Patents do NOT take something away from the public. What people seem to forget, is that the patent system ENCOURAGES people to publish their findings, sure.. short term they get an 'exclusive deal' on their idea, but after 20 years [from the application date mind you] its free game for anyone. People are also allowed to write improvement patents, where they improve on an existing patent, although the owener of the original patent might require licensing fees, of course - if your improvement totally makes his original patent a 'killer invention' the deal is normally settled pretty quick.
Example:
Anyone here who hates the patent system know the secret formula for Coca-Cola ? Anyone ? Anyone ?
No one knows it, because rather than let people figure out how to make coke, the company decided to lock that knowledge away in some vault somewhere and not let anyone but the most privileged in the company have access. If the Patent office didn't exist in the USA, that would be how EVERY company would act. With no method of preserving their business secrets, they would have to resort to hording their knowledge.
Hey look, info has been given to the public, sure - you cant manufacture a product with it right now, unless its expired, or believe it or not.. the inventor actually PLACES it into the public domain when its issued. [It is an option !] Yes, the USPTO allows people to profit from inventing somthing, but it also allows people like you (and me) to have cheap hard drives, and REALLY fast processors. Compare computers now vs computers 20 years ago.. and ask yourself where we would be if there was no patent system in place, and all the emerging home PC patents that were filed, were instead kept in a vault somewhere.
I mean, I thought the Vic-20 was cool too, but those damn tape drives only held so much pr0n.
The patent office HAS this already, 4 years, 8 years, and 12 years after a patent is issued, fees need to be paid to keep the patent active. if a patent is not renewed, it goes into the public domain.
a) Smart (on average) geeky folk, who actually WORRY about spending time with their kids, realizes gaming takes a back seat. b) Average Joe Welfare, has 5 kids, doesn't care what they do, MIGHT worry about them if he sobers up. c) Super Catholic, has 6 kids, tells them all not to worry about succeeding on this earth - its the next life that matters.
Which would you rather have populate the earth ?
Hey.. I say that biased of course, I'm a geek, with a kid. [We are only having one] I make a good living, I try my best to make sure my kid is well educated, has manners, and isn't just a waste of air. I like video games, but everyone my age does.
I have tonnes of friends who don't WANT to have kids, all successful, all mid 30's - smart, but are concentrating on their jobs / science research, etc. Hell, one of them discovered a drug that raises the survival rate of childhood leukemia by 90%! SO.. tell me who should reproduce again ? This girl, who has a good chance at having a kid that will contribute to society ? Or the guy who played high school football and 'missed' his big chance at fame cause he blew out his knee after his second year of college, and left thus after.
All these people SHOULD reproduce, and let the dumb people stop breeding, maybe as a species, we would have a better chance ?
I've been telecommuting for the past year and half, and my employees are also telecommuting. 'Its the wave of the future man.' My company certainly doesn't pay me 'market value' or really anywhere near what they should be paying me, however, I dont have to drive into work, deal with office politics, dress codes, etc etc etc. Granted, the hot interns that used to work at my company are a lot harder to look at now, but there is a starbucks nearby.. and thats just as nice.
Because I don't have all the extra expense, and because I *LIKE* being able to walk upstairs to see my toddler when I need to / want to.. I am willing to take less money. It doesn't mean i'm willing to work a dead end job, or be under the curve forever, but it made the difference between taking a new job for less money, or staying at a dead end job.
my point was.. once a company loses its creativity and ambition.. it has failed. Especially in the gaming industry.
WOTC's last big hit that they owned 100% was Magic the Gathering. Pokemon cards made them money, but it was a licence deal from Nintendo. After MTG gave them HUGE amounts of money, they didn't know where to put it, they opened super store devoted to MTG. They had HUGE tournaments, and national compitions, they wrote a video game for it. They did everything INSTEAD of trying to write new games. Everything they sold other than MTG was normally only a 'hit' because distributors refuse to sell MTG cards to stores UNLESS they ordered the other titles. Then Fallen Empires happened, and the bottom dropped out.
Regardless, one doesnt SELL a company the size of WOTC unless it has failed, I mean sure.. Peter 'made' 354 million on the deal to hasbro, but a lot of that went to pay off investments, and nintendo. [Which is mostly what Hasbro wanted.]
I dunno.. Financially they might have been 'successful' on paper, but when you have to sell your company because its in the red, I wouldn't call it a major win.
Wizards TOTALLY failed by becoming too popular:P lol I Met Peter Adkinson At the head office of GW in Lenton. He had come there to talk to Tom about how to manage the explosive growth of his company, and how GW managed it.
In the several months following this, they slowly imploded until a few years later the company was finally sold to Hasbro.
Workshop.. in the late 90's almost exploded. Its one of the reasons I left. The staff was underpaid horribly. [I was responsible for MILLIONS in sales a year, but was non commissioned, and made less than $30k a year - and THAT was after I help start Games-Workshop Japan.] The Board was losing focus, The market in the UK was starting to saturate, and no one there wanted to shift production to other companies because they were worried about quality control.
The company was also losing focus on its products. The imaginative minds at the studio were burning out. The company was starting to focus on profit, and bottom lines - and migrating away from the 'we hire hobbiests' motto they had previously.
We were expected to work longer hours, even to come in on weekend, for no additional money. Cries of 'you can be replaced tomorrow' were used by a lot of the managers who were simply in over their heads.
I was lucky, I had a degree in computer programming, and I left. Some of my friends and co-workers were not so lucky. [Some are still there.. some went to other gameing companies, including WOTC heh.] If you didn't toe the company line without question, you were put into 'go nowhere' positions. A friend of mine was 'promoted' to the customer service sales line after refusing to cut his hair. A former boss was told on his 10 year anniversery with the company that if he didn't cut his hair, he might as well quit. At the end I personally had a dick-head manager who literally compared his team to the hitler youth, and would expect the same obediance. He wrote me up one August afternoon for sitting down at my desk after lunch without my tie on. [In baltimore, in August, the tempratures can hit 102 easy, with 95% humitity pushing it to an effective heat index of over 115] That was when I decided to go elsewhere. That same manager was fired about a year later under similar circumstances and now sells real-estate.
It was a big transition from an office that employed 60 people in the US were you would come in wearing a t-shirt and jeans, to an office employing 120 people, and most of you were expected to wear a full suit and tie.
Apparantly its a nicer place to work now, people are better compensated, the company actually has health insurance now. Following on a number of lawsuits where they mistreated former employees, GW US is now required to keep a HR attourney on staff as a consulting position due to these practices.
For a real wage, I would go back, even with all the crap we had to wade through, I made some great friends there [80% of which VANISHED as soon as I left the company, which should tell you about how close knit they are there.] I just don't think they could afford me now:)
The information is accurate. GW went with mindscape instead and licenced out the name to a game called shadow of the horned rat. which sucked.
Do they kick themselves ? Not sure, as it was a licencing issue anyways. Blizzard has been hugely effective at basically ripping off GW games to make computer games:p Warcraft = Warhammer, Starcraft = 40k, Diablo = Hero/Dungeon quest. etc.
The decisions was made only shortly after GW became a public company, and most of the people making the decision were folks who bought the company from Brian Ansel. Brian was mad as a fish, and was willing to drive the brand into the ground to fund his personal pet projects. The folks who bought the company, especially after that, were VERY protective of the IP and direction that IP took. At the time, I belive, Blizzard wanted to take liberties with the canon of how the Warhammer universe was done, and given the atmosphere at the time - that was just unpalletable.
Honestly ? I was working there during the time Warcraft became very popular, and I don't think Workshop would have been able to handle that kind of growth at that point in its history without self-destructing. So.. Kicking themselves for a missed chance NOW.. when they could weather that storm easily ? sure, but then ? that kind of growth and greed probably would have made them totally lose focus, and knocked them so far off track they would have dried up by now.
Boy those grapes are up really high, I bet they are sour anyways.
Xbox 360 dvd's only cost pennies to press, but they cost $60.00. MP3's are just files, why do they cost $1 ? It costs just about as much to make a Honda Accord as it does to make a Series 5 BMW, why can't I get one for the same price ?
Toy soldiers are priced at what GW thinks they should be priced at. It is, regardless of how much people want it to be not, a luxury item, the cataliac of Table Top Miniatures. And as such, yeah, its expensive, but so is a BMW. And I still want me one of those.
Having spent time in the studio, I can assure you that a LOT of man hours goes into making a mold for plastic figures, yes.. its cheaper to produce them, but at over 250k lbs just for the MOLD tooling itself - how many plastic skaven do you think it takes to recover that ? I worked there when Jess Godwin sculpted the Eldar Falcon Grav Tank. the model was something crazy like 4 feet wide for the tooling. [A 6mm 'epic' figurine pre tooling is sculpted at a height of about 9 inches.] Jess, A full time artist, spent over three months on that project. There are a LOT of costs involved in high detailed plastic molds, which is why you don't see a lot of 'poor' gaming companies with many of them. At least not outside of China. And everyone knows how hard it is to keep up on quality control there.
Ignoring costs for a second, lets look at your base argument.
A box of plastic empire figures (30 some odd figures if I remember correctly) is probably about $35.00 usd now. between $1-$2 a figure. A blister pack of 2-3 empire figures runs about $10 USD. The math is pretty clear.
Now.. what your PROBABLY comparing the prices to is the cost for a metal box set X number of years ago when *YOU* last bought one. [in 1996 a squad of 10 metal figures was roughtly $25, with a bloodbowl team of 12-14 figures going for $29.99] But you see, now adays, almost all the 'bulk' army figures are plastic, the metal box sets are far and inbetween, and certainly not rank and file troops. Plastic figures for your 'bulk' troops makes sence both from a pocket-book and from a 'bordom of painting the same damn figure 18 times' point of view. Plastic models are easier for a kid to modify, hell - they can just stick the parts on differently and they have a new figure.
Older people who cant afford to buy everything they want, are the ones who complain about the price of GW stuff. Spoiled by the years of cheap gaming fixes like MTG and the low $$ output games like D&D where a $20 book is all you need, they expect everything to be like that. I can say this safely, because everytime you complain about the high costs of their product, what I *HEAR* is, 'I want that, I may not be able to afford, or WANT to afford it, but I still want it'.
What you might not understand is that, from an overall focus, Games Workshop doesn't care about people older than 12.
GW's target market is 12 year old boys. I know this, because it was drilled into our heads for YEARS. There are new 12 year old boys every year. Ones who have never heard of Games-Workshop yet, but would love it when they do. 12 year old boy's don't care if Karl Franz on a war griffon costs $35 quid, they just care that he has a WS of 5 and 3 attacks and is kack hard. 12 year old boys will save their pocket money for 4 weeks to buy Karl Franz [or their army's equilivant.] then spend a few weeks painting it. They will come into a store that sells games-workshop once every week to two weeks and spend 7-15 lbs. (10-20 usd) buying their army a few figures at a time. A 12 year old boy is HAPPY when he buys Karl Franz, even if his army isn't done yet, because he now has WEEKS to obsess over the model until its painted and ready to play. Thats how 12 year old boys are wired up. Old beardy men [like you and me] want an army done TOMORROW so we can play. A Part of working at GW that was so rewarding was getting back in touch with my inner 12 year old boy.
The rare amazonian rain forest tree that is actually employing over 100 resident artists. You want all those cool minis, a monthly full colour 80 page magazine, you have to hire folks that can do that.
Workshop products may be dear, but people don't want them less for that - they want them more.
Cardnial rule of success, always leave them wanting more.
It will never happen. While the Board at GW is more understanding of video games now, they still see them only as a way to get boys interested in a 'real' hobby. That of model wargames.
They will never, and I say never with conviction, issue a licence to reproduce their table top game on a computer. To the folks running the show, that is just as alien thought as buying a computer to only check e-mail is to a computer programmer.
They simply don't understand how someone would want to play a video game of their hobby as opposed to actually playing with toy soldiers. The game is only part of the hobby to them [and me.. since I used to be one of them.] and modeling, painting and the tactile-ness of toy soldiers can't easily be reproduced. This tactile-ness is easily 80% of the hobby anyways, as well as the collecting part of it.
So - you will never see a 'faithful' reproduction of their games, only games that add to the hobby - instead of replacing it.
As a former workshop employee, both domestic and abroad, Here are a few Questions:P
1) How difficult do you find it to work with the studio ? Aside from the time differences, Having spent a little time there, I know how possesive the studio is of their IP, and overall mythos. In the past they [I almost said we] have been very difficult to work with from the vantage of software companies in this regard. [Even going so far as to turn down a brand new software company in the early 90's when they pitched a Humans vs Orcs fantasy game.. Blizzard was the company btw, who managed to release the software anyways to some moderate success:)] I know that recent mindsets on the board have stopped seeing video games as 'the enemy' and started seeing them as effective marketing tools to branch boys into 'the hobby', do you find this to be reflected through out the company as well ?
2) What kind of visuals do you work with ? Again, the paper files in the old Notts. studio were EXTENSIVE, I know that mythic has their internal art department. [A place I once applied to after being encouraged by friends who work there, oddly enough , I would have been perfect on this project, but thats neither here nor there;P] Do your artists have some free reign ? Do you get to use source material from the GW design studio ? How tight are they on your artistic licence, and is it frustrating to work under those constraints ?
3) Has GW taken you folks to play paint-ball in Nottingham forest yet ?:) 4) Do you like the pub in the new head office ? 5) Are Jon Stallard and Chris Harbour still Beardy-Ol-Gits ?
I dunno where the hell i pulled that 55 hour thing out of.. I think I ate my coffee and drank my breakfast today.
Per the article: played obsessively for several months.
I mean, I've been playing lego starwars II 'obsessivly' for two weeks, and I don't have any new urges to build things out of small plastic blocks recently.
Although I *DID* have a dream the other night that a girl I dated in Highschool was dressed a Princess Leia and we were running through the Death Star looking for blue Lego chips.
Ignoring that the attourney is Jack-'I wont actually dontate to charaity even though I said I would neener-neener-neener'-Thompson :
caviet: I am under the assumption that 'obsessivly playing for 55 hours' is in a few close together sessions, not spread out over 8 months.
One might just question exatly *WHAT* kind of a home life would allow a kid to play an ultra-violent video game for 55 hours in a two day period.
I mean.. lets face it.. the kid probably came from a shitty homelife in the first place, giving him a LOT more [to a kid] justifiable reasons to kill his family than playing video games.
Maybe no one was HOME for a few days. Maybe he was abused. who knows.. but chances are.. any homelife that will alow him to 'obsessivly' play a video games for 2-3 days straight.. well.. lets just say there are already issues there.
Well, I have to say it. Not only does second life irritate the CRAP out of me, but its whole 'system' is a mess.
I honestly played second life for like 2 days, to see what all the fuss was about. Not only was the game slow, and unresponsive, but it was dull as shit too.
It was basically a giant SHOPPING MALL. you could go to remote islands, and shop. You could go to the desert, and shop. All the while spending 'real' money for virtual clothes, so other people could watch you 'shop' in style. [As an added bonus, you could sell your virtual life $$ for 'real' money, allowing chinese etc. money laundering and farming.]
You are given an allowance of Lydon(sp) dollars every week. and my first (and only) $250 went to buy a t-shirt that said 'you all suck' on it, of course, I didn't get that.. I instead got a big 'box' hat that covered my little character and said 'sucker' on all sides.
So not only can you SHOP online, but you can get ripped off online too.
The company is just biding its time trying to get series-A funding. Something to drive the price up so the CEO can retire, or sell to warner brothers or something.
Now, its also well known that Second Life has a HUGE gay following, its like.. the video game for folks who are/were/might be coming out soon. So maybe that has something to do with the endless fashion parade. Really, in the end of the day though, not only is this story moot, but second life is moot. Its a failed experiment, pumped up by marketing PR, hoping to last long enough so that the folks who own it don't need to get real jobs. The Sims online, has a larger marketshare, and sony called that game a failure.
I literally JUST bought a TV that supports 1080P. I bought a HD tv specifically with the 360 in mind. [It helps that my old 25 inch sony from 1995 just died over the weekend, and that best buy had a 10% sale, and that circut city matched prices 110%]
Glad I spent the extra $500 for a 1080p over a 720p set.
They should have used the CGI to put kirk's starfleet insignia back on the front of his shirt.. looks like the tape came loose, and it slid down to his waist.
Let me know how you feel about your brake the first time you have to replace it after cutting through contractor grade lumber from home depot, which is normally WAY above 10% water content.
Let me know too, how you feel about paying $200-$250 more for every piece of furnature you buy, since you can rest assured that if this is 'mandatory' on all saws, that all the companies in North Carolina certainly wont hesitate to pass on the additional expense.
I'm not saying its a bad idea, its a great idea, its just practical enough. Its not fool proof, wet lumber, hell.. DAMP lumber.. will cause the device to trigger, not to mention, the device ITSELF has an on/off switch. So, when people just turn it off because they are cutting cheap wood, how does that protect them any more ?
accidents happen.. yes.. but I know how many table saw / and contractor table saws were produced per year by the company I used to work for [over 200,000] and we were a small manufacturer of them. I would guess that there were easily over 2mil a year made if you include grizzley, jet, and even home depot brand.
lets be conservative and say its 1 mil a year.. and that on average, there are 100-1000 accidents a year where someone severs a finger or hand. [and you can be SURE, if there were 100 accidents a year.. it would be all over the media, as the national safety groups start investigating at that level.] Assuming that no one has 'noticed' until now, and so many accidents went unreported, we are STILL talking about less than 1% of users having an accident with the tool. [Ignoring unsafe modifications, improper usage etc.. which the sawstop wont correct.]
in 2004, I knew of less than 35 incidents where someone injured themselves on one of my former employeers table/contrator saws, and the vast majority of them were caused by kickback - usually from having the blade splitter removed at construction sites.
so.. assuming that each of those were caused by a BRAND NEW saw from that year. Do you still think it makes sence to raise the cost of not only the saw, but production - due to replacing brakes and blades, 30% or more, for such an insignificant number ?
I know a LOT of wood workers, myself included, who can still count to 10 without using their feet.
Slashdot Mirror
Patents do NOT take something away from the public. What people seem to forget, is that the patent system ENCOURAGES people to publish their findings, sure .. short term they get an 'exclusive deal' on their idea, but after 20 years [from the application date mind you] its free game for anyone. People are also allowed to write improvement patents, where they improve on an existing patent, although the owener of the original patent might require licensing fees, of course - if your improvement totally makes his original patent a 'killer invention' the deal is normally settled pretty quick.
.. the inventor actually PLACES it into the public domain when its issued. [It is an option !] Yes, the USPTO allows people to profit from inventing somthing, but it also allows people like you (and me) to have cheap hard drives, and REALLY fast processors. Compare computers now vs computers 20 years ago .. and ask yourself where we would be if there was no patent system in place, and all the emerging home PC patents that were filed, were instead kept in a vault somewhere.
Example:
Anyone here who hates the patent system know the secret formula for Coca-Cola ? Anyone ? Anyone ?
No one knows it, because rather than let people figure out how to make coke, the company decided to lock that knowledge away in some vault somewhere and not let anyone but the most privileged in the company have access. If the Patent office didn't exist in the USA, that would be how EVERY company would act. With no method of preserving their business secrets, they would have to resort to hording their knowledge.
Anyone here know how to make a Spring-loaded dog assembly which enables a bezel of a speaker system and structure holding electric device to be mounted in ceilings and walls without having to use external retaining means ? If not, just follow the link - all the info on how to do it is right there.
Hey look, info has been given to the public, sure - you cant manufacture a product with it right now, unless its expired, or believe it or not
I mean, I thought the Vic-20 was cool too, but those damn tape drives only held so much pr0n.
The patent office HAS this already, 4 years, 8 years, and 12 years after a patent is issued, fees need to be paid to keep the patent active.
if a patent is not renewed, it goes into the public domain.
Actually, I had thought I read somewhere that they changed the title due to copywrite issues, but this site suggest other reasons.
Oh - I know this guy's wife, she is pretty hot. They got divorced, and now she sleeps with me and MY wife. :P
I still play video games though
Lets see ..
.. I say that biased of course, I'm a geek, with a kid. [We are only having one] I make a good living, I try my best to make sure my kid is well educated, has manners, and isn't just a waste of air. I like video games, but everyone my age does.
.. tell me who should reproduce again ? This girl, who has a good chance at having a kid that will contribute to society ? Or the guy who played high school football and 'missed' his big chance at fame cause he blew out his knee after his second year of college, and left thus after.
a) Smart (on average) geeky folk, who actually WORRY about spending time with their kids, realizes gaming takes a back seat.
b) Average Joe Welfare, has 5 kids, doesn't care what they do, MIGHT worry about them if he sobers up.
c) Super Catholic, has 6 kids, tells them all not to worry about succeeding on this earth - its the next life that matters.
Which would you rather have populate the earth ?
Hey
I have tonnes of friends who don't WANT to have kids, all successful, all mid 30's - smart, but are concentrating on their jobs / science research, etc. Hell, one of them discovered a drug that raises the survival rate of childhood leukemia by 90%! SO
All these people SHOULD reproduce, and let the dumb people stop breeding, maybe as a species, we would have a better chance ?
There are actually patents for online classified ads, the most recent I found was issued June 06, 2006.
:)
Patent 7062466.
Everyone love's the Internet
gotta love when all of your questions .. which were all modded +5 get skipped. but questions that were +2 or +3 made it.
I've been telecommuting for the past year and half, and my employees are also telecommuting. .. and thats just as nice.
.. I am willing to take less money. It doesn't mean i'm willing to work a dead end job, or be under the curve forever, but it made the difference between taking a new job for less money, or staying at a dead end job.
'Its the wave of the future man.' My company certainly doesn't pay me 'market value' or really anywhere near what they should be paying me, however, I dont have to drive into work, deal with office politics, dress codes, etc etc etc. Granted, the hot interns that used to work at my company are a lot harder to look at now, but there is a starbucks nearby
Because I don't have all the extra expense, and because I *LIKE* being able to walk upstairs to see my toddler when I need to / want to
my point was .. once a company loses its creativity and ambition .. it has failed. Especially in the gaming industry.
.. Peter 'made' 354 million on the deal to hasbro, but a lot of that went to pay off investments, and nintendo. [Which is mostly what Hasbro wanted.]
.. Financially they might have been 'successful' on paper, but when you have to sell your company because its in the red, I wouldn't call it a major win.
WOTC's last big hit that they owned 100% was Magic the Gathering. Pokemon cards made them money, but it was a licence deal from Nintendo. After MTG gave them HUGE amounts of money, they didn't know where to put it, they opened super store devoted to MTG. They had HUGE tournaments, and national compitions, they wrote a video game for it. They did everything INSTEAD of trying to write new games. Everything they sold other than MTG was normally only a 'hit' because distributors refuse to sell MTG cards to stores UNLESS they ordered the other titles. Then Fallen Empires happened, and the bottom dropped out.
Regardless, one doesnt SELL a company the size of WOTC unless it has failed, I mean sure
I dunno
its not hard to say 'hey, this is affecting my life - i need to slow down.'
A lot easier than a physical addiction I would think.
Wizards TOTALLY failed by becoming too popular :P lol I Met Peter Adkinson At the head office of GW in Lenton. He had come there to talk to Tom about how to manage the explosive growth of his company, and how GW managed it.
.. in the late 90's almost exploded. Its one of the reasons I left. The staff was underpaid horribly. [I was responsible for MILLIONS in sales a year, but was non commissioned, and made less than $30k a year - and THAT was after I help start Games-Workshop Japan.] The Board was losing focus, The market in the UK was starting to saturate, and no one there wanted to shift production to other companies because they were worried about quality control.
.. some went to other gameing companies, including WOTC heh.] If you didn't toe the company line without question, you were put into 'go nowhere' positions. A friend of mine was 'promoted' to the customer service sales line after refusing to cut his hair. A former boss was told on his 10 year anniversery with the company that if he didn't cut his hair, he might as well quit. At the end I personally had a dick-head manager who literally compared his team to the hitler youth, and would expect the same obediance. He wrote me up one August afternoon for sitting down at my desk after lunch without my tie on. [In baltimore, in August, the tempratures can hit 102 easy, with 95% humitity pushing it to an effective heat index of over 115] That was when I decided to go elsewhere. That same manager was fired about a year later under similar circumstances and now sells real-estate.
:)
In the several months following this, they slowly imploded until a few years later the company was finally sold to Hasbro.
Workshop
The company was also losing focus on its products. The imaginative minds at the studio were burning out. The company was starting to focus on profit, and bottom lines - and migrating away from the 'we hire hobbiests' motto they had previously.
We were expected to work longer hours, even to come in on weekend, for no additional money. Cries of 'you can be replaced tomorrow' were used by a lot of the managers who were simply in over their heads.
I was lucky, I had a degree in computer programming, and I left. Some of my friends and co-workers were not so lucky. [Some are still there
It was a big transition from an office that employed 60 people in the US were you would come in wearing a t-shirt and jeans, to an office employing 120 people, and most of you were expected to wear a full suit and tie.
Apparantly its a nicer place to work now, people are better compensated, the company actually has health insurance now. Following on a number of lawsuits where they mistreated former employees, GW US is now required to keep a HR attourney on staff as a consulting position due to these practices.
For a real wage, I would go back, even with all the crap we had to wade through, I made some great friends there [80% of which VANISHED as soon as I left the company, which should tell you about how close knit they are there.] I just don't think they could afford me now
The information is accurate. GW went with mindscape instead and licenced out the name to a game called shadow of the horned rat. which sucked.
:p Warcraft = Warhammer, Starcraft = 40k, Diablo = Hero/Dungeon quest. etc.
.. Kicking themselves for a missed chance NOW .. when they could weather that storm easily ? sure, but then ? that kind of growth and greed probably would have made them totally lose focus, and knocked them so far off track they would have dried up by now.
Do they kick themselves ? Not sure, as it was a licencing issue anyways. Blizzard has been hugely effective at basically ripping off GW games to make computer games
The decisions was made only shortly after GW became a public company, and most of the people making the decision were folks who bought the company from Brian Ansel. Brian was mad as a fish, and was willing to drive the brand into the ground to fund his personal pet projects. The folks who bought the company, especially after that, were VERY protective of the IP and direction that IP took. At the time, I belive, Blizzard wanted to take liberties with the canon of how the Warhammer universe was done, and given the atmosphere at the time - that was just unpalletable.
Honestly ? I was working there during the time Warcraft became very popular, and I don't think Workshop would have been able to handle that kind of growth at that point in its history without self-destructing. So
Boy those grapes are up really high, I bet they are sour anyways.
.. its cheaper to produce them, but at over 250k lbs just for the MOLD tooling itself - how many plastic skaven do you think it takes to recover that ? I worked there when Jess Godwin sculpted the Eldar Falcon Grav Tank. the model was something crazy like 4 feet wide for the tooling. [A 6mm 'epic' figurine pre tooling is sculpted at a height of about 9 inches.] Jess, A full time artist, spent over three months on that project. There are a LOT of costs involved in high detailed plastic molds, which is why you don't see a lot of 'poor' gaming companies with many of them. At least not outside of China. And everyone knows how hard it is to keep up on quality control there.
.. what your PROBABLY comparing the prices to is the cost for a metal box set X number of years ago when *YOU* last bought one. [in 1996 a squad of 10 metal figures was roughtly $25, with a bloodbowl team of 12-14 figures going for $29.99] But you see, now adays, almost all the 'bulk' army figures are plastic, the metal box sets are far and inbetween, and certainly not rank and file troops. Plastic figures for your 'bulk' troops makes sence both from a pocket-book and from a 'bordom of painting the same damn figure 18 times' point of view. Plastic models are easier for a kid to modify, hell - they can just stick the parts on differently and they have a new figure.
Xbox 360 dvd's only cost pennies to press, but they cost $60.00.
MP3's are just files, why do they cost $1 ?
It costs just about as much to make a Honda Accord as it does to make a Series 5 BMW, why can't I get one for the same price ?
Toy soldiers are priced at what GW thinks they should be priced at. It is, regardless of how much people want it to be not, a luxury item, the cataliac of Table Top Miniatures. And as such, yeah, its expensive, but so is a BMW. And I still want me one of those.
Having spent time in the studio, I can assure you that a LOT of man hours goes into making a mold for plastic figures, yes
Ignoring costs for a second, lets look at your base argument.
A box of plastic empire figures (30 some odd figures if I remember correctly) is probably about $35.00 usd now. between $1-$2 a figure. A blister pack of 2-3 empire figures runs about $10 USD. The math is pretty clear.
Now
Older people who cant afford to buy everything they want, are the ones who complain about the price of GW stuff. Spoiled by the years of cheap gaming fixes like MTG and the low $$ output games like D&D where a $20 book is all you need, they expect everything to be like that. I can say this safely, because everytime you complain about the high costs of their product, what I *HEAR* is, 'I want that, I may not be able to afford, or WANT to afford it, but I still want it'.
What you might not understand is that, from an overall focus, Games Workshop doesn't care about people older than 12.
GW's target market is 12 year old boys. I know this, because it was drilled into our heads for YEARS. There are new 12 year old boys every year. Ones who have never heard of Games-Workshop yet, but would love it when they do. 12 year old boy's don't care if Karl Franz on a war griffon costs $35 quid, they just care that he has a WS of 5 and 3 attacks and is kack hard.
12 year old boys will save their pocket money for 4 weeks to buy Karl Franz [or their army's equilivant.] then spend a few weeks painting it. They will come into a store that sells games-workshop once every week to two weeks and spend 7-15 lbs. (10-20 usd) buying their army a few figures at a time. A 12 year old boy is HAPPY when he buys Karl Franz, even if his army isn't done yet, because he now has WEEKS to obsess over the model until its painted and ready to play. Thats how 12 year old boys are wired up. Old beardy men [like you and me] want an army done TOMORROW so we can play. A Part of working at GW that was so rewarding was getting back in touch with my inner 12 year old boy.
The rare amazonian rain forest tree that is actually employing over 100 resident artists. You want all those cool minis, a monthly full colour 80 page magazine, you have to hire folks that can do that.
Workshop products may be dear, but people don't want them less for that - they want them more.
Cardnial rule of success, always leave them wanting more.
Well, I can answer for the Table Top Port.
.. since I used to be one of them.] and modeling, painting and the tactile-ness of toy soldiers can't easily be reproduced. This tactile-ness is easily 80% of the hobby anyways, as well as the collecting part of it.
:P
It will never happen. While the Board at GW is more understanding of video games now, they still see them only as a way to get boys interested in a 'real' hobby. That of model wargames.
They will never, and I say never with conviction, issue a licence to reproduce their table top game on a computer. To the folks running the show, that is just as alien thought as buying a computer to only check e-mail is to a computer programmer.
They simply don't understand how someone would want to play a video game of their hobby as opposed to actually playing with toy soldiers. The game is only part of the hobby to them [and me
So - you will never see a 'faithful' reproduction of their games, only games that add to the hobby - instead of replacing it.
10 years ago - you wouldn't even see that
As a former workshop employee, both domestic and abroad, Here are a few Questions :P
.. Blizzard was the company btw, who managed to release the software anyways to some moderate success :)] I know that recent mindsets on the board have stopped seeing video games as 'the enemy' and started seeing them as effective marketing tools to branch boys into 'the hobby', do you find this to be reflected through out the company as well ?
;P] Do your artists have some free reign ? Do you get to use source material from the GW design studio ? How tight are they on your artistic licence, and is it frustrating to work under those constraints ?
:)
1) How difficult do you find it to work with the studio ? Aside from the time differences, Having spent a little time there, I know how possesive the studio is of their IP, and overall mythos. In the past they [I almost said we] have been very difficult to work with from the vantage of software companies in this regard. [Even going so far as to turn down a brand new software company in the early 90's when they pitched a Humans vs Orcs fantasy game
2) What kind of visuals do you work with ? Again, the paper files in the old Notts. studio were EXTENSIVE, I know that mythic has their internal art department. [A place I once applied to after being encouraged by friends who work there, oddly enough , I would have been perfect on this project, but thats neither here nor there
3) Has GW taken you folks to play paint-ball in Nottingham forest yet ?
4) Do you like the pub in the new head office ?
5) Are Jon Stallard and Chris Harbour still Beardy-Ol-Gits ?
So, is this why all my movie recommendations are suddenly 'The Manturian Candiadate' ?
Simple Answer:
*waving mouse across the mouse pad*
'These are not the planes you are looking for.'
*click* 'These aren't the planes we are looking for.'
*waving mouse across the mouse pad*
'He should go back to playing his videogame'
*click* 'You should go back to playing your videogame.'
I dunno where the hell i pulled that 55 hour thing out of .. I think I ate my coffee and drank my breakfast today.
.. nothing new.
Per the article: played obsessively for several months.
I mean, I've been playing lego starwars II 'obsessivly' for two weeks, and I don't have any new urges to build things out of small plastic blocks recently.
Although I *DID* have a dream the other night that a girl I dated in Highschool was dressed a Princess Leia and we were running through the Death Star looking for blue Lego chips.
nah
Ignoring that the attourney is Jack-'I wont actually dontate to charaity even though I said I would neener-neener-neener'-Thompson :
.. lets face it .. the kid probably came from a shitty homelife in the first place, giving him a LOT more [to a kid] justifiable reasons to kill his family than playing video games.
.. but chances are .. any homelife that will alow him to 'obsessivly' play a video games for 2-3 days straight .. well .. lets just say there are already issues there.
caviet: I am under the assumption that 'obsessivly playing for 55 hours' is in a few close together sessions, not spread out over 8 months.
One might just question exatly *WHAT* kind of a home life would allow a kid to play an ultra-violent video game for 55 hours in a two day period.
I mean
Maybe no one was HOME for a few days. Maybe he was abused. who knows
just my question on the matter.
Well, I have to say it. Not only does second life irritate the CRAP out of me, but its whole 'system' is a mess.
.. I instead got a big 'box' hat that covered my little character and said 'sucker' on all sides.
.. the video game for folks who are/were/might be coming out soon. So maybe that has something to do with the endless fashion parade. Really, in the end of the day though, not only is this story moot, but second life is moot. Its a failed experiment, pumped up by marketing PR, hoping to last long enough so that the folks who own it don't need to get real jobs. The Sims online, has a larger marketshare, and sony called that game a failure.
I honestly played second life for like 2 days, to see what all the fuss was about. Not only was the game slow, and unresponsive, but it was dull as shit too.
It was basically a giant SHOPPING MALL. you could go to remote islands, and shop. You could go to the desert, and shop. All the while spending 'real' money for virtual clothes, so other people could watch you 'shop' in style. [As an added bonus, you could sell your virtual life $$ for 'real' money, allowing chinese etc. money laundering and farming.]
You are given an allowance of Lydon(sp) dollars every week. and my first (and only) $250 went to buy a t-shirt that said 'you all suck' on it, of course, I didn't get that
So not only can you SHOP online, but you can get ripped off online too.
The company is just biding its time trying to get series-A funding. Something to drive the price up so the CEO can retire, or sell to warner brothers or something.
Now, its also well known that Second Life has a HUGE gay following, its like
I literally JUST bought a TV that supports 1080P. I bought a HD tv specifically with the 360 in mind. [It helps that my old 25 inch sony from 1995 just died over the weekend, and that best buy had a 10% sale, and that circut city matched prices 110%]
Glad I spent the extra $500 for a 1080p over a 720p set.
They should have used the CGI to put kirk's starfleet insignia back on the front of his shirt .. looks like the tape came loose, and it slid down to his waist.
cool .. first in line for IP enforcement.
Let me know how you feel about your brake the first time you have to replace it after cutting through contractor grade lumber from home depot, which is normally WAY above 10% water content.
.. DAMP lumber .. will cause the device to trigger, not to mention, the device ITSELF has an on/off switch. So, when people just turn it off because they are cutting cheap wood, how does that protect them any more ?
.. yes .. but I know how many table saw / and contractor table saws were produced per year by the company I used to work for [over 200,000] and we were a small manufacturer of them. I would guess that there were easily over 2mil a year made if you include grizzley, jet, and even home depot brand.
.. and that on average, there are 100-1000 accidents a year where someone severs a finger or hand. .. it would be all over the media, as the national safety groups start investigating at that level.] Assuming that no one has 'noticed' until now, and so many accidents went unreported, we are STILL talking about less than 1% of users having an accident with the tool. [Ignoring unsafe modifications, improper usage etc .. which the sawstop wont correct.]
.. assuming that each of those were caused by a BRAND NEW saw from that year. Do you still think it makes sence to raise the cost of not only the saw, but production - due to replacing brakes and blades, 30% or more, for such an insignificant number ?
Let me know too, how you feel about paying $200-$250 more for every piece of furnature you buy, since you can rest assured that if this is 'mandatory' on all saws, that all the companies in North Carolina certainly wont hesitate to pass on the additional expense.
I'm not saying its a bad idea, its a great idea, its just practical enough. Its not fool proof, wet lumber, hell
accidents happen
lets be conservative and say its 1 mil a year
[and you can be SURE, if there were 100 accidents a year
in 2004, I knew of less than 35 incidents where someone injured themselves on one of my former employeers table/contrator saws, and the vast majority of them were caused by kickback - usually from having the blade splitter removed at construction sites.
so
I know a LOT of wood workers, myself included, who can still count to 10 without using their feet.