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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.
This situation with GW is just like the one with Apple because "they both stopped selling (different things) to (different people)".
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You'll have to forgive me if I think that this comparison of GW with Apple amounts to little more than a sour grapes, "I don't like Apple, and I don't like this, so they must be similar" comparisson, rather than a particularly accurate or close one. The original poster could have chosen any company at random and made the same comparison, given the amazing vagueness of these criteria.