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(I'm posting this from my phone so I'm sorry for...everything.)

Just curious - I looked into this a while ago and couldn't find anything. Does GW just get a lump sum early on from folks who make their games, or does most of their profit come from a cut of their sales over time? And if so, given how many more games etc are being made (also by ffg) in their name over time, might we finally see non-GW-exclusive 40k stuff popping up in their stores some day? (why aren't they already in there?)

Licensing fees (ie, FFG or whoever pay GW a lump sum "up front" for the rights to use the IP) which are then "renewed" every so often (yearly, bi-yearly, whatever). GW and the other company may also arrange for a share of the residuals (say, $100K up front for the IP license, and then 5% of net sales for a period of 3 years, 5 years, whatever).

You won't see 40k stuff on shelves that is not, in some way, tied to GW, at least assuming that the product is legit. If someone wants to produce 40k miniatures, using the 40k official names and iconography and the like, they will have to obtain the rights to do so from GW. Since GW is a model company, this is exceedingly unlikely to happen.

Also each licensing agreement is unique and discussed individually; while they might be similar none of them would be the exact same; I'd suspect that GW would expect only a one-time payment from a small game that they don't expect to profit much off of, as asking for royalties often means little to no actual upfront payment. Conversely, products that are bound to sell like hotcakes (dawn of war 3 comes to mind) probably requires a few royalties to be paid along with a signing deal.

Basically there would be no blanket answer for how GW gets it's licensing, just that they do whenever something is made with their IP.

On a related note games workshop has a dedicated licensing website if you want to see their licensed products.

http://licensing.games-workshop.com/


The Intellectual property portion of their website has a note on licensing:

Licensing

If you think you have a winning idea and want to make a video game, an app, some merchandise, a movie or anything else that you will be distributing (either for free or at a cost) using Games Workshop’s IP then you need permission in the form of a license from Games Workshop. If you've got a strong vision of something you want to produce, using our imagery, and have a sound plan to make it a reality, then the people to talk to are our licensing department. They really want to hear from you! You can reach them at licensing@gwplc.com.

I remember reading an article that discussed gw's licenses, but I can't remember where... it might have been in the interview John Blanche did for the local Nottingham magazine Left Lion, or perhaps a white dwarf?

nareik wrote:
On a related note games workshop has a dedicated licensing website if you want to see their licensed products.

http://licensing.games-workshop.com/


The Intellectual property portion of their website has a note on licensing:

Licensing

If you think you have a winning idea and want to make a video game, an app, some merchandise, a movie or anything else that you will be distributing (either for free or at a cost) using Games Workshop’s IP then you need permission in the form of a license from Games Workshop. If you've got a strong vision of something you want to produce, using our imagery, and have a sound plan to make it a reality, then the people to talk to are our licensing department. They really want to hear from you! You can reach them at licensing@gwplc.com.

I remember reading an article that discussed gw's licenses, but I can't remember where... it might have been in the interview John Blanche did for the local Nottingham magazine Left Lion, or perhaps a white dwarf?

That's some interesting stuff then...is this it? http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/john-blanche/id/6266 I didn't see anything about licensing at first glance... (also was it John Blanche that recently passed? Or someone else? I can't quite find an article on it but one big GW artist died this year, I believe)

I believe you are thinking of Wayne England who died in February this year.

God yes! lol GW makes money off of anything with a GW logo on it lol

In a past life I used to work for a video games publisher and they will typically negotiate a single fee for licensing an IP. I did actually approach GW for discussion of their licensing at the time but their negotiating started from a very high point which didn't make it commercially viable for us at the time.

I assume with the load of apps and other things coming out now they have changed their position a little.

We as a policy would never enter into a royalty based licensing deal because that is difficult to forecast and puts an increased risk on recouping development costs.