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Steelmage99 wrote:

Davor wrote:

Not sure what you mean by "Illegal but unenforceable" category, because as I understand it, anything for "personal" use an "not making money off it" is legal. At least in Canada we are allowed to make copies and keep the original as a back up. It's illegal to distribute said material either by Torrents, or selling it in stores or the back of your trunk.

Are you sure about that?

The last time I ran into a person saying that, it took me less than 5 minutes to look up the copyright laws of his specific country (New Zealand), and quote the law showing that he was wrong.

Please note, I am not saying that you are wrong. I have not looked up the copyright laws pertaining to Canada.
I am just pointing out that a lot of times we are just spreading internet myths, and not taking the time to look up the actual law.

And of course we need to keep in mind that the laws of various countries differs wildly, so stating that "the law is such and such" is always sketchy at best.

I am talking about music, movies, books and computer programs. Someone mentioned something about how that is illegal. That is legal (that I know of in Canada. It was suppose to change but to my knowledge, the law hasn't changed yet. That was back when we had cassette tapes and video cassettes, and programs were on floppy 3.5 and CD's. Has the law changed in Canada now? I don't think so if I am wrong please someone correct me.)

I think there is a subset in "GW collectors" that refers specifically to aspiring players- that is, players who dream big and purchase a number of kits without necessarily following-through on building a particular army. This can be great with bandwagon players, who are easily seduced by ideas of different armies.

But I think even these aspirants are dependent on the concept of there being a game behind all of the models. And if they see the potential "eventual game" being threatened, say through (what they perceive as) shoddy rules or a movement away in gaming communities from GW games, this could easily start an exodus that could severely undermine 40k and Fantasy sales.

And while there may never be a "40k-killer" like there may not be a "WoW-killer," GW games could slip into obscurity from the player base fracturing into multiple, somewhat competing games (think Yu-gi-Oh vs. Magic vs Pokemon, or something similar).

 Accolade wrote:
I think there is a subset in "GW collectors" that refers specifically to aspiring players- that is, players who dream big and purchase a number of kits without necessarily following-through on building a particular army. This can be great with bandwagon players, who are easily seduced by ideas of different armies.

But I think even these aspirants are dependent on the concept of there being a game behind all of the models. And if they see the potential "eventual game" being threatened, say through (what they perceive as) shoddy rules or a movement away in gaming communities from GW games, this could easily start an exodus that could severely undermine 40k and Fantasy sales.

And while there may never be a "40k-killer" like there may not be a "WoW-killer," GW games could slip into obscurity from the player base fracturing into multiple, somewhat competing games (think Yu-gi-Oh vs. Magic vs Pokemon, or something similar).

Can't agree more. I've spent far more time aspiring to have finished armies for GW games than actually playing them, but it was always with the end goal of actually playing a game. I never would have gotten as interested in the wargaming hobby if there wasn't a game to play after the painting is finished, and I'm definitely not the only one. The day GW stops producing rulebooks is the day that they truly sign their own death warrant.

On the idea of a "40K-killer," I don't think one is coming, and I also think that's a good thing. The greatest benefit of GW's downward spiral has been the rise of dozens of smaller game companies. GW rose to the level of prominence that it (still) enjoys through extraordinary circumstances, which I doubt that any other company can replicate. PP is the second-largest company in the industry, but I'll be shocked if they grow so much bigger than the rest of the market that they strongarm out their competition. The future of the industry will be interesting, and it will come as GW fades away.

I think this would be an interesting topic for a poll. Are you a gamer or a collector?
The results here in dakka might be a bit skewed but I'd wager gamers outnumber collectors 4 to 1. And that divide probably gets wider if you separate painters out of collectors.

I don't want to see GW die, just get taken down a peg, and as long as I can play my armies I'm happy. Otherwise I paint em' for fun, and in the case of Warhammer they double as my D&D/Pathfinder minis.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
I don't want to see GW die, just get taken down a peg

This sums it up for me too.

What I hope for is for the rules and presentation to be got to the state I want.

If GW can do that I am happy, otherwise I would prefer them to go down as it would give someone else the chance to do it.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I don't think collector's and tournament players where one in the same, I think the mentality of 'kids who buy a bunch but never play' was something that came about during the LotR days. At that time it was working for them so they stuck with it, ignoring how the market it entirely different now than it was then because they think they know better.

There were definitely a lot of collectors in the LOTR era who were only interested in the Tolkien figures. I've no interest in the game but I bought some. I'm not sure GW was aware of the link but I wouldn't be surprised if they just assume the Tolkien collectors would move on to 40K.

 Flashman wrote:
Regardless of the motivation for doing so, all the big stuff and fliers they release doesn't mesh well with a rule set designed for 28mm miniatures.

I stopped GW largely because I just got fed up of every single release consisting of expensive rulebooks and overly large kits. Very few new infantry kits were being released which - considering both Fantasy and 40K were originally infantry based games - was infuriating.

I got into Warhammer to play with the little guys with the occasional big guy to act as a centre piece for my army (the benefit of this approach is that you didn't need hordes of miniatures to make the game work). This was clearly not the focus of GW anymore, so I just stopped caring and thus stopped buying too.

This was the case for me also, at least with 40k.

For years I have 'scraped by' on the imagery of 40k (I haven't been a fan of the mechanics for some time) and later on specifically the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy series which was a fantastic opportunity for converting/modelling, making something 'new'. Had some tremendous fun at specific Heresy events, against other guys who had made similar effort with their forces.

But, in the 'casual' game you get at a club, having your infantry force carpet-bombed by what looked to me like giant Tomix toys somewhat killed the immersion for me. Once the immersion is gone, rules are not strong enough, and it requires constant investment to keep on top of the rules.. it is enough to kill the game for you.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
I don't want to see GW die, just get taken down a peg,

Likewise


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be honest guys, the particualars of copyright law when it comes to replicating miniatues (through any means) or photocopying codexes, within the bounds of your own home, is completely moot, becasue as a previous poster pointed out, it's utterly unenforcable. Even software and music companies with 100 times the influnence and resources of GW haven't managed to clap down much on piracy.

The only instance I can see this being an issue is showing up to a GW sanctioned tournament with a mini which is clearly not GW manufactured, and even then, the worst they could do is show you the door.

Obviously, if you're distributing copied products, or otherwise generating money from them, it's a different story.

Certainly it is moot in the sense that it is nigh on impossible to be detected, so you can usually get away with it. There is still a moral dimension, though, and I think it is right for people to be reminded that it is wrong to copy someone else's work in order to avoid paying for it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Certainly it is moot in the sense that it is nigh on impossible to be detected, so you can usually get away with it. There is still a moral dimension, though, and I think it is right for people to be reminded that it is wrong to copy someone else's work in order to avoid paying for it.

You're quite right of course. I don't agree with downloading films or music for that very reason. I can understand pirating of codexes anr rulebooks becasue I think they're so overpriced. But in all realty even if they were a quarter of their current price, people would still copy them...

People who "copy" were never going to buy in the first place. They were never customers to begin with. So they are really not lost sales.

I know if the codices were half price, I would buy them all. At current prices I only buy what I play. I was going to buy the Ork codex but not at those prices. So no more codex buying for me.

What I like to know is, what is GW now? Are they a mini company? If so, how come are the codices so expensive then? You would think, people buying more codices, the "impulse" would be to buy more minis.

I swear GW is getting out of the miniature market and are concentrating on the publishing side of the hobby now. Minis are coming in second when they should be considered first.

Welp, Maybe there is something to this and GW really is just at the end of their life cycle.

http://registers.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1178319/fromItemId/776499/display/submission
This link is the responses to the trade terms GW is trying to push through in Australia right now, the one there by the Combat Company says that GW make up 10-15% of their revenue.

These are the people that 2nd ed of Dystopian Wars was outselling 40k 7th 6 to 1 through and they are one of the biggest retailers in Oz from what I can tell*.

10-15%

*Edit*

The Combat Company wrote: We have the largest bricks and mortar outlet in the Southern Hemisphere which sells to customers in-store, over the counter by way of face to face transaction.

Guess that settles that, they are very clearly one of the biggest.

Some of the replies to the ACCC proposal are pretty good (and damning on GW), so hopefully they'll be taken seriously.



I've just had an unrelated thought; do you think that the WHW renovations are part of a plan to revitalize GW in the area? and if so is that the best use of presumably at least £1m when they are struggling. I can see that the aim it to bring all the events in-house to save money, but it's going to take them years to see the money back on that investment.

Are they doing it now to try and explain away the drop in next years profit with more one-time expenses?

Or do you think the aim is to convert WHW into a more generic shop/venue set-up (glass rather than medieval castle) with the aim of making it easier to sell in the future?

 thegreatchimp wrote:

You're quite right of course. I don't agree with downloading films or music for that very reason. I can understand pirating of codexes anr rulebooks becasue I think they're so overpriced.[i] But in all realty even if they were a quarter of their current price, people would still copy them...

While I understand you agree in general terms, the bolded part of your post is a somewhat dubious road to walk down.

Value (and thus whether something is overpriced) is a very subjective matter.
Also is begs the question of whether it is more acceptable to steal a Porche as opposed to stealing a Toyota?*



*If the word "steal" is an issue, you can substitute in any word that follows the general meaning of "inappropriate appropriation".

WarPuppy in a long and very well written submission says 53% of his sales are GW products but the proportion has been dropping steadily for two years.

He attributes this partly to increased competition and partly to customer attitudes hardening against GW caused by factors such as price rises and their heavy handed litigation. Obviously Australia has suffered much worse than Europe or North America from the price rises, so GW may hope this customer antipathy is confined to the southern hemisphere. I don't think it is.

Interestingly, Warpuppy only began to stock GW four years ago so it grew from nothing to the majority of his sales very quickly. I wonder how much GW took over from the other products he already stocked.

The point about this is that independents clearly can be a major point of focus for GW's marketing, depending on the territory, and their attitude of wanting to lock them out seems quite perverse.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
A few years ago I used to look at GW's apparently weird business actions and said, "It makes no sense to me but I am sure they know what they are doing". I am not sure any more. Increasingly I think GW have lost their way and are thrashing around off the fairway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An interesting thing about the submissions is that several of them make the point that there are no substitutes for The HHHobby. You are either in The HHHobby or not. You cannot play 40K without buying GW products.

This amusingly uses GW's claim of hobby pre-eminence as a weapon against their claim to exclusive distribution of their own products.

I am not sure I agree fully with that position. It seems to me that you can play 40K with non-GW models, or you can play other SF wargames that are broadly similar, and not have to use the 40K rules (though of course you then are not playing 40K.)

I do agree with the point that 40K and Magic: The Gathering are not substitutable for each other.

I think the point is that GW have drummed in this idea that you can only play 40K with 40K models - you can't use other models in store, or in a competitions or events (when GW ran them), and there's a prevalent mindset within the community that 40K uses 40K models.

So whilst you're technically correct that you can play 40K with other companies models, or play other dystopian sci-fi skirmish games, if you happen to be in a predominantly GW community, you might find it difficult and there genuinely is no competition.

Herzlos wrote:
I think the point is that GW have drummed in this idea that you can only play 40K with 40K models - you can't use other models in store, or in a competitions or events (when GW ran them), and there's a prevalent mindset within the community that 40K uses 40K models.
So whilst you're technically correct that you can play 40K with other companies models, or play other dystopian sci-fi skirmish games, if you happen to be in a predominantly GW community, you might find it difficult and there genuinely is no competition.

There were some rules where if you wanted to have a hope of your army being pictured in White Dwarf, no competing model parts could be visible.

Since GW nicely withdrew from holding game competitions it has handily opened the way for all kinds of "add-on" manufacturers and for us as customers to use anything we want as our starting conversion piece.

Funny how many of their problems stem from their decisions...

Herzlos wrote:
I think the point is that GW have drummed in this idea that you can only play 40K with 40K models - you can't use other models in store, or in a competitions or events (when GW ran them), and there's a prevalent mindset within the community that 40K uses 40K models.

Actually I was a bit surprised by how leniant GW can be with his. I rang up my local store to see what their stance was on using parts from other ranges, as I'm doings ome conversions using parts from Scibor, etc. I was nicely surprised to be told by one of the staff that it's generally not an issue if my marines have a few heads, shoulder pads and cloaks from other ranges, even when playing tournaments, etc. He said it would only be frowned on if say I showed up to play a game in store with an army ehich contained a number of full models from a different range like Warmachine.

Obviously that's not the official company policy, its just what a guy int my local storte had to say about it, but all the same, it was good to know they're not draconian about it.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
I think the point is that GW have drummed in this idea that you can only play 40K with 40K models - you can't use other models in store, or in a competitions or events (when GW ran them), and there's a prevalent mindset within the community that 40K uses 40K models.

Actually I was a bit surprised by how leniant GW can be with his. I rang up my local store to see what their stance was on using parts from other ranges, as I'm doings ome conversions using parts from Scibor, etc. I was nicely surprised to be told by one of the staff that it's generally not an issue if my marines have a few heads, shoulder pads and cloaks from other ranges, even when playing tournaments, etc. He said it would only be frowned on if say I showed up to play a game in store with an army ehich contained a number of full models from a different range like Warmachine.

Obviously that's not the official company policy, its just what a guy int my local storte had to say about it, but all the same, it was good to know they're not draconian about it.

I regularly used to use non-GW bits in a store (although that is going back 4-5 years, before the proper veteran gaming evenings and tables stopped). Even used non-GW minis in Warhammer World, many people were doing the same, and a chap I know even had some of his stuff on display in WHW with Maxmini heads and the like.

But, that was some years ago. I did hear that they tightened up a great deal, specifically when the official Horus Heresy books and minis started coming out (not sure to what level this restricted things however).

Steelmage99 wrote:

While I understand you agree in general terms, the bolded part of your post is a somewhat dubious road to walk down.

Value (and thus whether something is overpriced) is a very subjective matter.
Also is begs the question of whether it is more acceptable to steal a Porche as opposed to stealing a Toyota?*

I agree with those principles, and yes it is dubious, but there is of course the other side to it:

Literally nothing produced by the company is affordable compared to the rest of the market. For the last 17 or so years, they've pretty much have charged the most that they feel they can get away with on all items. Even their glues, modelling materials and tools are about 60% more expensive than other brands, with no improvement in quality that I can see. One thing in particular which has me shaking my head it -the pdf / digital versions of the codexes are just as expensive as the hard copies.

There'll always be gamers who are loyal to them, and those enough money that the prices are inconsequential to them, but I think the kind of sales tactics that GW use creates a bad vibe, wherin customers start resenting the company, and feeling like suckers for paying those prices. It's bad for both parties really.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Literally nothing produced by the company is affordable compared to the rest of the market. For the last 17 or so years, they've pretty much have charged the most that they feel they can get away with on all items. Even their glues, modelling materials and tools are about 60% more expensive than other brands, with no improvement in quality that I can see. One thing in particular which has me shaking my head it -the pdf / digital versions of the codexes are just as expensive as the hard copies.

And your point is? If you feel that GW's products are too expensive then don't buy them. The fact that you would prefer to have lower prices doesn't mean that you're entitled to steal them.

 Peregrine wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Literally nothing produced by the company is affordable compared to the rest of the market. For the last 17 or so years, they've pretty much have charged the most that they feel they can get away with on all items. Even their glues, modelling materials and tools are about 60% more expensive than other brands, with no improvement in quality that I can see. One thing in particular which has me shaking my head it -the pdf / digital versions of the codexes are just as expensive as the hard copies.

And your point is? If you feel that GW's products are too expensive then don't buy them. The fact that you would prefer to have lower prices doesn't mean that you're entitled to steal them.

We were discussing customers in general, not my own actions. Follow the conversation properly before you make childish comments, and if you still feel compelled to say something smart, don't state the obvious.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
We were discussing customers in general, not my own actions. Follow the conversation properly before you make childish comments, and if you still feel compelled to say something smart, don't state the obvious.

Do you understand how the general "you" works when referring to an unknown (and possibly hypothetical) person? For example, "to roll to hit you roll a D6 and compare it to your BS". Perhaps you should learn about this before making rude posts?

Herzlos wrote:
I think the point is that GW have drummed in this idea that you can only play 40K with 40K models - you can't use other models in store, or in a competitions or events (when GW ran them), and there's a prevalent mindset within the community that 40K uses 40K models.

So whilst you're technically correct that you can play 40K with other companies models, or play other dystopian sci-fi skirmish games, if you happen to be in a predominantly GW community, you might find it difficult and there genuinely is no competition.

There was a time long long ago, if i needed some conversion parts, i could order them from GW, if i felt the need to convert a Landraider i could do that because they were reasonably cheap. Fast forward to now, i use more Non 40K stuff than ever before, because GW prices have become too high 120$ for a baneblade, wait this gundam 1:35 scale tanks costs only half. Yes i am a heretic.

Peregrine, yes, downloading is illegal, and yes buying knock offs is hurting GW's business, but you must agree that because of the pricing practices, that it will lower the moral bar for some people to buy Chinese knock offs or download the rules instead buying it from GW.

 Peregrine wrote:
. Do you understand how the general "you" works when referring to an unknown (and possibly hypothetical) person? For example, "to roll to hit you roll a D6 and compare it to your BS". Perhaps you should learn about this before making rude posts?

Tbh Peregrine, I found your comment rude because you were jumping down my throat with a snappy comment, without having read the conversation between myself, Steelmage and Killzraz. (those comments made it pretty clear I was refering to others).

You might find my opinion on GW prices annoying, but differences of opinion are inevetable. I'm not on this forum to cause offence. As I've said before, I can respect your opinion. Just keep the comments constructive please.

All the arguments around the morality or ethics of copying GW stuff are interesting but only relevant to the actual topic in so far as it might be the widespread purchase of cheaper knock-offs that is damaging GW's sales.

I don't know if that is true. I rather doubt it, but my feelings are based on general experience and instinct, not hard data.

That said, the higher that GW price their models the more gap there is underneath for other companies, legit or not, to undercut them and the more incentive there is for people to look at those companies' offerings.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All the arguments around the morality or ethics of copying GW stuff are interesting but only relevant to the actual topic in so far as it might be the widespread purchase of cheaper knock-offs that is damaging GW's sales.
I don't know if that is true. I rather doubt it, but my feelings are based on general experience and instinct, not hard data.
That said, the higher that GW price their models the more gap there is underneath for other companies, legit or not, to undercut them and the more incentive there is for people to look at those companies' offerings.

I am sure GW also views the various custom "bits" sold by "knock-off" companies are money out of their pocket too: buy another squad that comes with bits if you need them!
I like the look of a 40k game so some competition is eliminated if replacement models do not have a similar look to GW models.
Most of the time I just modify existing models with some supplementary heads or gear from other suppliers which does not hit their bottom line of selling models.
Agreed that their pricing does give some incentive to shop around and there is no mechanism to force me to field 100% GW models in my army other than my need for WYSIWYG.

They seem to also view sellers of their own spare bits as money out of their pockets for the same reason. You want a squad of devastators with 4 rocket launchers? Buy 4 boxes.