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http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2009/11/17/31483

Summary: If other companies market their models as star players, GW will keep Star Players
out of the next Blood Bowl Living Rulebook (LRB).

Was originally Posted at
http://www.talkfantasyfootball.org/login.php?redirect=viewtopic.php&p=520972&sid=add0e031d0d3822128b9d51fb735445b

But I'm not a member of that forum so I can't see the context.

This is too bad if this is true (according to Zac in the comments section of the TTGN site, the
original post is from the person responsible for the BB LRB, which lends to its veracity)

Pity. I guess GW is going to take their ball and go home.

Here is the whole thing for everyone

Games Workshop is concerned about the number of fantasy football miniature companies now showing up in the world. GW has also noted that several of the Star Players do not have official figures. They have agreed to allow them in at this time ... however over the coming weeks (perhaps months) they do NOT want to see discussions (or worse released figures) from other miniatures companies about creating figures to fill in for missing star players. Miniatures released by any company should not be marketed online as being a great figure for such and such BB Star Players.

It was made VERY clear today that if GW sees such marketing happening ... they will pull the LRB 6.0 (or modify it before it is officially posted) and remove all star players from the document that do not have an official BB figure effectively deleting the rules for that player from the game (and since LRB 6.0 will be the offical rules for many years to come ... this will be a serious deletion). So not only would this erase all the LRB 6.0 stars added to balance out the game and team's inducements. But many LRB 5.0 stars (Ramtut, Zara, Hemlock, Helmet, Ugroth, Spleenripper, etc. etc) would be deleted from the rulebook as well.

As someone who has spent a very long time working on the LRB 6.0 ... this would be GW biting off their nose to spite their face as they'd be greatly unbalancing the inducement system with such a move ... however I have no doubt at all that their current love for BB is such that they would not hesistate to make such a move.

I've already written every head of every miniature company I know of and requested that they stay away from anything related to targetting the BB Star Player market.

At this point ... I just want to get the LRB 6.0 hosted by GW so we can call this project finished for the good of everyone.

All Gw's threat has done, is make sure someone will do it. What company will turn down the chance to make some money, and make GW look stupid and petty?

Hopefully they'll wait until after the release of LRB 6.0 before doing it, though, Crimson Devil

If GW isn't going to make official miniatures for the Star Players, why the hell do they care if someone else does?

Gorram, these monkeys are petty.

Somebody really needs to sit down with GW, their marketing, and legal teams and explain to them how all this crap hurts their image and their relationship with their player community.

Here's a scenario:

Blood bowl only requires a 'team' of miniatures not an 'army', so GW sit down and have a think about this and several other games where the number of models you need to play is limited and they decided to shove them all in a dusty corner marked 'specialist' and give them no love.

Other companies find that they can produce fantasy footballplaying miniatures and that there is a market for them, principally due to the bloodbowl game still being played but noone wanting to pay the dramatically increased prices GW attached to the specialist (endangered?) games mini range.

GW gets it's bloated undies in a knot over other companies daring to impinge on it's perceived Intellectual Property and dishes out legal threats whilst then threatening to limit releases in it's own game.

Another company produces a rulebook of fantasy football rules, along very similar lines and calls it OrcBowl or Elfball or whatever and the online community promotes this product since GW have stormed off in a tantrum.

New ruleset and miniatures sell, GW can keep it's Bloodbowl identity whilst doing nothing with it (which seems to be what they want to do since there is so little gold pressed latinum in selling just a football team), ex bloodbowl players get a new and supported game.

Everyone's happy.

What a lot of douchebaggery! GW seems intent on self-destructing. Oh well, let 'em as far as I care.

Hold on a minute....

I remember reading something very similar to this ,
with same people replying + same reply content.

Is this Deja Vu or im going crazy?

I'm kinda hoping some of the other games gets a bit of boost from this, largely because to me the Blood Bowl rules are too old-school (relying, among other things, on custom dice) and full of complex interactions that could and should be simplified immensely.

I've half a mind to write something myself, except I know I suck as a rules designer.

At first I thought it was crazy but it seems to me that they want people to stop using their IP to advertise figures which is fair enough.

except they've gone from pointing the gun at everyone else's heads to pointing it at their own, like the sheriff in blazing saddles...

Good job there's heresy miniatures:

http://www.heresyminiatures.com/deathball.htm

and Impact Miniatures:

http://www.impactminiatures.com/index.php?option=elfballboards

Who needs GW? Stuff 'em I say...

Wait, wait wait... GW is threatening to pull the plug on a game they don't really support anyway? OMG! Is Mordheim next? o.O

Plus, GW always wanted you to make your own rules right?!


lol.

LunaHound wrote:Hold on a minute....

I remember reading something very similar to this ,
with same people replying + same reply content.

Is this Deja Vu or im going crazy?

This case if true is different to the fan forums issue.

In this case GW seem to be threatening to cripple the core Blood Bowl rules. Other companies are selling models for the special player characters, which GW do not produce themselves, so GW will delete all special characters from the rules.

The rules have been updated and maintained by a fan based committee for years. GW's only role in the process is to make and sell figures.

No doubt the amount of figures sold is so low that they can make a lot more money from licensing the name for a computer game. GW don't seem to want to make the moulds for new figures and compete with the two or three other manufacturers who also make fantasy football figures.

GW just gave some sugar to the competition, they will (obviously) take this golden oportunity to promote their own games and minis while GW by per consequence destroys BB a bit more.. if I was a competitor I would anounce starplayers today!

Whats the logic behind this?

- Just being petty?
- Try to controll competition with vain threats? Like if you sculpt this we will stop making those for BB...
- Just trying to save face by dressing the victim cap... its not our fault BB is bad its the competition bad boys

All of those are slowed...

So there's no legal basis for this then? Since all of the 'Bloodbowl' websites are generic 'fantasy football' sites now GW don't have any legal say over what they do...

This is better than watching a blind kid run through a forrest.

Next they'll be threatening to can Necromunda 'cause some other companies make sci-fi gangsters.

Really, this is GW throwing their own toys out of the pram.

I don't know about the exact legality of a competitor selling a figure as suitable for a particular special character. It probably depends on the wording.

For instance (made up example, I don't know much about BB) let's say there is an Elf character called Woody Slingmaster who is a famous thrower. He's in the rules but GW don't make a figure for him.

Heresy want to market a figure. They can just call him Bushy Throwking, the famous passer. It’s not using any GW trademarks.

In this case, it is still perfectly legal for GW to refuse to publish rules they own, including the rules for Woody Slingmaster.

As a customer, I'd really like to like GWS, but they seem to hate me.

...wow. So GW stops supporting the game, people flock to competitors to get what they want, and then GW threatens to stop supporting the game they've already stopped supporting.

What else, they're going to can WHF 8th edition until everyone stops making elves?

Kilkrazy wrote:I don't know about the exact legality of a competitor selling a figure as suitable for a particular special character. It probably depends on the wording.

For instance (made up example, I don't know much about BB) let's say there is an Elf character called Woody Slingmaster who is a famous thrower. He's in the rules but GW don't make a figure for him.

Heresy want to market a figure. They can just call him Bushy Throwking, the famous passer. It’s not using any GW trademarks.

In this case, it is still perfectly legal for GW to refuse to publish rules they own, including the rules for Woody Slingmaster.

They dont even need to name anything, just a generic sporty elf will do... there's not much GW can do about it.
Sure they can trash their own rules and limit the options but its really their loss.

So does anyone else feel really dirty right now? lol, I've owned GW gak since 2007 and I've never really been ashamed of it until now. And that's including the nerdy kinda shame where you don't tell anyone that you collect Warhammer gak.

Kilkrazy wrote:
For instance (made up example, I don't know much about BB) let's say there is an Elf character called Woody Slingmaster who is a famous thrower. He's in the rules but GW don't make a figure for him.

Heresy want to market a figure. They can just call him Bushy Throwking, the famous passer. It’s not using any GW trademarks.

Heh heh heh Woody became Bushy.

Thanks for posting the article text, pixel. I just wanted to make sure the link went through
to your site in the first place.

Maybe GW senses/suspects/is paranoid of some kind of collusion between the miniature
manufacturers and the Living Rulebook committee?

Sidstyler wrote:So does anyone else feel really dirty right now? lol, I've owned GW gak since 2007 and I've never really been ashamed of it until now. And that's including the nerdy kinda shame where you don't tell anyone that you collect Warhammer gak.

Nope, cant say these atitudes influence consciently were I take my business... other things in the past pissed me off much more... things like saying Nids arent bugs anymore and then months later released vespids and said they were the real bug thing... that one REALLY pissed me off... or the old genestealers fluff reduced to the minimum acceptable...

As I said consciently I'm not affected by these things... yet... past weekend the money I saved for the 40k fortress was spent in alkemy... maybe my subconscient getting the best of me

Kilkrazy wrote:In this case, it is still perfectly legal for GW to refuse to publish rules they own, including the rules for Woody Slingmaster.

Still perfectly legal, yes. But still a totally unecessary and self-destructive douchebag act, yes?

It doesn't help GW because they were never going to produce a "Woody" figure anyway. It doesn't particularly harm the indie manufacturer because the number of "Woody" models they'd sell will likely be countable on the fingers of one hand. People make proxy-BB figures for fun, not megabucks. If they were making megabucks GW would produce them. The only persons to suffer are the loyal BB fans who want to use "Woody" in their games and now can't.

My guess is that BB will be taken out of the hands of GW, much as the Chaos Dwarfs army book has been. GW's input into the process will be come irrelevant. All in the most legal and respectable way of course.

And long may it continue.

Corporate branding such as GW insist upon is a pox on wargaming anyhow! As comparison to the likes of Warlord Games, Mantic, Hasslefree, Wyrd Miniatures, Arcane Legions, and many other smaller companies have shown, GW is now a pathetic, bloated, redundant and unresponsive corporation. Sure its still worth picking over the carcass for their remains, but they've not added anything innovative to wargaming for a decade. All their brand is is an excuse to overcharge those who haven't the time or opportunity to look elsewhere for an alternative source of fun. They can tax our models but they can't take away our FREEDOM!!!!

Osbad wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:In this case, it is still perfectly legal for GW to refuse to publish rules they own, including the rules for Woody Slingmaster.

Still perfectly legal, yes. But still a totally unecessary and self-destructive douchebag act, yes?

I would tend to agree with you though perhaps I would not use those exact words.

My take on it is that GW only make any real money from the videogame licence of Blood Bowl™. They have no interest in supporting the tabletop game because though it is still fairly popular it doesn't sell a lot of figures due to its basic nature.

At the same time, GW naturally have no enthusiasm in creating opportunities for other companies to step into the gap they have left.

Looking on the bright side, however, this situation could create an opportunity.

Firstly, it might be possible to buy the BB rules from GW and rename them to avoid compromising the videogame IP. Relaunch the game as Dwarf Ball.

If this was not possible, it should be possible for the LRB committee and a company like Heresy to make a ruleset which closely approximates Blood Bowl functionality, using different mechanisms to avoid IP violation. For instance, if it takes a 2/6 roll of a D6 to hit with a pass, you just change that to a roll of 7 or under on D20. And so on.

Then you just change all the names and launch the new game as your own product. Plenty of players would follow since your game would now be more complete and better supported than the GW version.

This solution might suit GW, since they would still own the Blood Bowl trademark and be able to licence it for the videogame. Their BB figures would sell as alternatives to the official Dwarfball figures, and people would probably still buy Blood Bowl tabletop sets.

Just an idea.

Kilkrazy wrote:If this was not possible, it should be possible for the LRB committee and a company like Heresy to make a ruleset which closely approximates Blood Bowl functionality, using different mechanisms to avoid IP violation. For instance, if it takes a 2/6 roll of a D6 to hit with a pass, you just change that to a roll of 7 or under on D20. And so on.

Then you just change all the names and launch the new game as your own product. Plenty of players would follow since your game would now be more complete and better supported than the GW version.

You could use exactly the same game mechanics, you would just have to write how they work differently from the GW version. Game mechanics are an abstract concept and cannot be Trademarked or copyrighted.

I think that GW could do them for plagiarism but I don't know the specifics of that (I'm sure the White Wolf vs. Sony case wasn't a typical case).

At any rate, the point is that GW's continuing support is not necessary for Blood Bowl and actually seems to becoming detrimental to the fanbase's enjoyment of the game.