I'm not going to cave in believe me! If I can resist bugs everyone can resist pretty much anything I just have to keep my mind busy... with " songs of blades and heroes"
I know :x
but like others have mentioned a few pages back , there can be other effective ways to boycott , i like the
phoning mail order all day during dec idea.
and i like my idea of people buying out few boxes of latest released from GW store and return it after they restock it,
forcing them to pile up with 100+ box of things they dont need ( i dunno perhaps this is too evil )
LunaHound wrote:@Navarro and Ketara , no more fighting please ,
both simultaneously stop talking to each other! ><
Nah I have nothing against ketara really, just disagreed on some points, thats it, I pretty much enjoy talking to everyone here, regardless of diferent opinions.
But this thread is not about me or ketara so thats why I wanted to end the back & forth arguments.
Boycott wise... I only started now and people are already putting fortress pics on the forum... DAMN its going to be hard to resist! When bugs come up I will have to give my credit card to my wife... to be broke a couple days later
With all honesty, i really applaud the idea of this boycott.
But in reality... i know people are going to try , and cave in.
In the end GW will still get their money , and people that tried to hold off will blame themself for resisting against the urge.
The old saying " resisting urges is bad for your health "
Nope, im gonna hold out, if i have to 'get my fix' i'll buy from a different company. actually im surprised that your not more for this Luna, canada is a great example of where a boycott WILL work as it has a lower sales volume than other countries.
LunaHound wrote:
The old saying " resisting urges is bad for your health "
Don't say that Luna.... People like myself have to resist urges not cause it will be bad for our health, but because it may be bad for OTHERS health! Rofl.
Ketara wrote:The things I find funniest about this whole thread is the fact that no-one actually knows what they're boycotting GW for.
If you intend to hold a protest, you need a series of proposals or demands worked out beforehand that you want the company to meet. Instead, this entire thing is just a general rant against Games Workshop. It has no productive aims or goals. It's only objective is to 'make GW aware that they won't get away with XYZ'. Sorry, but they already did. And the fact that you're not clear exactly what you're boycotting for doesn't help.
Allow me to lay out my personal fictitous crusade against GW. The key is combine realism with efficency, reasonableness and attainable goals.
The first step is lay out exactly what me and my group of misguided followers want. Saying, 'charge less for models', would be foolish, as they are ultimately a company. So, for this imaginary campaign, I settle on the following objectives:-
-Renewal of Support for the Lost and Damned army in either a codex or a white dwarf article.
-A set of solid FAQs and errata that are updated regularly.
-Updating the Dark Eldar Codex.
Okay, we have our 3 aims. What's the next step? To make ourselves heard. It's no good complaining to a grunt, we want the people who make the decisions to hear about this. The internet will not be our primary medium for this, as GW tends to ignore it. We have the upcoming season of December, in which little Timmys will be ordering presents in their millions. Our job is to infiltrate our demands into this constant flow to Games Workshop.
So we pick a date, say from the 1st Dec to 14th, a two week period. Up until this point we just acquire support from people prepared to follow our initiative. We start threads on all the major forums, and get people to commit themselves to it. Not only that, we ask for all the forumgoers to get their friends in on it in order to increase the pressure. As we want this to be a global thing, several co-ordinators in various countries would take charge for different timezones. Then here's what we do.
The Co-ordinator allocates people to different days. Say he has 84 people who have pledged their support in his locale. He divides it by 14, getting six people per day. He then messages each person what them/their groups day is. On their predetermined day, each person physically writes a letter to Games Workshop, putting it in 1st Class, in which he outlines one or more of the above demands. All the letters should be reasonable, and point out why they would like to see the objectives they've picked enacted. The co-ordinator can, if they desire, write a template for people to use. Then, having posted their letter, they should also Email a copy of their letter to Games Workshop. If the co-ordinators can track down the appropriate phone numbers, they should distribute them to the various people, who can then also make a call that day, again outlining their letter.
At the end of the two week period, all of the participants will put their names to a petition that the co-ordinator will then send to Games Workshop. This is to re-enforce the point that has already been made.
Further action can then be decided at that point, depending on the response given by GW. The fact is, bombardment of two or three repeated demands from several nations is most likely to filter through to the upper echelons. Not only that, but not only will the news of all the messages get through, the petition is excellent evidence to be presented to the board members when they ask whether there actually is support enough for such changes for them to be financially viable.
Most GW customer feedback is given from garbled accounts given by redshirts. Consumer-led feedback on this scale would make any company sit up and take notice. The key is to be clear about exactly what you want, reasonable enough not to expect the impossible or financially unviable, and organised enough to ensure that what you want is driven home and cannot be ignored as one isolated petty customer.
This is how I would personally organise a campaign for changes with Games Workshop. It's infinitely more likely to succeed than something like this thread. And even if it didn't, you'd have the necessary framework in place to begin a more concerted pressure campaign through the use of bad publicity for GW, protests, boycotts, etc.
I completly agree with you. this is the way we should be doing this. I'm in if dakka wants to start this!
Got To Love Goldfinger anyways going back to the Op I am so down I havent bought any thing since June! I was like these prices are ridicoulous I'll stay content with what I have and if anything comes out that i need to continue to Play Ie codex'x then I'll get them from a FLGS.
Sigh... the answer to the above long quote which I will not re-quote is letters can and will be shredded by an intern and e-mails will be deleted or moved to spam by a spam filter then checked by an intern. Sorry, letters, phone calls and boycotts. What is this grade school?
Has no one here been to a business class? Look at PETA, Greenpeace and all those people that throw paint and other assorted liquids. They do all the same thing as you all want to do and just look silly while the company keeps on doing what it wants.
The real power that runs a publicly traded company is the VOTING SHAREHOLDERS! You can waste your time writing letters and calling the company which will only make it to an intern anyways. The grownups will buy stock and vote on which way the company should go. If the grownups do not like the way the company is going and ignores the shareholder the shareholders can organize and sue the Directors of Board of GW for change.
Unless you people are willing to put your money where your mouth is and effect real change by becoming part owners of the company then whine and stroke your egos by standing behind a completely limp and worthless boycott and writing campaign.
BTW: I just bought 4 boxes of Bloodleters from my Local GW Store this month.
Last Month I bought 2 Defilers to make a Brass Scorpion.
Yes, I know I can get that stuff cheaper through other resources like Warstore. I currently get value out of my local GW store as it is only 15 minutes away and provides a place to paint that gets me out of the house and around people that I don't completely hate.
Instead of an "Internet Protest", you should just picket their stores, collectively, as long as it takes to get your point.
You give a single list of grief’s, post them on sheets, and hand them out to people who even LOOK like they are going into the store. All the while, your people in each area post themselves outside the shops with signs, calls, and the whole works.
Some places will need a protest license from your local Johnny Law, so when they come out of the store to kick you or hack on you, you have some Bad publicity for the internet’s, to show what corporate yuppie scum lackeys they really are.
Seriously. An "Internet protest"??? Are you kidding? If you want to really affect them, you have to cut them off at the knees and counter their antics with BAD PUBLICITY and MONEY.
You bring up the common theme of all of your BSing and it boils down to BAD BUSINESS PRACTICES EFFECTING YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE PRODUCT.
You can go on and on about the blood bowel. You can go on and on about the pricing, you can go on and on about the rules, but you guys are all over the map with your gripes.
What needs to happen is that you take a page out of the Adult world and see how real protests work.
1. Public Outrage.
What seriously, did this company do that has you all collectively uproared?
Can you give a 3 minute compliant to anyone and everyone that will listen, and not sound like a rube?
For example- “The outrageous pricing of the Widgets from the metal, to the plastic has not changed from the old metal figures price of 50.00. It’s a ridiculous price, and we want it changed!!! The Widgets are plastic, there are only five, and the number of models, 5, does not realistically justify the 50.00 price that they now ask for. We want it changed, and we want it changed NOW!" (An example. I really don't care about GW's pricing. You just have to have a collective, no nonsense message that you can discuss and give a show that you aren’t just a troublemaker, being childish.
You post your issue on every website, LGS, and every forum, and go run with it. Keep it simple, keep it short, or else it grows into something else, and your message is going to get ...changed into something else entirely.
You have to be serious if you want to affect a change, and you are going to have to expect that you are going to get some static for it. SO, when they come out of the store on the day you are standing outside, and they continue to insult you throw stuff, and all the fixings that come with fighting nonviolently, you have to take it, document it, and show it for the publicity that it is. Negative.
2. How does this negative effect going to help you?
When you start phoning the local TV station about the protest, which after allot of publicity you get people standing around outside of each and every GW store in your state, then you ARE going to get some attention. Then you take your message to the airwaves, and get your point out there to more people.
Hence- negative public attention for the company. When Mom and Dad start seeing a bunch of ticked off gamers they are going to think twice about letting little Johnny go to the GW store, or any store for that matter for GW products.
3. Time-
A public outcry is not something that happens on one single day.
You are looking at a corporation, where you are just a number. They don't care about you, nor should they. They have millions of other guys that are going to get them their money. You get them by getting to the masses and beating them by not buying for six months.
Six months is a couple of quarters of pain that you will show them that they are being pinched. Any less and you are being a minor nuisance. Anymore, and you might as well go to DEFCON 5 on them. When you go DEFCON5, that’s when you start stomping on GW models right there outside of the stores, getting the crowds to join in the fun and get yourselves possibly ticketed if you don't have the proper paperwork filed downtown. You will be really affecting the sales by blocking the doors with picket lines, and getting the attention that you no doubt want.
4. Money- Now we come to what Pip boy was alluding to. Money talks, BS walks. You can go the route of attempting to buy out the GW stocks that are out there, or you can just close them by locking the money that is in your wallet up or buying your models from some other alternative. Such as other games, other stores, or nothing at all… Or, you don’t buy anything GW related, until they figure out that they are screwed.
How do you stop a worldwide company? Stop buying ANYTHING from them for six months. Not, "I'll join your boycott after I buy a baneblade, or tyranid, or a blister pack. You don't buy anything. Let that stuff rot on the shelf. It is still going to be there, trust me. You can go the route of sending all of your models back to them in a big box with letters, or the spru thing, or you can send them back letters in the mail telling them directly what you are going to do, but that is going to take more than just internet tough guy stuff."
Basically, you all collectively as over 10 million players have to send the exact grievance to them in a form of written letter that states your beef, how much you pay a month, or annually on the product, and what you will be doing because of the action that ticked you off. You have to include the amounts that you've paid, how much you spend, and what thioer actions are costing them, or you are just going to get thrown to the side.
As well as that, you take your letters to your local red shirt, and give them the copies, as well. All the while, you tell them what’s going to go down, and let them know that you are going to protest the collective action.
Now with all of that, you stop playing their game. Effectively killing them where it hurts the most. Will this stuff happen? NO. I don't see there being as much true outrage as you all are going on and on about. I see a bunch of the old same old that we've always been going on about.
Of course, if you were to boil that all down to a short three minute dissertation, then you might have something. Otherwise, we are going to cry a little, say how messed up that is, and go on about our business. Blood Bowel suffers a bloody death, and then goes over and is reboxed as the collective "Bad Boy " of the GW line. Sold with even more fervor, because people are going to buy it because of the negative publicity.
The bottom line is that what GW is doing is dumb to people, but they are doing it from a business standpoint, and are doing it because they haven't done anything real with this property for the last few years, and in point of fact, they can easily lose their copyrights if they don't do something with it.
When people outside of the company really are doing something about it, they can effectively make a play for the property, based on the BB inactivity.
Pipboy101 wrote:Sigh... the answer to the above long quote which I will not re-quote is letters can and will be shredded by an intern and e-mails will be deleted or moved to spam by a spam filter then checked by an intern. Sorry, letters, phone calls and boycotts. What is this grade school?
Has no one here been to a business class? Look at PETA, Greenpeace and all those people that throw paint and other assorted liquids. They do all the same thing as you all want to do and just look silly while the company keeps on doing what it wants.
The real power that runs a publicly traded company is the VOTING SHAREHOLDERS! You can waste your time writing letters and calling the company which will only make it to an intern anyways. The grownups will buy stock and vote on which way the company should go. If the grownups do not like the way the company is going and ignores the shareholder the shareholders can organize and sue the Directors of Board of GW for change.
Unless you people are willing to put your money where your mouth is and effect real change by becoming part owners of the company then whine and stroke your egos by standing behind a completely limp and worthless boycott and writing campaign.
Achem, Pip, as a newly minted shareholder of GW... I've already put my money where my mouth is. Further, you will not disparage Greenpeace in my presence. Anyone with the courage to die to make a point should be worthy of some respect. (though we all have our idiots. I remember seeing ELF torch this logging camp and then spend three hours trying to put out the fires in the forest around it...)
The point is that if Loss > Gain, most companies will yield.
Pipboy101 wrote:
The real power that runs a publicly traded company is the VOTING SHAREHOLDERS! You can waste your time writing letters and calling the company which will only make it to an intern anyways. The grownups will buy stock and vote on which way the company should go. If the grownups do not like the way the company is going and ignores the shareholder the shareholders can organize and sue the Directors of Board of GW for change.
Unless you people are willing to put your money where your mouth is and effect real change by becoming part owners of the company then whine and stroke your egos by standing behind a completely limp and worthless boycott and writing campaign.
True dat. But, I ask you Pipboy101, how long before the newly minted shareholders cease being interested in things like this boycott, and start being interested in the value of their shares? Its easy enough to join the machine, less easy to work against it when your hard earned cash is invested.
@Grot - I think we've done this calculation before, and it's a LOT of money. The big problem IMO is deciding what we want the board to do, and who to represent us.
IIRC, even pretending we had the money, the phrase "herding squirrels" came to mind with respect to Dakka agreeing on a course of action and representation.
JohnHwangDD wrote:@Grot - I think we've done this calculation before, and it's a LOT of money. The big problem IMO is deciding what we want the board to do, and who to represent us.
IIRC, even pretending we had the money, the phrase "herding squirrels" came to mind with respect to Dakka agreeing on a course of action and representation.
Point taken. That, and the fact that this is a game company, that is in the habit of throwing its lawyers at the sharks, doesn't bode well for the home team.
Read through most of this, but, not quite all of it.
I think that GW should be able to protect their IP, but, if they're going to do so, then they need to support it regularly, not just when they feel like it. If you're not going to support it...let it go, and let someone else do it.
On topic...
A boycott is not a bad idea, in and of itself. The problem is, that you're only planning on doing it for two months. If you're going to boycott, you're going to have to hold out a lot longer than two months. As others have pointed out, it's only going to be a minor drop in sales for a quarter, and then an upswing in sales directly after wards. If you really want to make them feel it, you're going to have to make them feel that loss in sales on a regular basis, and not just one quarter. I went for 4 years or so without buying any GW products, but, as that's all that's played in my area, I kind of have to give in if I want to enjoy my hobby anymore.
Also, as a few other have pointed out, a silent boycott isn't going to do anything. They (GW) have to know why you're boycotting them. You're going to have to let them know exactly WHY you are doing what it is that you're doing. The letter writing campaign is a great idea, and maybe even flooding their phone lines with calls, but, it's going to have to be consistent, and not just short term.
And buying from an online retailer/ Ebay store, doesn't really go along with the proposed boycott, as in the end, GW is still making money from your purchases. You're either going to have to make do with second hand minis, or spend your money on other company's product. It's that simple.
I'm not condemning this to failure. I just think that if you're going to do it, you have to do it right.
I have my own feelings about GW and their business practices, and trust me, they're not in a positive light. I used to work at my LGS several years ago, and (like a few others I imagine), I have had first hand experience with dealing with them.
Pipboy101 wrote:Unless you people are willing to put your money where your mouth is and effect real change by becoming part owners of the company then whine and stroke your egos by standing behind a completely limp and worthless boycott and writing campaign.
I love it, the gamers will become majority share holders, then we'll show them! Let's see. We need 7.5M share for majority, at about $460 a share... All we need is 3.4 billion. Maybe we can get a bailout?
Pipboy101 wrote:Unless you people are willing to put your money where your mouth is and effect real change by becoming part owners of the company then whine and stroke your egos by standing behind a completely limp and worthless boycott and writing campaign.
I love it, the gamers will become majority share holders, then we'll show them! Let's see. We need 7.5M share for majority, at about $460 a share... All we need is 3.4 billion. Maybe we can get a bailout?
Pipboy101 wrote:Unless you people are willing to put your money where your mouth is and effect real change by becoming part owners of the company then whine and stroke your egos by standing behind a completely limp and worthless boycott and writing campaign.
I love it, the gamers will become majority share holders, then we'll show them! Let's see. We need 7.5M share for majority, at about $460 a share... All we need is 3.4 billion. Maybe we can get a bailout?
Inmates running the asylum, anyone?
21,000 Dakka member, if each member put up only 160K each, Dakka could own GW!
Then the company would fail for sure as not everyone would want the same from GW. I sure as hell don't agree with a lot of the proposed changes posted here on Dakka or Warseer.
Board meetings would end up like threads like this. A whole lot of talking and "what if's" and "if I were in charge" but very little action.
jabbakahut wrote:
I love it, the gamers will become majority share holders, then we'll show them! Let's see. We need 7.5M share for majority, at about $460 a share... All we need is 3.4 billion. Maybe we can get a bailout?
Dude - $4.60 a share. The price is in pennies or cents. I mean, come on, Apple & Google are in the $100's per share category.
jabbakahut wrote:
I love it, the gamers will become majority share holders, then we'll show them! Let's see. We need 7.5M share for majority, at about $460 a share... All we need is 3.4 billion. Maybe we can get a bailout?
Dude - $4.60 a share. The price is in pennies or cents. I mean, come on, Apple & Google are in the $100's per share category.
jabbakahut wrote:
I love it, the gamers will become majority share holders, then we'll show them! Let's see. We need 7.5M share for majority, at about $460 a share... All we need is 3.4 billion. Maybe we can get a bailout?
Dude - $4.60 a share. The price is in pennies or cents. I mean, come on, Apple & Google are in the $100's per share category.
Well, the market cap is 87mm (GBP) and there are 31mm shares out there. Math makes that approx 2.50 GBP per shares. All shares are shown in pennies until the get to a certain amount and then it is shown in whole GBP. It just is. When you look at a proper listing with lots of shares listed on one screen you will see what I mean.
think about though - GW worth 3.4 billion! Then look at their balance sheet and their total assets.
Well, I just made a mention of the boycott over on Whineseer. Anybody want to take bets on how long my post stays up? (Three Raveners for $44.50? Not bloody likely!!!)
quote which I will not re-quote is letters can and will be shredded by an intern and e-mails will be deleted or moved to spam by a spam filter then checked by an intern. Sorry, letters, phone calls and boycotts. What is this grade school?
