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chromedog wrote:Morality is a HUMAN invention.

GW - the corporate entity - is NOT HUMAN, therefore it is not bound by such artificial human constructs like morality.

In the same way that a lion on the savannah is not bound by human morality.

Wow, is this a completely short sighted idea.

I'm guessing you never studied any sort of business or corporate ethics.

Corporations are bound by morals and ethics for the simple reason that human beings are the final arbiters of what actions the corporation takes. The corporation is not some mindless organism that lumbers around doing things spontaneously. Ultimately, there is someone or some group of people in the corporation who are responsible for every action taken by that corporation. If those individuals decide to direct the company in an immoral direction, then, yes, the company has acted immorally.

Some might try to say that, no, it was people that acted immorally, not the company. However, in the law, the company itself can be held liable for damages caused by the immoral or unethical actions of individuals. The examples of this are too multitudinous to bother citing specific cases, though I will if someone needs it.

Now, specifically as for GW, I have not studied their corporate decisions in any degree to know whether or not their actions have been ethical or not. (BTW, ethical means more than legal; there are plenty of things that a company can do that are just plain wrong, but have not yet been ruled as being illegal. If you look in the past, the dumping of toxic waste into streams and rivers was at one time completely legal, even though it was known by the companies themselves that these materials were dangerous to anyone exposed to them. It's hard to make a case that these actions were moral or ethical.)


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CatPeeler wrote:My understanding is that, as a corporation, GW has an obligation to its shareholders to maximize profits as much as [legally] possible. To do otherwise would leave the board of directors / ceo / etc. open to legal action for mismanagement.

In that sense, any discussion of morals or ethics is somewhat moot--as long as their "greedy" behavior is in line with the law, they are required to continue.

But, since when did any company's obligation to their shareholders automatically trump their responsibilities to their customers? Your attitude that failure to maximize profit opens the door for legal action is really not correct, at all. Only making $100,000,000 in a year rather than $120,000,000 is far from "mismanagement." I think it would be a much greater example of "mismanagement" to do something to maximize profit this year that will have a negative impact on profits in the years to come, regardless of the legality of the action.

This idea, to me, is one of the fundamental concepts that has caused big businesses to lose their way.

Sigh...if I can ever get the money to do it, I really want to get my PhD in Corporate Ethics. I have some definite ideas about how actually acting in an ethical manner is in the best interest, financially, for businesses, and I would love to do the research and publish my findings. Unfortunately, I can't afford to quit work and go back to school....

From my personal point of view, my moral qualms come about from the way that they deliberately target young teenage boys and exploit their lack of value perception for shareholder gain.

Of course it isn't illegal, but from my point of view I find it morally questionable.

As a parent of 3 children I can see from personal experience that their sense of value is really limited. They want something and the £/$ value of that thing is irrelevant to them. For various reasons - perhaps because they haven't had to earn the money themselves, and/or because they are able to spend all their money on themselves and have no "necessities" to fund, have lesser ability to make long term decisions, or just because they haven't grown up yet.

Consequently GW have realised that they can sell small pieces of plastic at a massive margin (70%) to this age-group and make a viable business of it.

An adult will shop around, do reasonable cost/value calculations and decide whether a (say) Deff Dredd is worth £30 to them or not. A kid will say "ooh shiney!" check if he has £30 in his pocket and buy it there and then if his parents aren't around to suggest he doesn't splurge that amount of money on a few bits of plastic that will get half asssembled and chucked in a corner after 2 days, and instead saves the money for a rainy day!

Now, of course GW aren't alone in that. To an extent, all non-essential consumer retailers are based on a similar model of marketing unecessary crap at as large a mark up as they can get away with.

My particular beef with GW though is that they try this on with kids rather than adults, which looks to me suspiciously like exploitation.


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Saldiven wrote:But, since when did any company's obligation to their shareholders automatically trump their responsibilities to their customers? Your attitude that failure to maximize profit opens the door for legal action is really not correct, at all. Only making $100,000,000 in a year rather than $120,000,000 is far from "mismanagement." I think it would be a much greater example of "mismanagement" to do something to maximize profit this year that will have a negative impact on profits in the years to come, regardless of the legality of the action.

And Saldiven, I totally agree with you. I think GW has been unethical in its treatment of shareholders in being too agressive in its persuit of short term profitability over long term growth.

Again, they aren't alone in that persuit though, as it is behaviour driven by the irrational investment policies of the UK stock market. It is the reason why so much of the UK economy folded in the last 30 years or got sold to foreign companies.

Tantras wrote:I've been into this hobby for a long time now, a good friend of mine worked for GW as a store manager for eleven years and then left... the main reason being his absolutely dire salary. He was on, roughly, £15,000 per year, which is peanuts when you take into account that length of service and the crap the store staff have to put up with on a daily basis.

They act like a nursery quite a lot of the time, and the staff get no form of bonus or consideration for the effort that consumes. Y'know, people dropping the kids off in the stores whilst they go shopping around town...

So morally, they should look after their staff more!

Dear god your avatar is HAWT!

SORRY!

Yea GW ethical moral code breakers No... Money grabbers.....Yes

Now I have my own issues with GW due to poor treatment of staff. GWUS was notorious for this over the years. Many people worked there (myself included) out of a love for the hobby and what we were doing. Most could have easily made more money elsewhere (and most all of us went on to do that) but that wasn't why we were there. We liked what we did each day and wanted the company to succeed.

In return, people were dismissed without any warning or fault simply to save a buck. Many times these things happened after glowing reviews and feedback. In my own situation, not TWO weeks prior to being let go I was told what an excellent job I was doing and how well things were going. Then out of nowhere I am told things aren't working out and I am being let go? It is only later I finally find out that it was to save money yet again.

Now don't get me wrong, GW isn't unique in cutting staff to save money. But they seem to do it so often it doesn't make sense. And when someone has given a company 5 years of loyal, often backbreaking work (Games Days and GTs are 16+ hour days in my case) being tossed out without so much as a how do you do after all those years shows the company has some serious issues.

GW has no long term vision. They reinvent themselves on a corporate level every year. One year it's open tons of stores in a metro. The next year, that's not the right idea. Then they restructure how the business works and who reports to who. Then they do it again the following year. In my tenure with GWUS, the company structure was reorganized and shuffled around no less than 4 times. How can you hope to succeed if you don't know what you are doing?

Kanluwen wrote:Why are we still on the Blood Bowl thing? Wasn't it posted some time ago that GW approached those sites weeks in advance with a heads-up and a warning before the C&Ds?

I am fascinated by just how much loyalty you show the company, they need to harvest your genes and use them in new staff injections.

In other news...

The C&D as a legal document were preceeded by letters warning that 'if not, further action etc'.

As discussed there and again repeated here for the 'hard of understanding', At No Time did GW look to work WITH those fansites and come to a suitable accord.

No negotiations, no legally comfortable options were explored. This is to their own fanbase.

As I said then, a caveat could have been drawn up and provided to the sites to carry. This was not done. A sledgehammer was used to crack some peanuts.

That is why grown up people who understand the relationship between a business and its customers, as opposed to the strange cult of apologists who treat the company who make their toy soldiers as if it were the Vatican, understand that this was a poorly executed project.

Or 'Blessed is the mind too small for doubt' as they say... Toodlepip!!

By comparison they are pretty good overall. There are things that they could do to provide greater value to the customer, but that is not an ethical issue.

It has been touched on already, but I think it should be stated more strongly. In a publicly traded corporation (at least in the US), not only does the corporation have no ethics or morality, but the officers are legally obliged to act in the LEAST ethical and moral manner possible in order to maximize short term profits. This is why the leaders of corporations are generally the most disgusting individuals.

You want to compare, look at Activision's Bobby Kotick or Upper Deck, who in November claimed that the rumor that the WOW tcg was going to end after the (then soon to ship) Naxx raid deck and repeated that they'd "discussed plans for 2011" and advertised the spring releases, failed to renew the license after "long and careful deliberation" 2 months later.... and are still advertising the spring releases.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Why are we still on the Blood Bowl thing? Wasn't it posted some time ago that GW approached those sites weeks in advance with a heads-up and a warning before the C&Ds?

I am fascinated by just how much loyalty you show the company, they need to harvest your genes and use them in new staff injections.

In other news...

The C&D as a legal document were preceeded by letters warning that 'if not, further action etc'.

You just made my point. The C&D was preceded by a letter warning of further action. And a C&D in itself is a pretty non-hostile act, rather than going right to the ISP/webhosting company and shutting it down.

As discussed there and again repeated here for the 'hard of understanding', At No Time did GW look to work WITH those fansites and come to a suitable accord.

And like I said there, and apparently here again--for the malcontents at least--how do we know that GW never tried to work with those fansites?

No negotiations, no legally comfortable options were explored. This is to their own fanbase.

Refer to above. We only have the word of people who seemed more interested in drumming up drama on their forums and maintaining some ridiculous stance of being "in the right" than actually shutting their mouths and dealing with the company when the letter first arrived, or actually fighting the C&Ds.

As I said then, a caveat could have been drawn up and provided to the sites to carry. This was not done. A sledgehammer was used to crack some peanuts.

Yes, it could have been handled better by GW. But people seem to insist in holding a company to the same standards as an individual--which is silly.

That is why grown up people who understand the relationship between a business and its customers, as opposed to the strange cult of apologists who treat the company who make their toy soldiers as if it were the Vatican, understand that this was a poorly executed project.

It was a poorly executed legal maneuver. I still don't understand why you disagreeable folk(who always start in with "grown up people" or "sensible" in their posts against the so-called apologists) insist on using the term "apologist" when, to this very day, I(at least) STILL haven't seen the replies that these Blood Bowl sites gave to GW's original C&Ds, other than the rabblerousting posts on their forums that "We dun gonna get shut down! Oh lawdy!".

I'd be saying the same damn thing, frankly, if Privateer had sent C&Ds to a site called "www.warmachinehq.com", and the site's owner started posting the C&Ds online and then suddenly stopped after getting a few hundred hits a day following his crying on other forums.

Or 'Blessed is the mind too small for doubt' as they say... Toodlepip!!

I'd say more 'Blessed is the mind that can retain objectivity without automatically siding with the supposed underdog in an online pissing contest.'

People actually think GW was harsh over the bloodbowl C&D's?

Protip guys: they handled it professionally and actually went above and beyond to give fair warning. I was a web host for a long time and in cases of IP infringement most companies would just email me personally and inform me that a C&D will be on it's way if that site does not get taken offline - so going straight over the site owners head. Roughly 40 seconds later I've flicked the off switch for that site and am copypasting the "you fethed up" email to the site owner. (I was a host in the 90's when the little guy could still make a buck lol) The real reason everyone kicked up a fuss is because everyone felt like bloodbowl was "theirs now" because games workshop had "abandoned it".

That was kind of a rantish post but out of the whole bloodbowl C&D siutation I am actually embarrassed to be a member of some of these BB sites because the back patting, hate mongering and woe is me attitudes are pathetic.

In regards to the OP how about the morality of creating a "hobby" around a product? Much like transformers and teenage mutant **** turtles did by creating tv shows purely aimed at selling related merch and toys to children. (I have no ethical or moral training and in all honesty am a pretty immoral guy so I'm interested to hear!)

I see things less in terms of "morality" and more in terms of customer satisfaction/service.
Anyone,working in any business is fairly aware that the objective is to make money,however that shouldn't add up to the be all end all.
For example,I work in automotive repair,very "High end" automotive repair" (Ferrari,Aston Martin,etc),so my customers represent a very limited base.
Now,how well would I do business wise if I showed little to no interest in what my customers had to say?
How large of a profit could I hope to make if I ignored their suggestions or even their whinning?
How long would they keep coming to me if they didn't feel satisfied with the work I do,and feel it's worth the money?
Morals? meh, it's a dog and pony show,I may care less if a customer drives away from my shop and runs right into a tree,but they belive I care,they are more than happy when they leave and more than satisfied with how they are treated and with what they have recieved.
In the department of satsifying customers,of listening to input and delivering what the customer base wants,I feel GW is lacking.

In the business world there is no such thing as morals only ethics. Selling raw materials to make weapons is not a moral thing in the eyes of many people but it is still ethical if no one is breaking the law.

Morals are created on how the groupd feels people should act, i.e. Ten Commandments and other religous text.

Ethics are a set rules agreed upon on how people must act. i.e. local traffic laws, etc...

So, while everyone might think that GW is conducting business in a unmoral way but if they are not breaking any laws then they are conducting business in an ethical manner. If you consider their business practices on the same level as clubing baby seals then you have the right not to buy their products or the employees can find a new job if they feel that they are being traded badly.

Why does it always seem that every couple of months someone on here wants to scream and rant about GW as the spawn of devil and we should boycott it. In fact GW doesn't give two s about what the internet rants of some enraged gamers. For myself, if mixing in the blood of baby seals make the paints better then the baby seals need to start arming themselves.

Kanluwen wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
As I said then, a caveat could have been drawn up and provided to the sites to carry. This was not done. A sledgehammer was used to crack some peanuts.

Yes, it could have been handled better by GW. But people seem to insist in holding a company to the same standards as an individual--which is silly.

Your concession is appreciated. If one of the most vocal supporters of the company on this site can admit that, then there is hope for the rest. I understand that very regrettably about half of them are going to be fired from GW by the sounds of things so perhaps that might wear off some of the 'shine' and dogmatic refusal to listen to any form of criticism of their beloved parent corporation.

In fact, in the criticisms levelled at GW over this, that's all I and everyone else said. It could have been handled better. Larger companies with more public profiles don't get to behave like this, GW gets away with it by being the tallest midget, it is still a small company in a niche market. If the big multinationals behaved like this the negative press alone would leave several managers decapitated for incompetence.

Kanluwen wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Or 'Blessed is the mind too small for doubt' as they say... Toodlepip!!

I'd say more 'Blessed is the mind that can retain objectivity without automatically siding with the supposed underdog in an online pissing contest.'

Well we all act given the evidence provided us. From where I sit, you automatically side with the company, all the time, regardless of context and objectivity be damned. As someone who deals with corporate complaint resolution, business regulation and keeping the company I work for in the good books with government adjudicators, I can assure you, companies are expected to play fair and not exploit via 'loopholes' or behave in a bullish way by law here in this country. I am dismayed at the insistence of some here that 'that's how big business works'... It isn't.

Here's a little something we are bound by and that I enforce with a keen vigour.
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Doing/Regulated/tcf/index.shtml

incarna wrote:

Janthkin wrote:
Is it ethical for Microsoft to stop supporting Windows 2000?

Honestly, I don't find the loss of support for a given army to be any less ethical than dropping support for a previous edition of the game. (I do find it to be poor customer relations, and my LatD forces would agree with me, had they but tongues to speak.)

Now, in light of various current announcements from studio execs that every existing army will continue to receive support, if they were to suddenly drop Necrons, I think there's a better ethical question.

There are actually two big holes in this position. The first being the Microsoft Terms of Use agreement that you are required to read before you are able to use any Microsoft operating system. Although 99.99999999999% of people just click “Yeah I understand the stupid Terms” button – it actually explicitly states in more than one section that you don’t own the software, you own a license to use the software, the license can be terminated, and numerous other things that basically say “We’re Microsoft, we can do whatever we want with Windows and you’ll like it.”

That is most certainly due diligence in customer relations.

Second, upgrading from Windows 2000 to ME, NT, XP, Vista, and 7 are more akin to an analogy between codex generations – the current Tyranid codex and the last one for example.

As to your first point, I fully understand that software is licensed, rather than bought. It actually makes GW's position better - when they stopped supporting LatD and Squats, they didn't take anything away. I still have my LatD models, and I can still use them for whatever purpose I like, as well as for their originally-intended purpose (i.e.g, playing with the rules from the Eye of Terror codex, in the context of 40k 3e). (Aside: I do read license agreements; occupational hazard.) True, GW never came out and warned us LatD players that they may not make any future rules for LatD, but they hadn't promised us that they would, either.

As to your second point, that's going to be a difference of opinion between us, resulting from an admittedly loose analogy on my part. I view editions as analogous to OS generation changes, and the codex for a particular army as an application that runs on top of the edition. Sometimes, the OS is backwards-compatible enough to run an application made for an older edition...but not always.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
As I said then, a caveat could have been drawn up and provided to the sites to carry. This was not done. A sledgehammer was used to crack some peanuts.

Yes, it could have been handled better by GW. But people seem to insist in holding a company to the same standards as an individual--which is silly.

Your concession is appreciated. If one of the most vocal supporters of the company on this site can admit that, then there is hope for the rest. I understand that very regrettably about half of them are going to be fired from GW by the sounds of things so perhaps that might wear off some of the 'shine' and dogmatic refusal to listen to any form of criticism of their beloved parent corporation.

In fact, in the criticisms levelled at GW over this, that's all I and everyone else said. It could have been handled better. Larger companies with more public profiles don't get to behave like this, GW gets away with it by being the tallest midget, it is still a small company in a niche market. If the big multinationals behaved like this the negative press alone would leave several managers decapitated for incompetence.

Frankly? GW gets my support because of exactly how they behave---when you in turn behave acceptably. I've never had problems with customer service, except when I was being a tool to them when speaking with them(You try remaining nice when a bad batch of Matte Varnish ruins some 150 gorgeously painted Guardsmen...it's kinda difficult), but even then they'd still do their best to be helpful.

Add in the fact that now their authors from Black Library are so tapped into the internet that you can get feedback on your custom Chapter or army's background--provided you ask them nicely and don't make every conversation you have with them about 40k.
I don't see Privateer doing that.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Or 'Blessed is the mind too small for doubt' as they say... Toodlepip!!

I'd say more 'Blessed is the mind that can retain objectivity without automatically siding with the supposed underdog in an online pissing contest.'

Well we all act given the evidence provided us. From where I sit, you automatically side with the company, all the time, regardless of context and objectivity be damned. As someone who deals with corporate complaint resolution, business regulation and keeping the company I work for in the good books with government adjudicators, I can assure you, companies are expected to play fair and not exploit via 'loopholes' or behave in a bullish way by law here in this country. I am dismayed at the insistence of some here that 'that's how big business works'... It isn't.

Here's a little something we are bound by and that I enforce with a keen vigour.
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Doing/Regulated/tcf/index.shtml

The whole Blood Bowl thing was, and quite frankly in my opinion, a bit vague is the fact that people are considering the website owners as just customers. They are and they aren't. Once they began profiting or redistributing Games Workshop's material, they effectively set themselves up as a competing business.

Kanluwen wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
As I said then, a caveat could have been drawn up and provided to the sites to carry. This was not done. A sledgehammer was used to crack some peanuts.

Yes, it could have been handled better by GW. But people seem to insist in holding a company to the same standards as an individual--which is silly.

Your concession is appreciated. If one of the most vocal supporters of the company on this site can admit that, then there is hope for the rest. I understand that very regrettably about half of them are going to be fired from GW by the sounds of things so perhaps that might wear off some of the 'shine' and dogmatic refusal to listen to any form of criticism of their beloved parent corporation.

In fact, in the criticisms levelled at GW over this, that's all I and everyone else said. It could have been handled better. Larger companies with more public profiles don't get to behave like this, GW gets away with it by being the tallest midget, it is still a small company in a niche market. If the big multinationals behaved like this the negative press alone would leave several managers decapitated for incompetence.

Frankly? GW gets my support because of exactly how they behave---when you in turn behave acceptably. I've never had problems with customer service, except when I was being a tool to them when speaking with them(You try remaining nice when a bad batch of Matte Varnish ruins some 150 gorgeously painted Guardsmen...it's kinda difficult), but even then they'd still do their best to be helpful.

Add in the fact that now their authors from Black Library are so tapped into the internet that you can get feedback on your custom Chapter or army's background--provided you ask them nicely and don't make every conversation you have with them about 40k.
I don't see Privateer doing that.

Then you're blurring Customer Services with PR. The interaction over sales is generally good. In matters like returns on faulty goods I have nothing but praise for GW, no question about it. I am not criticising the Customer Services area of GW, I am criticising the Public Relations and the interaction with 'the community' in which GW has a schizophrenic issue in that it is and portrays it's self as 'The Hobby' and yet it then switches and becomes 'The Corporation' at some very ill-fortuned times. Whilst the black library folks are issuing advice on your space marines, the legal team are issuing threat of legal proceedings over your website with some scenarios you wrote up. There is a disconnect here.

Kanluwen wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Or 'Blessed is the mind too small for doubt' as they say... Toodlepip!!

I'd say more 'Blessed is the mind that can retain objectivity without automatically siding with the supposed underdog in an online pissing contest.'

Well we all act given the evidence provided us. From where I sit, you automatically side with the company, all the time, regardless of context and objectivity be damned. As someone who deals with corporate complaint resolution, business regulation and keeping the company I work for in the good books with government adjudicators, I can assure you, companies are expected to play fair and not exploit via 'loopholes' or behave in a bullish way by law here in this country. I am dismayed at the insistence of some here that 'that's how big business works'... It isn't.

Here's a little something we are bound by and that I enforce with a keen vigour.
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Doing/Regulated/tcf/index.shtml

The whole Blood Bowl thing was, and quite frankly in my opinion, a bit vague is the fact that people are considering the website owners as just customers. They are and they aren't. Once they began profiting or redistributing Games Workshop's material, they effectively set themselves up as a competing business.

Profiting? If and it's a very big IF, there was profit being made (I understand the issue was with the 'make a donation' type webpages, then it was minuscule. It proffered no threat to the company nor represented a loss of earnings to GW as they had already forsaken the game. These were fansites for a game the owners of which have relegated. As mentioned, it just needed a caveat drawn up by GW's legal team added to the front page of the site or as a footer on every page, like this:

"Bloodbowl is the property of Games Workshop PLC, we at #### recognise and support GW's ownership of Bloodbowl and all intellectual products therein. All Bloodbowl imagery and reference is made with the kind permission of Games Workshop PLC and Games Workshop PLC retain the right to remove them, should they so wish. We at ##### continue to work with GW to maintain a support service for their game system". Then GW is actually reinforced as owners, they could even cite this in court as evidence. Everyone would have benefited. Instead we got a clusterfeth mess because GW was wearing it's Corporate hat when what was required was it's Hobby hat.

Except that is exactly what it says at the bottom of GW's Legal page when you're making an "unofficial fan site", and has said that in all the various iterations of the site since even when they had their own official forums.

From what I remember: The biggest problem that GW had with the sites were, in fact, not actually hosting or providing the material themselves. They were bandwidth leeching from GW's official download section, or in some cases hosting scans of the actual pages in there.

But yes, GW's PR is kinda shaky. But again, this wasn't GW Corporate or GW PR.

This was GW legal, when it was just coming under new management and they felt like saber rattling or cleaning up and enforcing an IP that just had official material released in conjunction.

Did anybody mentioned them producing their stuff in sweatshops in China? I would call it very bad ethics..

Kanluwen wrote:Except that is exactly what it says at the bottom of GW's Legal page when you're making an "unofficial fan site", and has said that in all the various iterations of the site since even when they had their own official forums.

From what I remember: The biggest problem that GW had with the sites were, in fact, not actually hosting or providing the material themselves. They were bandwidth leeching from GW's official download section, or in some cases hosting scans of the actual pages in there.

But yes, GW's PR is kinda shaky. But again, this wasn't GW Corporate or GW PR.

This was GW legal, when it was just coming under new management and they felt like saber rattling or cleaning up and enforcing an IP that just had official material released in conjunction.

Not what I'm saying. The 6+ pages of 'legalees' on the GW site (and much of it isn't legally binding, just worded like that in the hopes of putting folks off) on the site tells you all things you can and can't do. Instead, what I am suggesting is an open caveat on the fansite, allowing a good degree of latitude in return for openly shouting 'yes, all this is GWs and they are letting us use it to maintain and uphold one of their old games, ain't they great!'

In one case, it was clearly the links to non-GW models that could be used for bloodbowl that pissed off GW, despite those models being for a different game (elfball? sumink or uvva). In another it was the use of 'bloodbowl' in the address. In one recent case it was the imperial aquila (librarium online I think) that caused the letter threatening further action. It is strange that the company expects it's fansites to use other words and symbols than the ones associated with it's 'hobby'. They represent no threat in those circumstances. GW has a problem with the internets and a problem dealing with 'the community', you can defend the actions as 'within their rights and prudent legally' and I can criticise them as 'poorly executed and eliciting ill will from their customers' and we are both right. Simply, they didn't handle it well.

And it was their PR. Legal are supposed to do this sort of thing, via PR. Our legal team are a shoal of makos, we always ensure marketing and sales see anything they are issuing to customers to be sure they aren't shooting the company in the foot and to smooth out any aggressive language, unless we are 'going to war' on something. The incidents we are referring to were certainly not causes for 'going to war', a large 3rd world counterfeiting operation sure, nuke em to hell, but fansites? Nope, should have been handled totally differently. Fact is you and I are discussing this, a few months down the line, it will still be being referenced in the community in a year or two, it's a PR blunder, legal will have flown back to their perches satisfied they did what they were instructed, but PR should have been in on it and smoothing it out, it was a poor show.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

wardancer wrote:Did anybody mentioned them producing their stuff in sweatshops in China? I would call it very bad ethics..

I thought only those arse-awful craterthings came from the Far East? I was under the impression most of their manufacture occurs here in the UK?

Then let's agree to disagree on how it was handled, agree that sometimes people expect far too much from a publicly traded company(I still say that expecting a company to act "morally" is ridiculous, since "morals" and "ethics" are really things that should be expect of individuals acting in the regards of public service agencies{police, etc} and individuals acting on their own), and sit back and enjoy "Flash Gordon" since I found it on while I was surfing my local networks.

Does that sound good?

Kanluwen wrote:Then let's agree to disagree on how it was handled, agree that sometimes people expect far too much from a publicly traded company(I still say that expecting a company to act "morally" is ridiculous, since "morals" and "ethics" are really things that should be expect of individuals acting in the regards of public service agencies{police, etc} and individuals acting on their own), and sit back and enjoy "Flash Gordon" since I found it on while I was surfing my local networks.

Does that sound good?

It's a shame you've not read the link I included. It basically provides a framework for financial companies in the UK to maintain a 'morality' and getting insurance, banks and building societies to do that really is hard, but if they don't they get fined, publicly censured and in some cases, have their right to trade revoked or suspended. I just can't see why you consider behaving in that same way is some great and monumental leap for a little company that sells toy soldiers to geeks like me. You believe their perceived size waives them of their responsibilities in respect of dealing with 'the community' or things like the 'tin crisis to plastic matching pricing', I say that as they have become larger, expectations of accountability should increase and their ability to resolve things smoothly to mutual satisfaction should increase.

Still, I remain hopeful that as new companies continue to spring up and some actually take root and survive (Privateer Press for example), GW will no longer have a virtual monopoly in it's customer base and be forced to mend it's ways as a business.

~also, try 'Flesh Gordon'...~

I read what you linked. And all I got from it was a list of Public Relations styled stuff and Customer Service expectations.

I have said NOTHING either way that the bigger they are the less accountable they should be for their actions. I've said that people are applying ideas that should, in reality, only be applying to individuals to corporations. That's my argument here. People are using the wrong bloody terminology. It's bad PR and crummy business sense to go after your fanbase over something and not explain it 100%. But of course, even if they had posted THEIR side of the story and it was revealed that the Blood Bowl fan sites were in fact actually paving the way for their own version of Blood Bowl titled Sanguine Cup using their own custom made models, the naysayers probably would have whined that GW was being bullish and "immoral".

If GW were selling us products that exploded or were unsound in some way(and no--prices don't count), then I'd agree that some sort of "moral obligation to the customer" was breached. But it's not when all you have is overpricing or a hamfisted approach to dealing with the public. That has nothing, whatsoever, to do with morals or ethics or any form of the crap that people spew in regards to saying "GW is evil!111!".

And frankly, I wish Privateer would roll over and die. They've done nothing but screw me over in any dealings I've had with them and quite frankly--some of the worst customer service I've ever attempted to utilize and I still haven't gotten a replacement part that I was promised almost 2 years ago.
But does that really make them immoral or unethical?

Of course not. It just means they've got a crummy business model or a few individuals who needed to be sacked. However, that did lead to influencing my perception of them.

It's why I don't buy many of their products(outside of a few models that really interest me like Caine) and don't play their games.

I know that's long and ranty, but I'm trying to keep my points to what I think of, as I think of it.

GW has a long history of outright lying to it's customers. That is an example of poor morals/ethics in my book.

The earliest example of this I can think of is the "lead scare" of circa 1992-3. I won't bore you all with the details of the scare, but the Cliff's Notes version is that people opposed to wargaming miniatures used the angle that most minitaures of the time were made out of toxic lead to attack the industry, which cuminated a court hearing in New York state which actually found in the industry's favor. But as a self defense measure to head off any future legislation most wargame figure companies, including GW, changed over to a non-lead metal.

In GW's case they made a big deal in White Dwarf as how they were "protecting their customers" by changing from lead to pewter based figures and at the same time they would acomplish this without raising prices. Well, when the new blisters arived on store shelves the following month, the sticker price was indeed the same as the old miniatures. However the model count in the packages had been halved. They slipped in a 100% price increase on metal models all the while attempting to maintian the moral high ground through claiming it was to "protect their customers" all the while lying about doing it. This set the tone for how GW would treat it's customer base for the next 17+ years. Sadly for them, there are still some older gamers left out here who remember that.

This behavior during the "lead scare" is something that I've never gotten any of the resident GW apologists/fan boys to even try to justify....probably because they can't.


So yes, GW has had an still continues to have some morality/honesty issues.

TR

Once again:
Morality/honesty do not apply to non-individualistic entities.

And if they said they didn't raise prices, but instead altered the model count--they "technically" didn't raise prices.

And you're one of the people, I might add, that seem to be in the Tinfoil Hat Brigade from the posts I've seen from you in regards to GW. If they were to so much as change a paint color's pigmentation slightly without announcing it--oh my god! IMMORAL!

Morality/honesty do not apply to non-individualistic entities.

Wrongo.
I'm nlot comparing GW to any of these by any means but would you not say that Nazi state, the Soviet Union, or in the opinion of many people Pre-1994 South Africa were immoral entities? Groups can indeed behave in an imoral manner.

And if they said they didn't raise prices, but instead altered the model count--they "technically" didn't raise prices.

That has to be the lamest defence of that I have ever seen. But at least you tried. I would say it was a "nice try" but that's not really a true statement, is it? Face it. GW outright lied in this case and has had a history of lying and other customer abuse for two decades now.

And you're one of the people, I might add, that seem to be in the Tinfoil Hat Brigade from the posts I've seen from you in regards to GW.

Woohoo! Flaming for the win!

TR

Kanluwen wrote:
Morality/honesty do not apply to non-individualistic entities.

Individual notions of morality do not apply to groups as a whole, but there certainly are moral standards of conduct which do apply to groups.

I can think of at least two ways that the company has behaved unethically...

First, when 4th edition came out, it was promised that all your armies would still be legal...However, every codex has resulted in units or models no longer being legal.

The biggest one is the perpetuation of the 'us vs them' divide and the 'You're not playing right so you're a bad person' attitude. Anything that fosters an environment of hostility is inherently unethical.

Trench-Raider wrote: Face it. GW outright lied in this case and has had a history of lying and other customer abuse for two decades now.

The concept of 'price' is highly ambiguous; potentially referring to unit cost as representative of the smallest distributed quantity, or unit cost as the smallest measurable quantity.

Simply being imprecise is not lying.

Well, the most recent example is "it's not space hulk!"
"haha only kidding it IS space hulk!"

That didn't even make any sense.

Kanluwen wrote:I read what you linked. And all I got from it was a list of Public Relations styled stuff and Customer Service expectations.

It's a moral code for financial business to abide by, let's take a look at 3 of the 6 outcomes and relate them to GW:

Outcome 1: Consumers can be confident that they are dealing with firms where the fair treatment of customers is central to the corporate culture.
GW Result? Highly questionable, the financial reports make mention of the lack of customer resistance to 'price elasticity' and therefore the cynical price hiking creating a system of reduced sales/increased prices. All armies sold by GW are marketed as 'equal' yet on growing aware of the system, the customer becomes aware there is a 'tiered' level of updates for armies. (Billy bought a box of dark eldar...poor Billy, Jonny bought an entire army of Dogs of War...poor Jonny). GW generated a massive price rise in metal figures years ago due to a 'tin crisis' and said price increases thereafter would be tardy to facilitate this, the price increases continued, recently the financial report states that the plastic product can now be brought inline with the metal, despite the plastic product being cheaper to produce and the metal product being pushed to a high due to a previous 'crisis' that was never rectified.

Outcome 4: Where consumers receive advice, the advice is suitable and takes account of their circumstances.
GW Result? No, we all know the 'Hard Sale' is pushed above all, most especially on those who don't know what they want. Also known 'lame duck' aspects of the codex are not advised on and models of non-viable parts of the army are touted as 'brilliant and awesome'.
(...yes madam, he might only have sent you in for a green paint, a red paint and a blue paint, but what about flocking the base...also, randomly, can I interest you in a Realm of Battle?)
(..why yes sonny! Eldar guardians are great, they are the rank and file, you need lots to 'bolster' your army!!1!!...Hmm? You collect Imperial Guard, you'll love Ogryns as much as we love the price of them!)

Outcome 5: Consumers are provided with products that perform as firms have led them to expect, and the associated service is of an acceptable standard and as they have been led to expect.
GW Result? Nope, again, if you're not a space marine player then you're second class and in some cases third class. This is never explained to new customers, the tiered system of preferential treatment is just something that's accepted in 'the hobby' but frankly it's bizarre. Consider it in another retailer:
(...no madam, we are updating every other mobile phone type, but you have to use your old one for the next 20 years, it's your fault, you picked the ones we didn't sell enough of)

Kanluwen wrote:
I have said NOTHING either way that the bigger they are the less accountable they should be for their actions. I've said that people are applying ideas that should, in reality, only be applying to individuals to corporations. That's my argument here. People are using the wrong bloody terminology. It's bad PR and crummy business sense to go after your fanbase over something and not explain it 100%. But of course, even if they had posted THEIR side of the story and it was revealed that the Blood Bowl fan sites were in fact actually paving the way for their own version of Blood Bowl titled Sanguine Cup using their own custom made models, the naysayers probably would have whined that GW was being bullish and "immoral".

First part of that, your wording seems to offer the reasoning that they are a corporation and thereby not subject to a moral code, a code you would doubtless expect in a retailer on the highstreet. Corporate morality does exist, The ability for businesses to generate profits and do so while adhering to the morals of the culture within which it operates, ie to be considered fair and reasonable, is not impossible and should be something GW aim towards.
Second part of this paragraph...Conjecture, I'm afraid. And IF the BB fans could make their own game great. WTF would have been wrong with that? Their own game and miniatures? Sweet, why the feth not, after all, GW has relegated BB. IF GW wanted to bring BB back out of retirement in the future, then they should make it better than any competition. That's business, not monopoly as we currently have it.

Kanluwen wrote:
If GW were selling us products that exploded or were unsound in some way(and no--prices don't count), then I'd agree that some sort of "moral obligation to the customer" was breached. But it's not when all you have is overpricing or a hamfisted approach to dealing with the public. That has nothing, whatsoever, to do with morals or ethics or any form of the crap that people spew in regards to saying "GW is evil!111!".

Exploitative, duplicitous, bullying and greedy. There are many levels of 'Evil' or wrongdoing, it can be considered a level of it to mislead your customers over the price of your miniatures and issue threatening legal letters from your degree educated lawyers to folks making websites at home.
We can, of course, throw ill advised, unprofessional and lacking in vision into that, in order to lower the 'evil' quotient and raise the 'inept' factor...

Kanluwen wrote:
And frankly, I wish Privateer would roll over and die. They've done nothing but screw me over in any dealings I've had with them and quite frankly--some of the worst customer service I've ever attempted to utilize and I still haven't gotten a replacement part that I was promised almost 2 years ago.
But does that really make them immoral or unethical?
Of course not. It just means they've got a crummy business model or a few individuals who needed to be sacked. However, that did lead to influencing my perception of them.
It's why I don't buy many of their products(outside of a few models that really interest me like Caine) and don't play their games.

Well, it's unlikely. I wish them well and hope they don't walk too far down the path GW have cut for themselves. I am also cheering on Mantic (shame about the size of the minis), Infinity, Rackham and the whole bloody lot of them to encourage an open and vibrant market that will force GW to reconsider their current attitude to the community and have a real presence and accountability with the community.



We shall see.

The amount of personal attacks and flaming in this thread would be amusing given the title and subject...

...if it weren't for the fact that it is against the RULES of Dakka Dakka!

Please stop!

Going forward, everyone will be considered to have been warned...

Trench-Raider wrote:

Morality/honesty do not apply to non-individualistic entities.

Wrongo.
I'm not comparing GW to any of these by any means but would you not say that Nazi state, the Soviet Union, or in the opinion of many people Pre-1994 South Africa were immoral entities? Groups can indeed behave in an immoral manner.

Individuals in a group can act immorally. Not every person who was involved in the Nazi regime was "immoral".

Trench-Raider wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:And if they said they didn't raise prices, but instead altered the model count--they "technically" didn't raise prices.

That has to be the lamest defence of that I have ever seen. But at least you tried. I would say it was a "nice try" but that's not really a true statement, is it? Face it. GW outright lied in this case and has had a history of lying and other customer abuse for two decades now.

Well, at that time I wasn't really into watching the prices of tin versus lead...y'know, because I was 5.

If you want to make some kind of accurate comparison, find the prices of tin compared to lead(I'm guessing it's actually pretty high at that time, because I remember the metal figures that my father and I got from Britains Limited shifted from $3.25/single foot mounted figure and $8.25/mounted figure to $5.75/foot mounted figure to $14.60/mounted figure) and extrapolate from there. It's entirely probable that what you would have had a price raise--if they maintained the same amount of figures in those blisters.

Trench-Raider wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:And you're one of the people, I might add, that seem to be in the Tinfoil Hat Brigade from the posts I've seen from you in regards to GW.

Woohoo! Flaming for the win!

TR

Poor choice of words to convey an idea. I've fallen into using the term "Tinfoil Hat Brigade" to describe anyone/any news outlet that really strain the lengths of logic to go out of their way to convince others that there's some deep-seated, evil agenda behind every action a government or corporation makes.