"GW sucker punches fan base for specialist games." Topic

Getting beyond the expected GW hate that always occurs in any thread about the company, I can rationally see why GW did this -- to prevent confusion on the part of the consumer. TalkBloodBowl can still exist -- just change the domain name (I know it's not as easy as that, but who's fault is that, really? GW's, or the domain owners that failed to do the proper research?). Sure it sucks, but maybe the website owner should have done his research first.

Damon.

I don't know why most people even bother with GW these days. There are so many manufacturers of figures that GW is a blip on the radar for me now.

Mechanical Horizon uttered:

Michael Moorcock should have sued GW a long time ago

To which Pat Ripley replied:

At one time GW/Citadel produced a range based on his books. I still have Tanglebones and a few other of the named characters. The pointy helmeted high elves are based on some of the infantry they produced for this line.

Some photos of the Eternal Champion figures based on Moorcock's work are here: picture
picture
picture

I don't recall Moorcock specifically describing the Melnibonean panapoly so if GW ripped anyone off by making their High Elves (and Dark Elves to some extent) visually similar, it was themselves.

And, a good reason why GW actually has to be near-fanatical in their protection of IP can be seen in this case: link (that's not to say that GWs legal weasels can't be overly aggressive at times).

Wyatt

Actually Rick Priestly has to call himself something different at weekends or time off from working for GW or a subsidary, because he didn't read the small print on his employment contract. BT have had to remove all Priestlys from the phone book. ;)

Shall we start the following sites?
WhyWeDislikeGamesWorkshop.Com
GamingErrorsInWarhammer40K.Com
Warhammer-WhatACockUp.com

GW would like to pretend that they are Disney or Universal Studios, protecting some vastly valuable IP.

Grand illusion and the reality of waking up will set in one day…they could have been something so much more, without lies and bullying people.

GW I am glad they are big enough to churn out plastics that I can modify as I see fit…hopefully there will be some change soon.

For the better.

For once.

And for god's sake through the ring in this time…

After taking over Advanced Squad Leader, MMP did the same thing, but it wasn't aimed at websites – it was aimed at all the home companies that were producing scenario packs, maps, counters, mini-campaigns, etc., without their or AH's consent. Different situation, I know, but it was interesting to see it up close and personal at the time. That's where all the Critical Hit goofiness came from. Most of the others simply sold out their stock and called it quits, but the CH guy redesigned everything and created an "ASL compatible" game. Our game club had done scenarios for our tournament and IIRC they got on us until we pointed out that we had made arrangement with AH to do so and had paid a licensing fee (the fee was a mere formality – I think we paid them $1, but that's what they asked for).

Last Hussar are those sites down for a reason?
I think I already know the answer.

Talk Blood Bowl actually had active GW staffers on site that were answering questions and in the process of developing the new system. TBB probably brought a lot of players to this game and kept it in the limelight. It would seem that the site actually benefited them more than it could ever hurt them.

Infact, two of our club members who had sworn off GW games was considering dropping a lot of cash on WHFB. They even were trying to talk others into getting back into it. Then this lovely piece of news came out and now they are buying Armies of Arcana instead and one is lokking at Confrontation. Two players turned away for WHFb is at least a loss of 6-700 USD for them, not to mention the others they would have drawn back in.

And instead of propagating our Blood Bowl league, we will be starting an Elfball league instead. I figure that will cost them another 2-4oo USD. With this type of buisness plan, I think they are making a mistake. I have two boys 4 & 6 who are interested in gaming, guess what…I'll be steering them clear if possible.

There is no wonder some circles reffer to them as Grandma Wendy. Not only is it derogatory, but it also keeps the censors off their back. (my apologies to any real grandmothhers named Wendy).

I guess I'm completely done with GW. I stopped playing WFB when they released 6th edition. I stopped playing 40k when 4th came out. I was still playing Bloodbowl since it was so much more "by the fans for the fans" but now they shut down where all the fans (and the Blood Bowl Rules Council who actually edits and maintains the Blood Bowl Rules) talk about their game. It's nonsense and I'll have no more of it. My BB stuff is going up on eBay and that's that.

TalkBloodBowl can still exist -- just change the domain name (I know it's not as easy as that,

Actually, it is very easy to do and it's not even particularly expensive.

You buy a new domain name. Cost $ 20 a year, which you were paying anyway. You redirect all your traffic from the old name for a while before completely going over.

A diligent host might search his logs for sites making referrals to his site and send an e-mail to them asking them to update their links to the new name and address. Tedious, but neither difficult nor expensive.

In fact what most people contacted will do is make a new post/blog indicating the change, thereby driving up traffic.

link

IT's really funny when gaming companies take themselves so seriously they forget where they came from and who they are selling to.

Look at your typical 40K player (No dig at the long-time players) – He's supposed to be a hardcore, death metal spikes and mood sort of guy…

Yes, this is just the sort of guy who responds well to having his favorite forum shut down.

GW cannot be picky either. Unless they go after EVERY sight that uses their IP and not just the ones they see as "harmful" they are not really leaving themselve's much of a leg to stand on.

With IP it really is all or nothing. Any gray leave it right open.

-Eli

Gee, this activity isn't like GW at all. I wonder what could be wrong. Possession perhaps? A Chaos deamon?

You know one of these days they are going to run into someone who will not cave in to them.

Then they just might have to go to court and in some countries they just might lose.

Nathaniel, I quit playing WFB and 40K back around 2002/2003 due to their games just turning to crap.

Yes but Mark Plant, how do you restore the lost ranking in search engines?

I used to work for GW, but that was 20 years ago. I pretty much gave up fantasy gaming before Warhammer came out, I used Reaper rules (the original set that Warhammer was based on) in the 1970s and early 1980s. I don't own many GW products, don't buy White Dwarf so I've no axe to grind on this issue.
Nevertheless, I do understand the GW stance. Taking it from my own perspective as a writer, I was shocked to see some of my gamebooks from the 1980s on a website which described them and others as "abandonware". They were not, they had been scanned and illegally posted on the site. After emailing the offending material was removed, but a number of people on a Yahoo Group were angry that I was "heavy handed" with the website owner.
Now I see many of my books on file sharing websites and the arrogant bastards that run these proudly announce that they do not respond to IP threats and that the material isn't on their websites anyway. To add insult to injury, many of the download sites charge users to illegal obtain copyright protected material.
Before people jump down my throat, my work is as a writer, not a philanthropist. Copyright violation and IP abuse is theft. There is absolutely no difference between that and breaking into someone's house and nicking their property. Its worse in fact, more like deliberately stealing a cabbie's vehicle to deny him the ability to earn a living.
I do understand where GW is coming from on this issue. I don't frequent those fan sites at all, not interested in them. Heavy handed, yes. Relevant to the prosperity and future of GW? Maybe. There's a narrow line to walked in allowing fair use, free speech and all that compared to turning a blind eye to copyright and IP theft, passing off and undermining the business and its products.

I should also add that many of the GW products aren't that particularly original, but they do have a distinct style and theme.
I do find it odd how little some of the "fringe" games like Bloodbowl are supported compared (presumably) to the more profitable mass army orientated product lines.

As a long-time user of TBB I was understandably peeved at this turn of events. The main points that came from discussion before the final closure (once the initial "! anger-anger-anger" had blown over – moments for some, days for others) were:

- yes, companies have the right to protect their IP

- we are not amused, this was not a polite way of doing things, particularly as TBB is the forum in which the official GW Rules Reviews for Bloodbowl are (at least in part) formulated

- it would have been very easy to send a request, with a changeover time-period, which would have caused a minimum of mild irritation only

- TBB has been going for at least nine years with regular and sustained GW-employee use

- the abruptness and rudeness of this (admittedly legitimate) demand will push TBB users away from GW

As others have mentioned earlier in this thread, this is bad business sense – I for one will be making conscious decisions to avoid GW products where possible. I will also not be attending the (expensive) Grand Tournament in May; I have been to 3 of the last 4.

"I do find it odd how little some of the "fringe" games like Bloodbowl are supported compared (presumably) to the more profitable mass army orientated product lines."

Funny you mention that. Some of my favorite games ever have been:

Blood Bowl,
Rogue Trader,
Space Hulk
Battlefleet Gothic…

all fringe games…

emu2020 09 Nov 2009 9:04 a.m. PST
I think this shows that GW has indeed ceased and desisted it's own interest in being a hobby-based business and turned into a straight business.

Aw, come on now emu, this does not show that at all.

They turned into a straight business when they floated on the stock market, in, umm, 19 squiggly something.

It's just us oldies who remember them as a hobby store staffed by people as likely to be playing Diplomacy (ok, more likely) than they were to be playing a miniatures wargame

I don't say that the way they are now is a good thing, but it's not news !

I would have thought that GW could have resolved this issue and at the same time protected their IP by simply granting the said fansite a limited use licence for a nominal fee rather than sending threatening letters.

"You mean people like GW? Pretty much everything they have is based off other peoples IP."

Probably why they're so paranoid about their own.

"to prevent confusion on the part of the consumer. TalkBloodBowl can still exist "

this is a weak excuse for this sort of behaviour. If the website notes it's a fansite, where's the confusion?

I would have thought that GW could have resolved this issue and at the same time protected their IP by simply granting the said fansite a limited use licence for a nominal fee rather than sending threatening letters.

finally a sane voice in the wilderness. use by these websites of gw's tms was not a dilution of the tms, it was used purely in association with, and in furtherence of, the tm as owned by gw. the bloodbowl website was not set up in an attempt to challenge gw's ownership of the tm, it was a recognition of the fact that gw owned it!

just one more reason to be amused by this increasingly petty, smallminded, grubby company and their silly toys, which are mostly greasy kids' stuff anyway, cartoony screaming bald men toting ridiculously huge guns and festooned with skulls. and let's not even get into the stultifyingly awful rules they peddle.

I hope that those who are incensed enough about this actually DO something. Write a letter to whoever makes the decision to send a C&D, or the person that authorizes the attorneys. Who is the CEO of GW these days? Does GW have a BoD? Do any high-up decison making folks in GW even know how the playerbase feels? Some 'big' companies CAN change.

DO something if you care enough to waste time making broad sweeping generalizations about GW and its players.

@Grabula

I am one of those "oldies". I still have a few White Dwarf mags floating around with D&D, Runequest, and Villains and Vigilantes material in them.

I wasn't saying this was news, just that it showed (as in demonstrated) what they had turned into. Showed as in demonstrated not as in revealed.

It's not that GW is protecting its IP that bothers me. It is HOW they are protecting it. They pick and choose and bide their time until it suits them. This, if challenged, would really leave them on shaky footing. As stated in a previous post of mine here. You either go after it all or not at all.

As a company, you really cannot pick and choose and if they have indeed left forums, sites, and other outlets unchallenged for such a long period, especially those who do not conceal themselves, then they might actually find themselves on the receiving end of a "too bad" ruling from the courts.

-Eli

Honestly, I think what may have happened here is that GW chases IP violations based on the cash flow through the particular website.

TalkBloodBowl didn't make much/any $$ for the owner, so it was allowed to continue until they worked their way down the list to it. Since TBB is essentially a free site and/or a loss to the owner, there's no benefit to the owner fighting the C&D, *even if he was likely to win in court*.

"It's not that GW is protecting its IP that bothers me. It is HOW they are protecting it. They pick and choose and bide their time until it suits them."

Well, they chose to write a legal letter instead of suing the guy. From an trademark perspective, use of the BLOOD BOWL logo and use of the mark in the domain name is strong evidence of infringement. They asked the guy to move it to another domain name and told him what the basis of the reasons were. GW is required to protects its marks and act in the best interest of its shareholders. It didn't ask for an accounting or damages, it simply asked the guy to stop.

I've encountered many people who claim the right to exploit the rights of others but when their creations are being exploited, they have a very different view.

Steve

From an trademark perspective, use of the BLOOD BOWL logo and use of the mark in the domain name is strong evidence of infringement.

really? in this case? were they claiming ownership of the mark? no. did they expressly acknowledge gw's ownership of the mark? yes. did they put the mark into the market in a way that anyone might be misled as to its ownership? no. did they display the mark in a manner likely to benefit the owner of the mark? yes.

here there was about zero likelihood of confusion as the use of the mark expressly referred back to the actual holder. let's admit, this was simply a ty thing to do to a fan who spent his own time to set up a strong support website for one of their products, a game he loved.

it's like saying that sony would be protecting its shareholders by shutting down a fan website called "omg kanye west in the greatest!!!!!!!" because the teenaged girl who runs the site is somehow claiming to be sony, or sony's artist kanye west.

The above example is a very poor one. If the website was called kanyewest.com, or talkkanyewest.com, your example would work. But the one you presented is clearly a fansite, whereas talkbloodbowl.com is not as clear. While it may be sucky for the webmaster, GW posted its rules on its legal page, and GW only sent a C&D letter, rather than sue like Nycjadie suggested.

Besides which, talkbloodbowl.com may be very evident it is a fanpage, but that is not necessarily the issue. What if GW let it go, as being very obviously a fanpage, but they send a C&D to bfg.com (FREX) that clearly is ambiguous, the webmaster of bfg.com can challenge this by asking why talkbloodbowl.com wasn't challenged. If you're going to go after IP infringement, you have to not make exceptions.

Ultimately, compared to TSR's old web policy, this is pretty benign.

Damon.

@nycjadie – My point wasn't whether they were ham-fisted or not, it's that they are inconsistent in their "protection" of their IP.

I am not disputing their right to do so, but how they choose to. It seems very clear that GW only gives a rat's butt about their IP when it suits them. As I've stated, clearly, in previous posts GW really has an obligation to pursue all IP infringements and not just pick and choose those that suit them.

In fact, they may very well be weakening their positionin any potential IP cases by not having gone after every IP infringement.

As an example the TBB forum was allowed to exist for how many years before they have finally closed it down. Not only was it allowed for so long, but it was allowed with participation from and cooperation with GW staff.

I'm not saying the use of their IP is right, it's not my job to protect their property, but I do take exception to how they handled it.

Thanks,

-Eli

Thanks for the walk down memory lane Wyatt the Odd.
Tigers of pan tan? i think the last ones were. And i see tanglebones in one of the pictures.

don't recall Moorcock specifically describing the Melnibonean panapoly so if GW ripped anyone off by making their High Elves (and Dark Elves to some extent) visually similar, it was themselves.

Yes, my point was that the pointy headed melniboneans were simply rolled into a high elf line and then morphed on from there. If you go back and look they simply change code and proceed from there. I have to admit i attempted reading Moorcock's books many years ago and couldn't get into them. Might be worth a trip to the library i think.

besides which, if I remember properly, weren't the melniboneans more like 'dark elves'?

GW has rolled other licensed lines into their generic fantasy lines a few times. I recall buying norse dwarfs with "AD&D" on the tab…

Damon.

… weren't the melniboneans more like 'dark elves'?

In terms of character, the dark elves were no doubt inspired by Melniboneans. However, as others have pointed out, the figures themselves jumped from Melniboneans to High Elves overnight.

From this
picture
picture

To this
link
link

There is a lovely retrospective here:
link

And a discussion on 'the lifting' from the other side
link

And talkbloodbowl appears to have been reborn – talkfantasyfootball.org

The cheek, how are people going to whine if he just goes and does what he's asked ….

Just because it's "legally" both proper and perhaps even advisable doesn't mean it's good business. Companies need to listen less to lawyers and more to their customers.

And even if you did want to protect your trademark, you could solve that by just sending them a letter that says "If you want to use our name, you have to license it for [say] $1.00 USD per year."

Exactly. It is not what has been done, but the manner[/] in which it has been done which has upset people.

"It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it – that's what gets results"

Funny, "fantasy football" doesn't mean to most folks what it does to some of us.

andy

I don't know if they use in house lawyers or not

After a recent letter I have seen, I would say they are not lawyers ;-)

@Number 6 – I know what you mean. They have sent other letters of a non C&D nature too.

I recall my late FLGS receiving a letter from GW saying something to the effect of

WE'RE SORRY YOU CAN'T STOCK OUR STUFF IN LARGE ENOUGH NUMBERS BUT BECAUSE OF THAT WE WON'T BE PROVIDING YOU ANY SUPPORT UNTIL YOUR ORDERS PIICK UP.

I'd love to know if any other stores or friends of FLGS have seen or heard of this or similar communications.

This is a very basic paraphrasing but the message that was sent was that because he wasn't ordering a ton of their stuff he was being religated to some sort of secondary status as a retailer and that he might want to consider stocking more of their stuff or even shifting a larger percentage of his stock away from other stuff to theirs.

-Eli

They did that plenty of times with non-GW stores. Which led to them being called the Evil Empire.

So many gaming stores decide to not carry any of their stuff.

Due to the current economic climate I think we can assume GW is looking for money. Perhaps they thought the individual who owned the site in question would offer a portion of the "profits" they assumed he would be making by using GW's "positive industry reputation" to further his site's profitability, …to remain in their good graces.

Like so many organizations that live in the vacuum of self perceived glory they believed their own hype. "Pride will come before the fall"

I imagine the "Dark Lord" has become increasingly nervous as disposable incomes around the world decrease significantly, …therefore they will do whatever they think will earn more money, including blackmail, theft, threats, quotas, price increases, significant reductions in value, etc., etc…, but this is only speculation on my part.

Will

"as disposable incomes around the world decrease significantly"

Yeah, but "its the economy, stupid!" never seems to work in the boardroom. I'm convinced that GW has little if any idea of how to operate in a non-growth mode, and may not realize that they don't.

The advice right now is actually to buy GW stock. Just like chocolate, it's one of those things that survives a recession. Although the 12 year olds won't be getting upgrades, and the 11 year olds certainly won't be getting the 100 pounds+ to start up the addiction, there are plenty of unemployed 30 year olds with time on their hands now to buy and paint…

The recession did hit them, March saw a low of 167p per share then it surged up to 334 in July… probably thanks to Dawn of War II, released at the end of February. People are able to buy games and play them because they have been laid off. They have a profitability of about 5%, 7 million out of 160-odd million pounds turnover, which is really not bad at all, especially right now.

fumbbl got a letter, now.

Yes but Mark Plant, how do you restore the lost ranking in search engines?

It's not an issue for active forums. They already have plenty of willing members.

They just have to make sure that the new address is posted as much as possible at the changeover period. Tedious, but neither difficult nor expensive.

The search engines catch up very quickly these days (as I have learnt to my cost).

Regarding emu2020's post – Many distributors (including manufacturers who distribute directly) have minimum orders for certain levels of service.
GW has a tiered program for independent stores – stores that agree to stock a certain number of GW codes/lines, receive benefits including a lower free shipping threshold and prize support for in-store events. There is a written agreement (contract) covering what the "partner" store must do to maintain that status. If the store later decides not to maintain the agreed upon stock levels (for example, they drop WHFB and LOTR, since there isn't a local demand for those products), then they will be downgraded to a different level of support from GW.

So it sounds like emu2020s flgs is violating the terms of their agreement with GW, and GW is not giving them prize support. Boo-freakin-hoo.

I'm just imagining the fun that would ensue if GW suddenly got a C&D from a certain large football franchise because it's IP is being infringed upon by GW using "Bowl". (Yes, very improbable, but still fun to think about…. ;)

I was just now, seeing this thread had broken the 100 mark, wondering how much time is wasted at GW HQ laughing at all of us still moaning about how mean they are to us.

GW is never going to be the fun friend it was when it was little, they grew up, got in with a bad crowd, and they just don't like us any more……….

What must really tickle them is that we bitch about it…and we still go back for more……