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The GREED of GW is limitless.
First they charge an outrageous price for 1 plastic mini you have to assemble let alone 2 or more. Then the produce a game where you use minis to play and if you do not have specific colors he unit is invalid. Then to make matters worse ever few years they remove units and those units are now no longer official and are obsolete and you have to buy more mini's paint them so you can play more regulation games.
Not a fan of GW. I have some of their very old minis made of metal when the metal ones where cheaper than their cheesy must assemble plastic ones.
I do how ever like the Black Library books like Ulrika
"Adeptus astartes" would be a defensible trademark for GW; the term "space marine" has been in general use for so long that the claim should be considered laughable.
Besides, they never really raised a stink when Blizzard practically carved up their IP like wedding cake in the past, but that probably has more to do with them having a monolithic legal department and more money than most small nations. A lone no-name author was probably considered an easier target for legal intimidation.
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"Space marine" is not trademarked, IIRC. GW are ridiculous.
I hope the makers of the "Alien" movies countersue them. The characters were space marines too, right?
The shame is, somewhere along the lines, the designers at GW had good backstories, decent rules, and lovely minis. But their business sense and the way they run their business... GAH.
The GREED of GW is limitless.
First they charge an outrageous price for 1 plastic mini you have to assemble let alone 2 or more. Then the produce a game where you use minis to play and if you do not have specific colors he unit is invalid. Then to make matters worse ever few years they remove units and those units are now no longer official and are obsolete and you have to buy more mini's paint them so you can play more regulation games.
Not a fan of GW. I have some of their very old minis made of metal when the metal ones where cheaper than their cheesy must assemble plastic ones.
I do how ever like the Black Library books like Ulrika
*Rolls eyes.*
GW does plenty of bad things. Plenty.
But please, have a go at them for stuff that is actually bad about them, like the trade mark and IP trolling.
GW still produce some of the best miniatures in the world.
Modelling is part of the war gaming hobby, I cannot believe you are seriously complaining about assembly, for many collectors, the modelling and painting is the primary part of the hobby.
And frankly the idea that they are price gorging is very silly.
Back when I first started gaming, 30 identical plastic halbardiers cost somewhere in the region of £40(and £40 was a considerably larger amount of money back then) They where not even great models, but they still represented a very good deal, price wise, compaired to almost any other model set out there.
Now £40ish will by you 40 highly customisable human males, suitable for game roles from bandit to malitiaman, with a vast number of possible component combinations. Their still plastic, but the end result better than the sculpts of many reaper mini metal sculpts.
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The GREED of GW is limitless.
First they charge an outrageous price for 1 plastic mini you have to assemble let alone 2 or more. Then the produce a game where you use minis to play and if you do not have specific colors he unit is invalid. Then to make matters worse ever few years they remove units and those units are now no longer official and are obsolete and you have to buy more mini's paint them so you can play more regulation games.
Not a fan of GW. I have some of their very old minis made of metal when the metal ones where cheaper than their cheesy must assemble plastic ones.
I do how ever like the Black Library books like Ulrika
*Rolls eyes.*
GW does plenty of bad things. Plenty.
But please, have a go at them for stuff that is actually bad about them, like the trade mark and IP trolling.
GW still produce some of the best miniatures in the world.
Modelling is part of the war gaming hobby, I cannot believe you are seriously complaining about assembly, for many collectors, the modelling and painting is the primary part of the hobby.
And frankly the idea that they are price gorging is very silly.
Back when I first started gaming, 30 identical plastic halbardiers cost somewhere in the region of £40(and £40 was a considerably larger amount of money back then) They where not even great models, but they still represented a very good deal, price wise, compaired to almost any other model set out there.
Now £40ish will by you 40 highly customisable human males, suitable for game roles from bandit to malitiaman, with a vast number of possible component combinations. Their still plastic, but the end result better than the sculpts of many reaper mini metal sculpts.
Sorry... It is a fact. I have Skaven from the original lots that I paid $6 a mini about the cost of a Reaper mini today. I have Ogres and Minotaurs I paid $12.00 and they are huge. Same minies today out of plastic I see in stores for $10
I love how they don't go after Blizzard of Activision, but they're gonna break bad on somebody writing a Space Marines vignette or whatever who doesn't have the jink to lawyer up.
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Oh wow, and they actually did sue some band over the usage of the "symbol of Chaos". Which they totally ripped off from Moorcock without permission or attribution.
I just realized that Paizo has been practicing the exact opposite of GW's shenanigans for a long time. They not only get permission from IP holders for stuff outside their court, but they also sidebar-credit the hell out of it too so that everyone knows where it came from and where to go to get more.
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Suing in a court of law over the chaos symbol.
They're really karmically f%**ed now.
Oh wow, and they actually did sue some band over the usage of the "symbol of Chaos". Which they totally ripped off from Moorcock without permission or attribution.
It would be great if the band gained permission from Moorcock and showed it in the court...
in their defense, maybe the band should've designed their own 8 pointed star, instead of grabbing GW's artwork and painting a US flag over it.Oh wow, and they actually did sue some band over the usage of the "symbol of Chaos". Which they totally ripped off from Moorcock without permission or attribution.It would be great if the band gained permission from Moorcock and showed it in the court...
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in their defense, maybe the band should've designed their own 8 pointed star, instead of grabbing GW's artwork and painting a US flag over it.
Yeah, that does grey the matter quite a bit. They should have gone to Moorcock directly like Drejk suggested.
What they did was closer to what those guys did with that pdf format RPG where they were stealing Paizo art from the blog and recoloring it. The big difference that remains is that Paizo didn't steal their art from Moorcock. Or Blizzard.[/wakkawakkawakka]
First they charge an outrageous price for 1 plastic mini you have to assemble let alone 2 or more
It doesn't quite excuse the price, but GW have always pointed out that they are a British company who make their models in the UK. They could very well produce their figures for less, but only by outsourcing to China or elsewhere at the cost of British jobs. However, the products would be cheaper but the through-pipeline of making them would also be a lot slower as well.
Yes, I went for an interview at GW HQ a couple of years back and they picked up the travelling costs (which were fairly considerable, as I live about 200 miles away). It was clearly a great place to work and they do try to employ fans as the job does involve selling their expensive products to people who may not have a lot of cash (youngsters, in particular), which is not easy. They have a life-sized (10 foot, or thereabouts) statue of a Space Marine outside their office doors.
I like GW's products and their books. But this particular move was undeniably stupid of them, and will cost them a lot of goodwill.
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Why would GW sue Blizzard when they've been ripping off Warcraft for so long?[/someoneistotallygettingangryreadingthis]
...
You do know the entire Warcraft/Starcraft brand was based off of a planned video game between Blizzard and GW to represent their Warhammer/Warhammer 40k lines right? The video-game side of GW didn't get its head screwed on straight until THQ came along with Dawn of War and Space Marine.
GW backed out at the last second and Blizzard opted to file the serial numbers off and go ahead anyway. Least thats how I've heard it.
GW and its endless IP defenses, even some of them paranoid, is due to the specifics of British trademark and copyright IP laws that are really, really not beneficial to a primary publisher. As earlier stated, they do these principly not to be jerks, but so that no one can claim they've 'abandoned' brands or trademarks.
So most of the time they do this sort of thing not out of some strange horrific desire to see people suffer (like the Damnatus crew), but out of a desire to keep their ability to make a profit off of their ideas (no matter how derivitive those ideas may be).
On the question of plagarism, warhammer fantasy and warhammer 40k make use of so much ground in terms of references and ideas they've basically exemplified the 'steal from one person its plagarism, steal from a hundred its research.'
They've got judge dredd, the Brothers Karamazov, Michael Moorcock, Glen Cook's Black Company, aliens, J.R.R. Tolkien, the terminator, saturn vi, ice pirates, soccer hooliganism, AD 2000, giant mecha...
They've taken ideas and leads from so many places and then smushed them together, and put giant pauldrons on everything so much that they've gone full circle and created something new again.
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On a general GW point: I did some summer work for them when I was in university and it was/is clearly a really great place to work.
They treat their workers well, make their minis in the UK, recycle as much as they can and either employ fans or try to share the hobby with new employees.
Stop! People's illusions will be shattered if we can't paint faceless companies as soulless villains then we'll be forced to realise that people are just trying to make a buck and deal with the consequences of convoluted copyright law.
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On a general GW point: I did some summer work for them when I was in university and it was/is clearly a really great place to work.
They treat their workers well, make their minis in the UK, recycle as much as they can and either employ fans or try to share the hobby with new employees.
Everytime I hear about GW in the UK it sounds like some amazing mystical fairyland that's too good to be true. Wish they'd sprinkle some of their magic dust on the US.
Friends of mine who worked for GW in the US did not feel so enamoured of it.
And then what they did to the poor Outriders... but they can tell their own tales.
During a really tight time in my life, I applied for a job at GW. I had good retail experience and references and was a good painter, and they were hiring in several local stores. I was only just learning how to play the game, but certainly could have been trained quickly what I didn't already know. I figured I was a good candidate.
After not hearing anything for a week (which is how long I was told it would take for someone to get back to me), I called them just to be sure my application had been received. It took several calls and emails. First, no, they couldn't find my application. Then "yes, we'll process your application but we're so busy with Games Day right now." I get Games Day is/was huge, mind, and was willing to give some leeway. Then two weeks after Games Day. "Who were you again? I'll look up your application." I think I resubmitted it, even, but never heard anything. Not even the decent professionalism of a "your services are not required" post card. I can accept that they decided I wasn't a good candidate for the job, but the fact that no one ever said this to me, they just kept saying they'd "get to my application later" was really frustrating. The sad fact is I think they lost my application and/or never bothered to process it at all.
And sadly, I have to wonder if the fact that I was a woman meant they didn't take my application seriously. I'm pretty certain I was probably the only active female player in the region at the time.
Fortunately, I found and got a much better job a few months later. But I'd been doing job searching and interviews at that point for awhile and as those things go, had my share of rejection. Rejection's not the issue. But hands down, GW was the absolutely least organized, least courteous, and all-around least professional prospective employer I dealt with.
So no, I can't take seriously many defenses of the company. I won't paint a company for being a soulless villain just because it's a corporation, but I will call a spade a spade and a I'll call a company with a known history of lousy treatment of its customers, employees, and associates and for its generally awful business decisions the rats that they are as well.
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You do know the entire Warcraft/Starcraft brand was based off of a planned video game between Blizzard and GW to represent their Warhammer/Warhammer 40k lines right?
I partially thought that, but I have heard people make that asseration seriously. It makes me want to open my twelve mouths and sing the song that will end the earth.
And Blizzard's success comes more from things like...competent game design, good graphics and the like then the orcs, dranaei, naga, or whatever else they have. They're apparently a good bunch to work for too from what I've heard.
As for the differences, its a British company, so they might be a little friendly to the native red-shirts as opposed to the foreign ones. I think GW in general has trouble projecting its brand across the water. Apparently in Britain GW is like the happiest friendliest bunch of people, whereas in Europe and North America it feels like well..they're bleeding us for cash, messing up orders and being mean to their red-shirted staffers.
Brands like McDonalds who can keep quality control all across the planet are renowned for a reason, its tough to do. Its tough to keep an eye on things literally half a world away. You delegate to the wrong person and /bam/.
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As for the differences, its a British company, so they might be a little friendly to the native red-shirts as opposed to the foreign ones. I think GW in general has trouble projecting its brand across the water. Apparently in Britain GW is like the happiest friendliest bunch of people, whereas in Europe and North America it feels like well..they're bleeding us for cash, messing up orders and being mean to their red-shirted staffers.
I'm suddenly reminded of the difference between Original Top Gear and American Top Gear.
My God. If this works both ways and is proportionate with the niceness of the original company, Valve's British office has probably committed war crimes.
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I'll leave the discussion of the finer points of US/UK trademark law to the experts (only pausing to note that copyright and trademark are treated very differently, and that AIUI prior use is not an issue in trademark law if the prior user(s) have abandoned the mark). At first I was thinking that GW had shot itself in the foot from a PR standpoint; nerdrage is a terrible thing, and their profit margins can't be so high that they'd do something to alienate a significant fraction of their customer base. And that was when I realized my mistake.
GW--at least in the US--manages their branding extremely tightly. Their focus is on a customer base of early teenage boys with well-off (preferably non-gaming) parents, and that focus is laser-tight.
If a bunch of adult gamers get bent out of shape about GW, they don't care. That's not going to hurt them with their real customer base.
Customer disservice: We're not satisfied until you're not satisfied.
Personally, I think the reason they exerted their copyright here is because they didn't want a fury book coming up in search results for Space Marine. Considering the blatant mysongyny in the game, I doubt that they are fans of alternate lifestyles.
I'll leave the discussion of the finer points of US/UK trademark law to the experts (only pausing to note that copyright and trademark are treated very differently, and that AIUI prior use is not an issue in trademark law if the prior user(s) have abandoned the mark). At first I was thinking that GW had shot itself in the foot from a PR standpoint; nerdrage is a terrible thing, and their profit margins can't be so high that they'd do something to alienate a significant fraction of their customer base. And that was when I realized my mistake.
GW--at least in the US--manages their branding extremely tightly. Their focus is on a customer base of early teenage boys with well-off (preferably non-gaming) parents, and that focus is laser-tight.
** spoiler omitted **
If a bunch of adult gamers get bent out of shape about GW, they don't care. That's not going to hurt them with their real customer base.
Except their primary customer base is college/post college. People in their mid-late 20s have the most disposable income and are their biggest customers.
They don't have stores in most of the US, but rely on local game stores. Every local game store owner I know of hates dealing with GW. They force stores to carry products they don't want (Lord of the Rings) that they know will never sell in order to be allowed to cary things that do sell. Their MSRP does not contain the same markup as other products, so stores have lower margins to work with. Many products are custom order only, which contain practically no markup for the store. GW has strong discouragements in their contract against any sales, but stores flagrantly violate this so that those who do follow it get penalized.
There's a reason I'm an ex-Games Workshop stockist now (must sell those last few bits off...) and this is part of it. I thought that they might have learned a lesson with the current legal fiasco with Chapterhouse Studios might have made them think that randomly hurling cease and desist orders at people was a bad plan. Good to see they're doing the exact same stupid crap, though - I'd hate to think that common sense might make them behave as something other than greedy sociopaths. And yes, I know they're a business and need to make money. So does Paizo. I notice they didn't shut down there forums when people weren't awed by there glory and don't randomly sue people who use the term 'Fighter'.
That, and the horrible, horrible things they allowed Matt Ward to do...
They're still one of the finest makers of miniatures today, and I still buy there stuff - second hand. It's just an incredible shame that the business part and game development parts of are totally disconnected now.
Also, the following terms - Matt Ward, Killing Mortarion the Daemon Primarch, Friendly Necrons, Blood Wearing Grey Knights and Ultramarines. But mostly Matt Ward, since he's responsible for most of the phrases mentioned.
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First they charge an outrageous price for 1 plastic mini you have to assemble let alone 2 or moreIt doesn't quite excuse the price, but GW have always pointed out that they are a British company who make their models in the UK. They could very well produce their figures for less, but only by outsourcing to China or elsewhere at the cost of British jobs. However, the products would be cheaper but the through-pipeline of making them would also be a lot slower as well.
Games workshop had (or still has) production in China for plastics, paint and book printing iirc. Check the back of the box on a plastic or forgeworld mini (for example, my skullvane manse has a big made in china on the box).
They have moved Forgeworld production back to the UK, and I believe they press the miniatures in the UK (I almost worked in such a position), but books are printed in China and the last I saw the paint was made in China, packaged in France and boxed somewhere else (it was truly international paint).
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Is it just me, or could you pretty much take out the words 'Games Workshop' and replace them with 'Lego' in almost every post (including mine).
Nah, theirs is called Galaxy Patrol
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It appears that Games Workshop has unleashed the power of the Streisand Effect. More than one group of science fiction writers is currently planning a Space Marines anthology in protest, and one group has already registered the domain.
GW's announced profit this year was about £11,000,000.So really ,despite appearances, they are a small time player
However it doesn't surprise me that they have taken this route..money grubbing bastards.
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I stopped going to Games Workshop stores because they must have put their staff on a combination Speed, eckies and coke.
They bound up and put on an American style hard sell wearing a f+$&ing stupid Cheshire cat grin and calling me dude.
Rule one: don't hard sell to Australians especially ones that grew up in the country or a small town... it freaks them out, and creates an extreme level of distrust. "Why is this bastard trying so hard to sell me s~*~"
Rule two: My personal space is a one fence post away radius. Get too close to me I get very edgy.
Rule three: Don't call me dude... Don't call me sir either I am not your superior and the f+#*ing Queen has yet to give me a Knighthood.
Rule four: When I say I am just looking that indicates I want you to go away. I have a friend who will tell sales people to get the f*+~ out of his face after the third time he has said he doesn't require their assistance. I just leave and never come back.
Rule five don't grin at me like an idiot... Just don't. You can smile but don't force yourself to look happy... Manic is not going to sell me anything.
Rule 6 Bring back the Squats, yes I went there... I want Dwarves back in my 40K.
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Stuff about GW store practices, cut for length:
While what you say may be true, if they'd had the decency to simply say, "We do not think you are a good fit" rather than give me the runaround for a month and refuse to give me a straight answer, I'd respect them a lot more. Not for discriminatory practices mind, but for having the barest sense of professionalism. Compare one job interview I had around the same time... the head of the company called me the same day, complimented my qualifications, but said they'd decided to go with another candidate. It enabled me to move on immediately with my job search without having to wonder or wait, and the fact that the man on top took the time took the time to tell me personally was in fact a compliment, despite the rejection. What GW did shows they have no respect for anyone, time management skills, or organizational skills.
8thDwarf, the guys in the US stores aren't quite so bad, but I hate it when I go into the one store that's left in our region to buy paint--I don't buy most Citadel products, but I like some of their washes and such--I am inevitably immediately assaulted by "what are you painting? what do you play? what are you doing? what's your project? what are those funny bumps on your chest for? what are you painting? What are you painting?" They will also refuse to let me browse the paint rack--usually I get a chance to look at it for about 2 seconds before they ask me the color I'm looking for and then grab it for me. What this STELLAR sales technique ensures is that I buy only the paint I'm looking for and leave the store immediately, whereas otherwise I would probably browse the paints and miniatures and buy more from them. I appreciate their dedication to making sure I stay on task and don't spend more money than I planned, but it's not helping them improve their profits.
It definitely sounds like GW USA is not a very nice place to work, and certainly not compared to the UK branch of the organisation, which is much more inclusive. And yes, they are defintely a middling-sized company which thinks they are bigger and more important than they are.
However, I can't quite blame them for aggressively protecting their brand. Other companies that do the same thing are also often portrayed as being unfair, unhelpful etc, but there's a reason those companies - GW, Blizzard and Apple immediately come to mind - are still around and doing well whilst many of their competitors have collapsed and disappeared.
Considering the blatant mysongyny in the game, I doubt that they are fans of alternate lifestyles.
There's some misogyny in the playerbase, which may be expected from the age ranges that GW aggressively targets. However, here in the UK anway, I've noticed a very strong upsurge in the number of women playing 40K. The introduction of the RPGs and video games seems to have helped, and the growing popularity of the novels (including the recruitment of a couple of women writers for the book lines) even moreso.
In the 40K setting itself, no, there really is not a problem with alternate lifestyles. The Eldar, Dark Elder and some of the Imperium factions (most notably the Sisters of Battle, but also the Imperial Guard) have female characters. There are major, important female characters in quite a few of the novels and in the recent SPACE MARINE game. After years of keeping shtum about gay characters, Games Workshop relatively recently put positive representations of gay characters in several of the novels (most notably the RAVENOR trilogy by Dan Abnett and the CIAPHAS CAIN sequence by Sandy Mitchell).
They're way behind the times (I remember TSR putting an openly lesbian character in a FORGOTTEN REALMS sourcebook in the mid-1990s and it didn't cause much of a stir at all), no doubt, but GW are at least making some moves in the right direction there.
A big caveat to this is the WARHAMMER FANTASY setting, which is a lot less progressive. In fact, in the fantasy setting gay characters exclusively seem to be members of Slaanesh-worshipping Chaos cults, and any criticism is waved away by the old, "Oh, it's based on real medieval social mores etc," excuse.
Rule one: don't hard sell to Australians especially ones that grew up in the country or a small town... it freaks them out, and creates an extreme level of distrust. "Why is this bastard trying so hard to sell me s~$*"
Rule two: My personal space is a one fence post away radius. Get too close to me I get very edgy.
(...)
Rule four: When I say I am just looking that indicates I want you to go away. I have a friend who will tell sales people to get the f%@# out of his face after the third time he has said he doesn't require their assistance. I just leave and never come back.
Rule five don't grin at me like an idiot... Just don't. You can smile but don't force yourself to look happy... Manic is not going to sell me anything.
Story of my shopping life.
Rule three: Don't call me dude... Don't call me sir either I am not your superior and the f&*#ing Queen has yet to give me a Knighthood.
As a (hopefully) paying customer you are superior to the seller. It i you who decides and controls the situation. At least so it should be.
It definitely sounds like GW USA is not a very nice place to work, and certainly not compared to the UK branch of the organisation, which is much more inclusive. And yes, they are defintely a middling-sized company which thinks they are bigger and more important than they are.
However, I can't quite blame them for aggressively protecting their brand. Other companies that do the same thing are also often portrayed as being unfair, unhelpful etc, but there's a reason those companies - GW, Blizzard and Apple immediately come to mind - are still around and doing well whilst many of their competitors have collapsed and disappeared.
Considering the blatant mysongyny in the game, I doubt that they are fans of alternate lifestyles.There's some misogyny in the playerbase, which may be expected from the age ranges that GW aggressively targets. However, here in the UK anway, I've noticed a very strong upsurge in the number of women playing 40K. The introduction of the RPGs and video games seems to have helped, and the growing popularity of the novels (including the recruitment of a couple of women writers for the book lines) even moreso.
In the 40K setting itself, no, there really is not a problem with alternate lifestyles. The Eldar, Dark Elder and some of the Imperium factions (most notably the Sisters of Battle, but also the Imperial Guard) have female characters. There are major, important female characters in quite a few of the novels and in the recent SPACE MARINE game. After years of keeping shtum about gay characters, Games Workshop relatively recently put positive representations of gay characters in several of the novels (most notably the RAVENOR trilogy by Dan Abnett and the CIAPHAS CAIN sequence by Sandy Mitchell).
They're way behind the times (I remember TSR putting an openly lesbian character in a FORGOTTEN REALMS sourcebook in the mid-1990s and it didn't cause much of a stir at all), no doubt, but GW are at least making some moves in the right direction there.
A big caveat...
Do you realize that every tyranid unit name is based off of a deragatory term for women? Some of them are British specific. The Sisters of Battle are the only female wariors in any human product, and their blood is used to bathe in. I have never seen a female model in the IG.
They should lose this case, and lose it painfully. At the very least, they should end up paying any and all legal fees incurred by the defendant. Perhaps even be subject to some sort of punitive action for wasting everyone's time. That's the only way these kinds of claims are going to go away...
Do you realize that every tyranid unit name is based off of a deragatory term for women? Some of them are British specific. The Sisters of Battle are the only female wariors in any human product, and their blood is used to bathe in. I have never seen a female model in the IG.
As of the last time I played, there was like one or two female IG in this very specific unit. That's all. Not enough to say "there are female IG." Maybe there have been more made since, I don't know.
Yes, in more recent history, the Sisters have been the 40K universe's victims and buttmonkeys. Plus having the one obviously token girl army--which hasn't had a real Codex since 2005 or so, not counting the piece of butchery published in WD last year and is one of the absolutely least supported armies in 40K--doesn't really fix the general gender issues GW definitely does have.
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Butbutbut... A female space marine would be all covered and stuff. In icky metal plates. Plus, she would not be able to do butt poses, t@~% would be covered... So how could anyone write a convincing female space marine???
It definitely sounds like GW USA is not a very nice place to work, and certainly not compared to the UK branch of the organisation, which is much more inclusive. And yes, they are defintely a middling-sized company which thinks they are bigger and more important than they are.
However, I can't quite blame them for aggressively protecting their brand. Other companies that do the same thing are also often portrayed as being unfair, unhelpful etc, but there's a reason those companies - GW, Blizzard and Apple immediately come to mind - are still around and doing well whilst many of their competitors have collapsed and disappeared.
That's my issue with the Space Marine case, though: It's such a generic term that it's not their brand.
The Chaos symbol is different in that it seems to be their exact logo repainted; that's GW's intellectual property, and it's perfectly reasonable that they'd defend their ownership of it.
Of course all of this is through the lens of the US legal system, it could be very different in the UK.