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**sidles out of the thread quietly**

Dogma:

Simply being imprecise is not lying.

The term "half truth" comes to mind. Lies come in many form. It's not just outright false statements that are lies. Lies can also come in the form of half truths and lies of omission for example.

The bottom line is that GW was purposely deceptive and tried to justify it by the feined concern for their customer's health.

Kanluwen:

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

Agreed. There were people (especially in the low ranks) who despite working to further their country's interests could be considered good , honorable, and in some cases even heroic indviduals. But the actions of the state as a whole, it's policies, and it's war aims were immoral.
I'm sorry, but I find your whole contention that groups cannot by definition commit immoral acts kind of unsettling and distasteful.

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.

I would not use Britains as an example here as they are a traditionally expensive figure designed for the toy soldier collectors market. It's apples and oranges as they say. A better example would be to look at contemporary wargame figure companies of the time. One of the big names in the field during the early '90s was Ral Partha. Partha also changed over to non-lead alloys and in fact made a big deal about it dubbing their new metal "Raladium". Their overall price increase was about 10%. Other companies who made the shift to non-lead had a very similar price increase. No one came even close to the amazing GW 100% price incease. At the time I recall reading an editorial written by a wargaming industry insider in the wargame magazine "Wargames Illistrated" criticizing even the small price increases. His contention was that they were unjustified in that the price of tin based alloys was no more than a couple percentage points higher than that of lead alloys and that there was no change in the machinery and molds needed to cast lead figures as opposed to that needed for lead miniatures.

Let's face facts here. You and Dogma are jumping through hoops in an unsuccesful attempt to justify or at the very least minimise one of the most overt examples of GW's deciet and absurd pricing model.

Poor choice of words to convey an idea

Point taken and apology accepted.

TR

I have no problems.

They are a company trying to make a profit.

They are going about it in an odd way by trying to alienate a large subsection of their customer base (older gamers) and the entire base with lame/poorly thought out rules and codex creep.

However if they were truely bad I'd have moved on long ago.

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?

I'm sorry, but you have got me riled now. That is complete and utter stool-water of the first order. Companies can and should act ecthically. If GW got its models cast in lead by 3 year old slave children would that be acceptable? No! Because it is unethical. Earning profit can and should be done ethically, or not at all. Full stop. End of.

If you don't believe me, look at this:

http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?c=Page&cid=1169627027831&pagename=Corp%2FPage%2FtplCorp

Sure companies can be legal and unethical at the same time. But the big issue is whether they *should*. Earning a profit is not right if it is at the expense of the vulnerable. Many good companies recognise this, and with the growth and development of the Fair Trade movement are realising how much better their businesses run.

In most instances bad ethics = bad PR = loss of revenue. and good ethics = good PR = increase in revenue.

Acting ethically *is* the responsibility of the company in a developed, free world economy. Companies that act unethically deserve to fail.

Of course I am not accusing GW of being grossly unethical to this extent. However I am highlighting the import of ethics to a commercial entity of any type.

Only in dictatorships or extreme capitalist havens do ethics not impact trading. Everywhere else, companies are expected to play fair.

Everywhere else, companies are expected to play fair.

I'm sorry, but whatever world you live on, I want to join you there. It sounds much nicer than reality.

Big corporations have been unethical for as long as I can remember. Just for a few examples off the top of my head, there was the time Mcdonalds dragged that poor healthy eaters group through court, because he published a pamphlet saying their food made you fat. They did everything from infiltrating members into his group, to hiring people to watch his house. Then you have Tescos, which strongarms its suppliers(farmers and whatnot) into cutting their prices so that they can charge less without cutting their own profit. You have hostile takeovers of other companies. You have the thousands of companies who hide their profits in off shore tax havens. You have the credit traps the banks set up for people.

Let's be frank here, business ethics is a travesty. By this stage of the game, I've just accepted every company is out to screw me in its own way. GW isn't the only culprit here.

um, to quote the disembodied head of Henry Kissinger:

"this is not a productive area of discussion."

but seriously, there should be enough options out there in the niche market of tabletop wargaming to make even the most masochistic of us nerds pee ourselves a little, right?
I know my own level of happiness in buying this stuff could be legally questionable, or grounds for a section 8. besides, if I wasn't buying figs, that exact same amount of money would be spent on beer &c, so I think ethics/morality have already lost their impact for me...

Trench-Raider wrote:
The term "half truth" comes to mind.

Yes, its meaningless. A statement is either true, or not true. No statement can be 'half-true'.

Trench-Raider wrote:
Lies come in many form. It's not just outright false statements that are lies. Lies can also come in the form of half truths and lies of omission for example.

The only statements which are necessarily facetious are those which are outright false; everything else depends upon intent. Thereby facilitating the argument which you stated was impossible.

Trench-Raider wrote:
The bottom line is that GW was purposely deceptive and tried to justify it by the feined concern for their customer's health.

There are lines at the bottom?

Silliness aside, what you're claiming is false due to a lack of sufficient context.

Trench-Raider wrote:
Let's face facts here. You and Dogma are jumping through hoops in an unsuccesful attempt to justify or at the very least minimise one of the most overt examples of GW's deciet and absurd pricing model.

I'm not jumping through any hoops. I'm applying logic.

Also, I am not expressing an opinion with respect to the situation. All I'm doing is explaining the possibility spread that exists given your statements.

Firing all their employees and forcing them to re-apply for the same job, but for less pay and no benefits could be seen as ethically questionable. Sure you can just call it bad business, but there is such a thing as business ethics, that make account for an expectation of fair treatment of both employees and customers. Perfectly legal in any case though. * shrug *

Then there are all those baby seals and pandas they raped and killed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.

Ah, but in the U.S. corporations are defined as individuals, with the same rights as you and me.

Hi all.
Well at a certain points in the transition to the current PLC, the high ups at GW had a decisions to make.

Do they use thier market leader position to deliver the best value for money in an open market ,set the bench mark in game development and minature creation.
Be the best company in the wargames market and increase their revenue and customer base through exeeding customer expectations.

OR set up an insular marketing system to ''hard sell overpriced toy soldiers to unsuspecting customers before they wise up and leave.''

When the chioce is deliver better value for money to grow the customer base, or hike prices, what do they pick?

When the chioce is improve product and customer support , or find less critical customers, what do they pick?

When getting the results long term 'ethicaly' means lots of effort and investment,short sighted quick fixes seem to be GW plcs stock alternative.

TTFN
Lanrak.

I'm not jumping through any hoops. I'm applying logic.

No your not.
You are playing word games.

Does anyone here honestly think that stating before hand that prices would not be raised and then havling the model count in packages that retained the old prices is not a lie?

TR

Trench-Raider wrote:

I'm not jumping through any hoops. I'm applying logic.

No your not.
You are playing word games.

Does anyone here honestly think that stating before hand that prices would not be raised and then havling the model count in packages that retained the old prices is not a lie?

TR

While it may not be a "lie" (since prices stayed the same),it was certianly an underhanded & slimey move on GWs part.

Trench-Raider wrote:
No your not.
You are playing word games.

Well, language is a game, but that's beside the point; which is that you're inferring more than is necessary from a statement made by a corporation. As a result of that inference you believe the corporation lied when they did not.

Trench-Raider wrote:
Does anyone here honestly think that stating before hand that prices would not be raised and then havling the model count in packages that retained the old prices is not a lie?

TR

Yes.

Warnings have already been made, but flaming has continued. As such this thread is closed.