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Games Workshop Goes After Fan Site

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-anger-your-base dept.

mark.leaman writes "BoingBoing has a recent post regarding Games Workshop's aggressive posturing against fan sites featuring derivative work of their game products. 'Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces — many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games...' As a lifelong hobby gamer of table, board, card and miniature games, I view this as pure heresy. It made me reject the idea of buying any Games Workshop (read Warhammer) products for my son this Christmas. Their fate was sealed, in terms of my wallet, after I Googled their shenanigans. In 2007 they forbid Warhammer fan films, this year they shut down Vassal Modules, and a while back they went after retailers as well. What ever happened to fair use?"

8 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. No respect for intellectual property... by puroresu · · Score: 4, Funny

    Games Workshop have every right to go after this kind of flagrant IP violation. After all, the company spent countless hours and huge amounts of money inventing orcs, elves, vampires, zombies and dwarves. They should be able to benefit from their creative efforts without some "fan" treating it as if it were in the public domain!

    1. Re:No respect for intellectual property... by Moryath · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You're joking, right? I can see, MAYBE, on the distributing of scans to keep games in service, but even that pushes the limit when you're talking about games with write-on-and-throw-away tracking sheets.

      Games Jerkshop have no love from me on the storefront area either. You know what they do to regular game shops, right? If you want to carry their "product" and have gamedays/tournaments, they demand 60% of your shelf space, have a list a mile long of "competing products" that you have to agree never to stock, insist you carry a certain dollar-amount of product on shelf at all times and never hold a sale.

      Then, when YOU the game store have built up the community, they plop down an "Official Games Workshop" store half a mile down the road, undercut you by selling everything at a 10% discount (remember, YOU are contractually obligated not even to hold a sale), and deliberately do their best to put you under so that nobody in the area is selling anything but GW games. Hell, at one point they actually tried to put Reaper Miniatures and D&D Miniatures on their "products you will not sell" list.

      I for one think it would be best for the world if Games Jerkshop were to fold tomorrow and their IP scatter to the four winds.

  2. Fair use is a legal right... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    meaning you have to fight for it in court which, in the American Legal System means you need to have deep pockets. Most people don't have the cash/want the hassle and so they just fold, even in extremely clear cut cases on their side.

    Fortunately, once ACTA passes we won't have to worry about protecting fair use anymore.

    --
    93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
  3. Talk about Idiots by DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Talk about Idiots.

    I know someone will step in with the proper history... but did you know, Blizzard was originally meant to make Warhammer games for Games Workshop?

    After they had a falling out and denied blizzard their IP, blizzard modified it sufficiently and renamed it into Warcraft, releasing the original "Orcs and Humans" game. Needless to say, they've had nothing but the most immense success with Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3, various expansions, and now World of Warcraft and its Expansions. As well as giving it a Sci Fi twist and coming up with Starcraft 1 and 2.

    I've always hope Games Workshop was kicking themselves hard over their stupidity for losing blizzard to make their own even more successful franchise when games such as Warhammer Online are a total flop.

    But I guess they haven't really learned anything going by their current behaviour.

    --
    You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
    1. Re:Talk about Idiots by Asmor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Giving Warcraft a sci-fi twist?

      I think you mean "Doing to Warhammer 40k what they did to Warhammer Fantasy."

      It's pretty obvious that Terrans, Zerg and Protoss are analagous to Space Marines, Tyranid and Eldar respectively. They barely even filed off the serial numbers.

    2. Re:Talk about Idiots by DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Thought I'd add:

      Blizzard of course doesn't go after Fan Art, Fan made movies, and even some of the very questionable stuff that goes on over at darknest (such as model and skin edits in the live game!) not counting all the nude warcraft art.

      I'm not a little happy about the way blizzard sometimes reacts (bnetd, glider, etc) but they certainly give their customers and fans a lot of freedom. I wish other companies weren't so bloody stupid. Why hurt your customers?!

      --
      You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
    3. Re:Talk about Idiots by Asmor · · Score: 4, Informative

      They don't just give the fans freedom, they very actively encourage fans to use their IP (not for profit, of course). They hold regular contests for Warcraft comic strips, feature fan art on the website which ranges from decent amateur to professional quality, they encourage machinima, and of course they're always giving out loads of references to the community. For example, there's a gnome named Breanni in Dalaran who runs a pet store, and she's a direct reference to the founder and maintainer of warcraftpets.com.

      And who can forget their response to the complaints that early Diablo 3 screenshots didn't look dark and gritty enough?

  4. Space Hulk by sapphire+wyvern · · Score: 4, Interesting

    BGG's game ranking charts are quite influential in the board-gaming world. A lot of local hobby stores have them up on the wall as a quick guide to some excellent games. Until quite recently, Games Workshop's new edition of Space Hulk was in the top ten games. It's now dropped to number 170.

    Well, I guess that's what happens when you value greed more than public relations or your fan base (although BGG isn't really oriented towards GW's bread-and-butter of miniatures wargaming).