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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.
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
Is 'Games Workshop' an Apple company?
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.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
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.
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.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
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...
Fnord.sig
I guess I'm missing something here.
www.games-workshop.com has an online store at their site.
Maybe they fear competition?
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
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!
Trolling is a art,
Hey it's not like their entire customer base is hot-headed, demanding nerds with Napoleon fantasies...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
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?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
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.
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.
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.)
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
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.
Finding God in a Dog
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.
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!
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
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.
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.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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 this a case of left hand - right hand, or will that policy change dramatically in the near future?
Paul
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.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
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.
- Joe
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... .
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
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.
.02
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
jeff
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, 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. [I have no affiliation, I just think they're cool.]
Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
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.)
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?
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).
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
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.
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. 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.
----------
Something cleverSeriously.
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.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
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.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
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.
Capitalism: unequal distribution of wealth
Socialism: equal distribution of poverty
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
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
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
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
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' miniatures, so none of this is relevant, anyways.
It would seem that GW thinks that by forcing people to come into their stores to buy their products, they will be able to sucker them into buying more than they need. I bet they just lose more customers than they gain
Apple allows retailors other than the Apple Store to sell their computers, so remind me how this is anything like Apple, again?
This has always been GW policy. Several years ago I owned and operated a hobby shop that had both a B&M and internet prescence. GW would not sell to me if I told them that I would sell their products online. They also have difficult restrictions on minimum orders and such.
The simple solution was just to buy from a wholesaler. GW is one of the few manufacturers that will sell direct to a retailer anyway. Almost all other lines are purchased via wholesalers. The benefit to dealing direct was a slightly better discount. (MSRP -%40 vs MSRP - %30 if my memory serves me). In all likelihood online dealers will still be able to buy thorugh wholesalers, they will simply be forced to either charge a little more or accept a little bit thinner margin on these products
If privacy had a tombstone it would read "We did it for your own good" . -- John Twelve Hawks
Because if I were an indie store owner I'd be pushing Clix like a fiend after being treated like this.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
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.
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 Rackspace and a self-storage unit(for use as a warehouse) in your local area for much less than that, and you can do all of the work on your own time, at your own hours, at your own wage.
What's this Submit thingy do?
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?
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.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
Freedom: "I won't!"
channel conflict is the term your looking for, although I don't see it as a problem
http://reapermini.com/
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.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Sure, it calls for you to get one to make the initial mold, but in the end you get a lightweight model that is FAR cheaper (less than a dime in materials), more resilient than plastic and lighter than metal, and it's easy to mod with a Dremel tool. My friend and I cast Obliterators every time we're over at his house. No way am I dropping $20 _each_ for a model that's a little bigger than a Terminator. J
First off, when Slashdot links to Dakkadakka I see my worlds colliding...big time.
I don't see the problem with GW wanting to stop internet resellers from undercutting their retail operations. Slashdotters should be all for this since the people who are hurt most by this reselling are the small local games shops. I've never seen an unsuccessful GW retail store but I've seen a lot of struggling independants. Part of that is because GW is mean to small retailers but most of it is because you can buy all your figs for 30% less on the internet. As for the foolishness of cutting off sales over the internet...in case you were unaware, GW has a pretty high capacity mail-order section. It's not like anybody with access to the internet is suddenly going to lose the ability to buy GW models. The GW web-site is certainly as easy to find as the NewWave site or the Wandering Mage or any of the other discount sites.
A lot of people have this strange belief that GW is somehow evil. They aren't. They sell a superior product at a premium price and what the heck is wrong with that? I really don't see how this tactic hurts GW in the long term.
-Pinkoir
... that led us to write Shellshock.
:)
I can't believe any retailer would do this, but after watching the guys from GW at a convention, I can see how it would be them.
Now, granted, my buddy and I wrote and sell our own miniatures game, (which is also free, as in beer, on our website) so you can take this comment with whatever amount of suspicion you like...
We attended a con where someone from GW was there. The people who ran the con had paid to fly him in from England and put him in a hotel and everything. He was one of their special guests... There was a tourney contest where the winner got the chance to go up against the rep from GW. The entire con the GW rep talked about how no GW rep had ever lost to a player. Finally, this kid (maybe 13 or 14 years old) wins the tourney. The GW rep says he gets to not only pick the terrain they are going to fight in, but also gets to pick BOTH armies. This kid was so excited he didn't care, but the rest of were a little suspicious. Turned out we were justified as the GW rep picked this thick dense jungle terrain, gave himself an army full of close combat and melee troops, and then gave the kid a bunch of sniper and long range weapon types. Until now, it was the single most vile thing I had ever seen a game company do. (Funny sidenote, the kid almost won too, that's how bad this guy sucked.) The guys who ran the con were furious and said they'd never invite anyone from GW back, and never have.
So, I can totally expect this from these guys. Can't complain too much though, since it can only help my meager sales...
WWJD?
JWRTFM!
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.
I doubt Games Workshop would do this if a significant portion of their income came from online realtors. As a result, they probably think their bottom line won't change very much as a result of this policy. What they don't realize is that many people, especially including geeks, research products online before purchasing them anywhere. They want to see pictures, read comments, and look at prices, even if they don't purchase online.
Thus, this policy will cost Games Workshop more than they think it will.
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 gaming evenings and with wide choice of rpg products from many companies small and large.
If GW want to commit financial suicide, I'll do everything I can to help them.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
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 RPG (renaissance fantasy with Lovecraftian undertones would be the best description I can think of).
I do know a fair bit of the history of GW, both gleaned from the trade press and from conversations I've had with people who've met Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (not the Steve Jackson of Illuminati:NWO, Car Wars, GURPS, etc fame). I've also met people who've applied for jobs with GW, both retail and creative. (I live in Birmingham, about an hour or so from GW's headquarters and design studios in Nottingham, UK.)
It would probably be fair to say that GW started the Apple of the gaming world, before morphing into the Microsoft-equivalent. It was started by a pair of hippies in a flat in London, making wooden chess and backgammon boards. I'm not too sure about the early years, but by the mid 1980's White Dwarf magazine was probably the best general roleplaying magazine available in the world, it covered AD&D, Call of Cthulhu, Runequest and many others large and small. The GW chain of shops stocked roleplaying games from a range of publishers, and minatures from Citadel (GW's subsidiary), and others. At some point Warhammer Battle appeared, as did a few other gems like UK editions of Call of Cthulhu, and Runequest; the Judge Dredd roleplaying game; and wonderful boardgames like Fury of Dracula, Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, and Blockmania. At this point in time they were seriously good roleplaying/wargaming shops, with a bloody good design studio turning out a range of quality product.
The aforementioned pair of hippies, Steve Jackson and Iain Livingstone got themselves a new hobby: writing Fighting Fantasy choose your own adventure books. This proved to be a fair bit more lucrative than running Games Workshop, so at some point in the mid to late 80's they sold up and over three or four years GW became the company you see today.
The basic marketing idea GW use these days is to catch'em young, preferably before the age of 10, and try to convince these kids that GW comprise the the known gaming universe. Hence the attempt to restrict distribution to sites that they control, to prevent impressionable young minds from realising that companies and people other than Games Workshop make cool and interesting games and minatures.
Even after switching all of their production over to lead-free metal a few years ago, which was a major re-tooling effort, the mark-up on minatures is pretty huge, especially when you have that much market share (kids pocket money is big business these days) and control over what minatures are fielded in competition/leagues, which are admittedly a good way to chill and meet people when you're a young geek. The move to more plastic minatures was mainly a cost-saving issue, as well as a way to break into a slightly younger market.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was licensed to Hogshead publishing, which was the best thing that ever happened to it (I was one of the people who waited 15 years for a supplement described in the first edition of the rulebook as 'in progress').
Anyway, I hope that gives you a little more insight into GW, personally I got back into minatures when I saw Flintloque, dammn good fun and easy to get started (between 6-12 minatures a side is a good skirmish, the rules work well with more players, each person controls their own squad of minatures. Plus, the minatures are way cool, Orc redcoats and Elven Voltigeurs, wargaming was meant to be this way.
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:" 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.2d 1464, 1469-70 (9th Cir. 1986) and H.L. Hayden Co. v. Siemens, 879 F.2d 1005, 1014 (10th Cir., 1989), both upholding the ability of suppliers to contractually foreclose dealers' ability to sell products via mail-order.
However, there is a caveat: since GW operates its own e-commerce site, it's in horizontal competition with its dealers. This doesn't automatically mean that the restraint becomes horizontal (and, indeed, the penumbra of antitrust law suggests it does not), but it does give some squeaking room for lawyers who want to challenge those restrictions.
Nonetheless, the preponderance of the law is on GW's side, especially since (unless things have changed in the decade or so since I last played a tabletop game) the market is very competitive. It's very unlikely to my mind that a successful challenge to this restraint could be mounted.
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
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 of mouth can keep you alive or kill you off, pure and simple. Also from my experience, most gamers like to experience a game 'hands on' (by either borrowing an army and playing, or just watching) before getting involved and seriously investing their money.
All GW qualms aside, look at it like this: online stores undercut local stores -> local stores start going out of business -> less people get exposure to the games (and experienced players) -> your target market doesn't get "new blood".
I frequent a local store and have seen it time and time again: younger people (Yu-gi-oh players, as the trend is now) playing card games, see the 40K gamers and think "Hey, that's pretty cool. Maybe I should try that sometime..."
There is something to be said for 'the in-store experience' when it comes to future players of games like these. Seeing products online doesn't get you interested in a game quite like watching a few people hash out a 2000 point game of Chaos versus Necrons... ;)
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
As much as I hate paying 5-10 for a tiny bit of "white metal" they do have a point. It is that part of the GW experience can be enhanced significantly by an active hobby shop. Things like teaching people how to play, organizing tournaments, teaching basic and advanced painting skills, and other things that help to introduce new players to the game and enhance the game for experienced players. Without these things coming from either a group of friends or a friendly hobby store, I doubt most of us would have ever picked up or kept going with the game. If enough people buy occasionally from the store to take advantage of their hobby building activities but buys the majority of their minis over the internet at steep discounts, they will eventually force the higher cost stores out of business.
Games Workshop is trying to protect these higher cost, but beneficial stores from such ativities, that they own several of these high cost stores makes their actions look less savory, but they do have a valid concern. Although for areas that don't have a full service store, or no store at all, but do have a gaming club, the benefits should flow to the clubs, which serve the same purpose as an active hobby shop. I would suggest that they could organize in the form of a co-op and order wholesale.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.