons: cost, and the heavily commercialization surrounding it. He ended up buying a starter set of minatures, building them and painting them, then didn't play much. He noticed one of the killer errors of previous generations of poorly designed games: they take too long to play and too much of that time is spent nosing through the rules.

Tractics was the original "encyclopedic" game I recall playing. I call it encyclopedic because you couldn't play the thing without continuous reference to a thick book of complex rules. Tractics (rules for modern armor -- read that as tanks and infantry -- minatures) games could go on for eight hours and you'd discovered that you'd only played six turns, with no outcome in sight. Deeply frustrating.

One of my buddies, a very bright guy, condensed and abstracted Tractics into a playable set of rules that yielded 95%+ identical results in about six pages of rules, most of which were easily memorized tables. Basically, he refactored Tractics into something playable (and much more enjoyable) that you could get a full game, 20+ turns out of, in six to eight hours. A group of about 20 or so of us played these rules for about 10 years, (and for all I know are still playing them: I dropped out about the time my first kid was born.)

The point? Gaming goes through cycles, just like everything else. The first D&D was very playable but it got popular, more rules were written (mostly to have something to sell,) and it stopped being fun. The days when you could spend an enjoyable afternoon running through a dungeon as a somewhat unstable Orc with a spear are long gone. Lots of companies were formed, sold a bunch of stuff and disappeared. Other companies looked at the field, saw the litter of commercial corpses, and decided to make other games instead. This left things open for gamers to sell the stuff they loved and games got good again. Once someone started to make money again the commercialization process started all over, which is where things are today.

Personally I've moved on to computer games. Talonsoft has (or had, I dunno,) a great line of PC games for old minatures freaks, and there are a lot of choices. It isn't the same as moving a squadron of Hussars across a tabletop river, or trying to figure out where your opponent has hidden his weapons platoon with those damned mortars, but it's a lot easier than finding another minatures player who actually knows some history to game with. So this company has done something stupid and will, in all probability, flame out. So what: that's part of the life cycle. Gaming won't lose much, from what I've seen of their products.

A tale of two philosophies...

[reimero]

It sounds like GW is trying to increase profits and push their retailers by using the philosophy that their games are popular, thus people will buy them, so they should have to pay full price. In short, the product sells itself and they can charge whatever they want. I've noticed other companies (*cough*Wizards of the Coast*cough*) trying to do the same thing.

By comparison, other game companies are taking the exact opposite approach: they encourage local retailers to stock what they can, no requirements about "you must take such-and-such to get such-and-such" and simply let the market decide. They actively go out and promote communities around their games and gaming in general. They tend to devote a lot of time to the community. From what I can tell, Kenzer & Co. [kenzerco.com] is one of the best examples out there (they publish the comic Knights of the Dinner Table, as well as Hackmaster, Kingdoms of Kalamar, Fairy Meat and Dwarven Dig.) Their message boards are literally the heart of their community, but the neat thing is that the major names all participate in the discussions. More to the point, the major names even take part in the esoteric discussions of favorite B-movies. Heck, the other day, Gary Gygax popped in and briefly talked about a stuffed koala he used to own!! When discussing the games and the rules, etc, they give the distinct impression that player feedback matters.

The result of this is that they've fostered a fanatically loyal fan base who voluntarily spend money on products to ensure that the company stays afloat. GW would do well to foster that kind of relationship with their fans.

Worst Price-to-Product Ratio of any commodity

[ashitaka]

Seriously.

Little plastic or metal figurines. Once the original has been designed, you just churn them out by the millions. Most are just derivations of older designs anyway.

So why do these things cost C$30-C$50 each??!!

Unpainted.

TSR

[I_am_God_Here]

Isn't it similar type of thinking (different actions and time) that caused TSR so much trouble. Produce dervitive products, rarely innovate, deal with not very good business partners, no major marketing effort( as in TV, or Newspapers, target sci-fi shows and college newspapers), failing to reach new customers. If GW wants to see what not to do, TSR from a few years ago would be ripe with examples.

Hobby Stores can't compete at lower prices.

[thbigr]

I have a close friend who owns a Hobby Store which is the local Games Workshop re-seller. It is hard for them to make a living with the availability of cheep online stuff. Most sell at a 10-20 percent discont, which is the REAL problem.

You can always buy online from GamesWorkshop web site it self. There is no dicount however.

I hope the Hobby Store can stay in business, they offer tables to play and gather. I lecture the kids at the store all the time when they brag about buying this and that online for 50-75% off. You should support the hobby store or not play there.

Eventually the trend will be one source for these things, and no local places selling. This is bad for the economy.

Think globally, shop locally.

-Richard

Re:Hobby Stores can't compete at lower prices.

[unicron]

You're fucking kidding right? My local hobby store is staffed by a random high school pretty boy at any given time. I've never seen the same one twice. He doesn't know thing 1 about anything in the store. He works there because he'll work for peanuts and he's free every night. He has a look of UTTER contempt and hatred for any person that comes in there. The little kids he outright punks, the older people(like me) just get ignorned or shot icy glares. FUCK my local gaming store.

Oh, and the ones where people know their shit aren't any better.."Dude, seriously, can you put down your pokemon cards long enough to ring this up?" "Sir, I'm trying to explain to this customer how to play.." "Explain shit, motherfucker, that kids been in here 6 hours, he has more pokemon cards than your store as whole does..his fucking face is on that tournament magazine over there..now ring this shit up or I'll punch you in the throat!"

And that's on a good day.

Also, exposure...

[Mu*puppy]

I'm a tabletop gamer, both WH40K and Battlefleet Gothic, though I wasn't always. My first exposure to GW products came when my friend dragged me along to a local gaming store that happened to carry the GW line. A few people at the store were playing 40K, so we stopped for a while to watch. I liked it, began my own army, and the rest is history.

One thing many of you don't seem to consider, is that most gamers (cards, tabletop, etc) spread information by word of mouth. When it comes to gaming stores, word

Re:Hobby Stores can't compete at lower prices.

[Erik Fish]

I used to be a big supporter of both of my local hobby stores until recently. The manager of one of them has instructed his clerks to use high-pressure sales tactics on everyone who walks in the door. So whenever you go in now you get "MAY I HELP YOU?!" and when you say "No thanks, I'm just looking" the clerk proceeds to follow you around the store while yammering about whatever product your eye falls on for more than a half second. God forbid you pick anything up and look at it -- they'll be pressing ar

Well, it's good news for Whiz Kids...

[Thag]

Because if I were an indie store owner I'd be pushing Clix like a fiend after being treated like this.

Jon Acheson

GW Corp Policy

[Anonymous Coward]

okay, so i used to work for GW (I actually did the casting of the miniatures at their baltimore site - mind that i said casting and not sculpting). a friend of mine headed up the north american mail order dept. he showed me some numbers one day and explained the how-and-why of gw.

basically, they give crap-all about retail stores (their own or the indy's the push into being chapter approved). it's all just exposure. as he explained it to me, 80% of their revenue came in through mail-order (this was '95). 80% in north american, 80% asia/australia, and 80% in europe. at the time (and most likely now) they were the largest mail-order gaming company in the world. period.

so what's changed? nothing. you can buy online and i'm quite sure that gw isn't interested in anyone else profitting off their very lucractive mail/online-order business without shelling out some serious cash to become "chapter approved". it's just their business strategy - plain and simple.

that said, i used to be able to buy the miniatures by weight. that means an eight dollar item normally cost me about six cents. models were 50% off. but i left the company after being told that i needed to paint the "games workshop" way or not field an army. which pissed me off because i paint very well, just not their way. gw is the most ridiculously overpriced gaming company ever. this part of my rant is going nowhere fast...

to summarize: gw + mail/online-order = profit.

that's really all there is to it. honest.

What IP?

[Sloppy]

There's no way that displaying pictures of physical mechandise, can possibly be a copyright violation or "IP theft", unless you're using a picture that someone else took.

If there's a copyright violation, my guess is that it's either due to all the stores all using the same images that the manufacturer actually made, or they're using the manufacturer's trademark logos, as opposed to simply using the name as part of an item's description. The stuff about copyright violation is probably either bullshit, or it's something easy to avoid infringing. A seller can just get a $200 digital camera and take pictures of the merchandise themselves, and that's that. Use the manufacturer's name to describe who made the product, rather than using their logo or possibly confusing customers about whether you represent that manufacturer or not.

Setting heinous terms of sale, though, is probably do-able. If you want to buy a bunch of stuff from the manufacturer at below list price (so that you can resell it at a profit), then they can get you to agree to whatever terms they want to try to get from you, in exchange for that lower price. If you don't like the terms (which might say that selling over the net is prohibited) then you don't have to buy the items. I suspect they'll get away with that. But as everyone else is pointing out, the thing that they'll "get away with" will probably not really be to their advantage. (Just as if I were to put an ad in the paper saying I'm selling a Honda Civic, Honda can't do a damned thing about it.)

I don't see why this is a big deal or how "EVERY INTERNET BUSINESS" is threatened. And I can't imagine there are any serious barriers to someone else opening a manufacturing business that does the same thing and competes and blows these guys to hell It's not like there are patents on pouring molten pewter (or whatever these things use) into a mold, are there? (If there were, they would have expired centuries ago, no?) I bet this is a craft where the playing field is very level. (Now someone will shoot me down for my ignorance. Fine, show me.)

Shell game

[iamsure]

So they wont sell to retailers that sell online.

No problem.

You set up two companies, one online, one off.

The offline company runs a retail location (address is street address of far away mailboxes etc). It sells to any and all -- shockingly its biggest account is.. duh duh DUUUh - the online company.

It aint brain science.. No retailer has to reveal who they sell to nor how much they sell at.

Dumbasses!

[rice_burners_suck]

Hmmm... They're a bunch of dumbasses!

I mean, let's use a little bit of common sense here: You've got a product to sell. Maybe some people out there want to buy it. In that case, you must make this product as visible as possible so that people who might buy it will buy it!

That's how things work! Some person or company feels like producing some kind of product. Some people or companies might feel like buying that product. It doesn't matter what rationale goes into the decision to make or buy the product. What matters is the fact that everybody does what they want. As such, I don't blame this Games Workshop or whatever for their decision. It's just their decision... The FACT that this will COST them in sales is simply the result of the formula that is the marketplace.

So, yeah... they're dumbasses.

Re:Stupid sites suck.

[Randolpho]

Disable javascript. Problem solved. :D

Seriously, though, I agree. I hate the "please don't copy/paste our text" crap, when anyone worth his salt can easily just view the source and get the info they're trying to hide.

Contradiction with GW stated IP policy?

[Paul Brown]

From the Usenet post -

Games Workshop is disturbed by the infringement of copyrights on their intellectual property so rampant on the internet. Therefore to protect their IP GW will be closing the internet to all uses of their intellectual property except for a handful of permitted images.

However, GW's (current?) IP policy is very encouraging in tone, quote: "the higher profile the hobby gets the better it is for all of us". The full policy is here - http://www.gamesworkshop.com/Legal/ippolicy.htm

Is t

Re:A fairly simple solution...

[Erwos]

As a frequent eBay purchaser of GW merchandise, it's not all sunshine to buy auction-style. Often, it's difficult to get exactly what you want, and the good prices are only for older, suckier models that you might need to strip of paint first (hello, PineSol!).

If you've got the patience, you can often get better (if not far more infrequent) deals with individuals getting out of the hobby. Once, I got about 42 _metal_ minis (CSMs, if you care) for $50. It was a stunningly good deal, despite that I needed to