Games Workshop Forbids Warhammer Fan Films

EikeHein writes "Made by dozens of fans over a period of several years and featuring impressive special effects, the feature-length Warhammer 40.000 epic DAMNATUS ranks among the most elaborate fan productions ever made — and yet may never see the light of day. Despite initially giving a go-ahead to the project, UK-based Warhammer franchise owner Games Workshop has come around to forbid distribution of the film just as it was being readied for release. What's more, they've amended their IP Policy to forbid any such projects in the future. At the heart of the matter appears to be Continental European copyright law, which grants the German film makers certain irrevocable rights to their creation which they cannot sign away. Given that the owners of the other two SF mega-franchises, Star Trek and Star Wars, have been able to come to terms with such issues and arguably benefit greatly from the media attention paid to popular fan productions, it would seem that Games Workshop still has to learn a thing or two about how to capture fan enthusiasm for their benefit."

Comments

Preposterous

[Control Group]

Well, congrats to GW for taking my general disinterest for their products and elevating it to actual dislike of their organization.

Ignoring my personal purchasing decisions, though, this is still stupid. I mean, it's not like Games Workshop actually sells games. They sell miniatures. They encourage purchase of the miniatures with something like a game structure (so it's a little more advanced than playing with toy soldiers...but not much more advanced than the games I invented for my various little figures when I was 10. Except for Blood Bowl, of course. That game is two shots of high-proof awesome.) that requires you to buy more miniatures if you want to play by the rules and an (admittedly) pretty compelling universe to set your encounters in.

I would, in fact, make the case that the universe is more important to their income than the "games" are. I know plenty of people who play Warhammer with pretty major departures from the rules, but I don't know anyone who plays Warhammer without Orcs.

So when presented with an opportunity to, at no cost, generate fan excitement and greater exposure, you'd think the smart thing to do would be to run with it as far as possible. Squelching it - moreover, squelching it in a way that makes you look like a bully, an ingrate, and general underdog-trampler - would seem to be the worst thing you could do.

I mean, aside from kicking puppies and smogging out rainbows.

(As an aside: the bright spot in all this is, should some miracle of rationality prevail, and GW manage to figure out that blocking this is a bad move, it should generate plenty of publicity for the project)

Re:Preposterous

[andrewd18]

I don't know anyone who plays Warhammer without Orcs.

Waaagh!! We be Orks wid uh k, you insensitive 'umie!

Re:Preposterous

[Phanatic1a]

I would, in fact, make the case that the universe is more important to their income than the "games" are. I know plenty of people who play Warhammer with pretty major departures from the rules, but I don't know anyone who plays Warhammer without Orcs.

And the ironic part is that the Orcs are what aren't necessary to play the game. They make (relatively) inexpensive rulebooks and horrifically expensive miniatures. It would be entirely possible to play the game by buying the inexpensive rulebooks and using a bunch of scraps of paper with "Orc" written on them in crayon in lieu of the expensive orc miniatures. But as you said, nobody does that.

They're an an enviable position of having valuable IP that's *hard to reproduce*. But they still end up being dicks over it.

Re:Preposterous

[Control Group]

Warhammer is a tabletop - ie, using miniatures - tactical war game with role-playing elements. Rather than using a hex map or other grid, all line-of-sight and range measurements are actually taken relative to the actual analog position and facing of the miniatures. The business proposition from Games Workshop is that they sell you the rulebooks for the game. The rules include provisions requiring you to purchase Games Workshop miniatures (eg, if the miniature on the table doesn't have a boltgun in its hand, the character it represents also doesn't have a boltgun in its hand); GW is, first and foremost, a seller of miniatures. Warhammer as a universe encompasses several different game systems and miniature series: Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Battlefleet: Gothic, and Necromunda all spring to mind, though I believe there are others.

In my opinion, the game aspect of it is particularly shallow in comparison to most other similar games (tabletop tactical), with odd and limiting provisions such as only being allowed to fire at the nearest enemy.

One way to look at it is that Games Workshop is the grown up (that is, expensive) version of playing with toy soldiers: you collect your toy soldiers, then get to use them in a game structure.

(Note: I completely understand the attraction of buying and painting miniatures, building up huge collections of them, and getting enjoyment out of deploying them in a structured game format; I don't mean to disparage it as a hobby. I, personally, prefer the game to be more involving than the game pieces, but I'm not much of a collector.)

Re:Preposterous

[garyok]

Well, congrats to GW for taking my general disinterest for their products and elevating it to actual dislike of their organization.

Way ahead of you, big man. I used to be a real hardcore fan of GW and, back in the day, I was a subscriber to White Dwarf for a long time but around #110ish things started going badly, badly wrong at the ranch. That's about when they switched their focus from RPGs to the miniatures business. They stopped doing articles on other companies' games and started bigging up Warhammer, Blood Bowl, and WH40K. They even seemed to lose interest in their own roleplaying games. Before that it was a hell of a magazine - fiction, articles, art, and quality all the way. After that it became a big ad you paid for. I had no interest whatsoever in their dinky little toys and I was on a one-way ticket to Alienation City. It was a real shame because a lot of real talent used to contribute.

They seem to be doing well enough out of it but, if such a thing is possible, they sold their soul back at the end of the 80s for their money. Plus the staff in the stores I've visited since are total dicks.

Re:Preposterous

[yogi]

And you are not the only one who came to that conclusion. I've got a big stack of White Dwarf back episodes from my subscription, and the first editions of WH40K and WHRPG, but lost interest when the rules started changing so you would need to buy more ( relatively expensive ) vehicle miniatures.

Of course, before WD become a large, paid for, GW advert, they used to publish adventures and source material for all sorts of games in the magazine. I can look in the corner of the room now, and see Traveller, AD&D and other game system adventures published in White Dwarf. If that's not making money from derivative works of other peoples IP, I don't know what is. And what's more, they did this quite unashamedly for 10 years, before GW had enough games to fill the pages with adverts for their own games. Talk about hypocrisy.

Re:Preposterous

[R_Dorothy]

Careful - Orcs with a 'k' almost certainly violates their IP.

Jolly Roger

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose they could sue Games Workshop, but that would drag on for a rather long period of time. By the end of the lawsuit, the movie will be irrelevant regardless of the outcome. And after 4 years of film development, that's a really cruddy result. Especially since it sounds like the only problem is that Games Workshop wants 100% control and they can't have it. Well duh, it's not your film. It's a fan creation that you *should* be finding a set of guidelines under which it can be distributed.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I hear that there are alternative (?) distribution methods out there. Something about "hoisting the flag" and all that?

*ahem* *ahem* *ahem*

"Arrrrghhhh"

A "fuck you" from GW...

[imbaczek]

...to which fans will reply with a generous "fuck you too."

More news at 11.

Games Workshop has a lot to learn about fandom

[ArchAngelQ]

They've done a lot to undermine their fans for years. That they are now buggering this up surprises me not at all.

They have many creative individuals working for them that I respect, but as a company, they have basically sucked to be a fan of for YEARS.

And really, their background material is largely 'borrowed' from other fantasy and sci-fi sources anyway, so that they should be so very protective, when the movie will just bring them more exposure and act as a huge advert for them, seems utterly ridiculous.

GW really knows how to reach fans!

[HexRei]

That is really too bad. GW has made some great games over the years, I really enjoyed Warhammer and Space Hulk as a kid. Now, I HATE Games Workshop and hope their offices get infested with lice and skunks.

IP Laws

[GWLlosa]

Apparently, they were completely willing to sanction the movie under the terms of a deal that they and the movie producers had agreed to regarding the ownership of the intellectual property (i.e., Games Workshop's entire universe). Then it turned out that according to German copyright law, the producers are prevented from signing away some of their own rights, which derailed the deal. What I'm curious about is what rights are you prevented from signing away? Does this mean that German developers can't assign copyright to 3rd parties (FSF?)? Does it only apply to movies? Why would it be a problem to willfully and knowingly explicitely sign away your rights to something as nonfundamental as a movie?

Re:IP Laws

[Zatic]

You can't sign away Urheberrecht, which simply states that you are the original creator of a piece of art. Kinda makes sense to me.

They could sign over the copy/distribution/whatsorever rights with no problem. But still GW can't say that they created this movie. Which they haven't. That's all there is to it.

Well, duh

[slapout]

1. Leak film on bittorrent.
2. ?
3. Profit!

Why doesn't GW just build a public website

[lena_10326]

....for fans to submit work? Videos/art/themes/scripts/mods/etc.

GW gets the credit and any revenue generated; fans get to be creative.

If I was their CEO, that's the way I'd do it.

Call it a parody instead

[athloi]

Then it's legal.

This doesn't get around a truth of a world in which ideas generate money in a hostile environment where those without money suffer badly. If you create something, and own it, and want to keep profiting off of it, the tendency is to reserve as many rights as possible. And until you get the fifty million bucks that puts you and your family out of society's reach, that's what you're gonna do.

Wonder how long that ill-designed paradigm will last.

Re:Call it a parody instead

[bigdavex]

Call it a parody instead. Then it's legal.

Hmmm. What if we call it a banana?

There's MUCH more to this story.

[iknownuttin]

Then it turned out that according to German copyright law, the producers are prevented from signing away some of their own rights, which derailed the deal.

There, you have it. There's a lot more to this story that's not even mentioned in the summary - it's just another /. IP is EVIL story. Just the summary on Wikipedia is kind of confusing. And to honest, I don't blame GW for putting the brakes on the movie. Wikipedia summary of German copyright law. I'm trying to find more English versions, but even then, I'm not a lawyer, let alone a German lawyer.

There's more to it than GW maliciously hurting fans.

E-mail to Games Workshop

[alexgieg]

An e-mail I just sent to Games Workshop Customer Service:

Dear Sir,

Over the last months, since I discovered about the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, I had read many positive reviews on what seems to be a really nice fictional universe with some pretty good games based on it.

However, after reading today's Slashdot article (link below) on how Games Workshop is bullying the producers of a German fan movie based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe, I must confess your misguided approach to the situation caused my interest to drop into nothingness.

Link to the Slashdot article:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/11/ 1536240
(I advise you to read both the article and the community comments below it.)

Thus, I'm sad to inform you that, effective today, I'm not only utterly uninterested on your games, but actively boycotting each, every and all products based on each, every and all pieces of Games Workshop intellectual property. I'm also advising all my contacts (those who play games and video-games, and those who read fantasy and sci-fi to do the same.

The moment you drop your bullying tactics towards fans is the moment I'll think about becoming one. Before that, sorry, but it's too risky.

In the meantime, I hope you take the backlash on your decision wisely, for your PR and legal departments certainly don't seem to understand how the fan/producers relationship is developed and maintained in the new world of 21st century Internet. The geometric progression you'll experience on this matter in the following days will surely be instructive, provided your management shows some willingness to learn from it.

Farewell, and good luck.

Sincerely,

Alexander Gieg
Sao Paulo, Brazil

Re:Simple Solution

[orkysoft]

Probably a rogue trader.

Re:Ahem.

[Anonymous Coward]

And just think, YOU posted here. That makes you a wannabe nerd who's not cool enough to even hang out with nerds. So, what now? :P

(think I'll post this anon... the modders are more likely to mark it flamebait than my intended funny. ;-) -- but just in case, a pre-emptive *shakes fist* if it gets modded up. hehe)