The Great Games Workshop purge of '09

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Kanluwen**

Archonate wrote:I actually do remember hearing about GW litigation over the Terran Marines. They tried to sue Blizzard and lost.
It's funny, it used to irritate me that Blizzard took so many ideas from GW. But Blizzard has proven to be much more open to its fans as far as hearing suggestions, comments and criticism. GW is looking more and more like a stubborn old dinosaur that will die because of its refusal to adapt.

Different mediums are different?

Blizzard can't get away with not interacting, especially with WoW. Look at how bad it gets if one of the dev team don't explain why suchandsuch talent is being altered.

And just like with GW, when they do explain it--you get one camp hooting and hollering it's completely unfair and ridiculous, the other stating that it's amazingly balanced.

**Archonate**

Different mediums are different?

Blizzard can't get away with not interacting, especially with WoW. Look at how bad it gets if one of the dev team don't explain why suchandsuch talent is being altered.

And just like with GW, when they do explain it--you get one camp hooting and hollering it's completely unfair and ridiculous, the other stating that it's amazingly balanced.

At least Blizzard gives people the opportunity to be heard by other fans as well as the devs. Blizzard isn't afraid to have forums full of angry people. GW got rid of their official forums because there were a few angry people on them. Blizzard isn't trying to shut down its own fans' websites. Blizzard isn't threatening to sue people over incidental similarities in IP.

Trust me, back when I played WoW I despised Blizzard. Absolutely hated them, that's why I quit. But looking around at other companies, especially GW, has given me an appreciation for the effort Blizzard makes to be open to their fan base.

**Kanluwen**

A "few" angry people on them?

You never visited those forums, did you?

They were as bad, if not worse, than the Blizzard forums whenever a dev posts.

Threads went from being fluff--and then badam, someone's crying that Space Marines are overrepresented in Codex releases--from there, we had someone hooting and hollering that Orks needed a new Codex or he'd firebomb GW's HQ.

**insaniak**

Hawkins wrote:You never see a swarm of C&Ds go out from the movie makers,

That doesn't mean that they don't send them. Just that we don't see them. Not everyone feels the need to post the fact that they have been sent a C&D letter on the internet. I would suspect that the vast majority of the time it's sorted out quietly behind the scenes.

**Hawkins**

To counter, it doesnt mean they send em if we dont see them either.... Im fairly sure wed see it though if it hit a fan site.

**Howard A Treesong**

Hawkins wrote:hmmmmmm, on another thread i found this:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/28/games-workshop-decla.html

which lead to this:´
'Interesting. Maybe the folks at GW should look at what happened to White Wolf Games. They essentially went to war with THEIR OWN FANCLUB for years over petty nonsense, including the fact people liked playing an older edition of the World of Darkness games. Lots of bad blood and lost customers later, White Wolf is in full repair mode.A great press release from White Wolf:

Scarier was this item from an ex-member of staff linked to on that page.

http://www.notsounwashed.com/2009/11/very-dangerous-remove-immediately/

**Ozymandias**

I think despite whether you agree with GW's actions or not, this has been a huge PR blunder for them.

There are so many ways they could have gone about this and not pissed off their fans. It seems just as people found little to hate on GW for (except for prices), they go ahead and give a gift wrapped hate basket to Internet discussion boards.

**Grot 6**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
Hawkins wrote:hmmmmmm, on another thread i found this:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/28/games-workshop-decla.html

which lead to this:´
'Interesting. Maybe the folks at GW should look at what happened to White Wolf Games. They essentially went to war with THEIR OWN FANCLUB for years over petty nonsense, including the fact people liked playing an older edition of the World of Darkness games. Lots of bad blood and lost customers later, White Wolf is in full repair mode.A great press release from White Wolf:

Scarier was this item from an ex-member of staff linked to on that page.

http://www.notsounwashed.com/2009/11/very-dangerous-remove-immediately/

LMAO!!!!

I guess it was only a matter of time before this story would rear its wacky skull again.

LOL This is one of the pitfalls of working for the EE. This guy should have remembered the first rule of fight club.

**Archonate**

Kanluwen wrote:You never visited those forums, did you?

They were as bad, if not worse, than the Blizzard forums whenever a dev posts.

Have you convinced yourself that I didn't post in the GW forums, contrary to what I just said? How odd. How do you explain my visiting of the forums if I... never visited the forums? Seriously, think before you post.
GW forums were just a lot of armylisting, wishlisting, suggestions for improving codices and questions for the devs. Yeah they could be pretty negative, but at no point were they ever as bad as the Wow forums: A constant stream of vitriolic bile, hatred and disagreement with the occasional poor sap making a target of himself by saying "I actually like the Wow mechanics."
Which forum is worse is irrelevant anyway. My point is that GW deliberately turned a blind eye to the voice of its fans by shutting down their own official forums... Who does that?!

**Kanluwen**

A company that does a horrible job integrating into this Brave New World called the Internet?

Seriously.
You really have rose tinted glasses if you're remembering armylisting, wishlisting, suggestions, etc.

**insaniak**

Kanluwen wrote:Seriously.
You really have rose tinted glasses if you're remembering armylisting, wishlisting, suggestions, etc.

I think your own memory might be placing more emphasis on the negative.

Yes, there was a lot of it. Sheer volume will ensure that. There was also a lot of good, though. The human tendency though is to remember the bad... it tends to stand out more.

Having said that, by comparison to a lot of the other 'bigger' GW forums, the signal to noise ratio was pretty high, and the (I suspect... I don't have actual figures to back it up) lower average poster age and spotty moderation made the forums pretty unpleasant as often as not.

Not saying younger posters are necessarily a bad thing... but it does change the tone of tactics and armylist discussions somewhat when there's a lot of them fixated on their favorite units rather than basing their discussions on actual tactical knowledge.

And the tendency for longer or hotter topics to devolve into all out warfare was that much more pronounced than on most of the other forums I've visited over the years.

**Kanluwen**

Eh. Maybe.

I just remember the first real post I had there was discussing the proper usage of Prince Tyrion and Teclis in a High Elf army...and getting shouted down for it being "unfluffy".

Then I discovered Dakka, and the world changed for so much better

**H.B.M.C.**

Kanluwen wrote:I just remember the first real post I had there was discussing the proper usage of Prince Tyrion and Teclis in a High Elf army...and getting shouted down for it being "unfluffy".

So, basically, Warseer. Right?

**jabbakahut**

Hawkins wrote:
jabbakahut wrote:GW can loose the IP if they don't protect it by sending C&D's,

You know ive been hearing nothing but this: 'GW need to protect its IP' from the pro Gee Doubleyas (not you Jabba) . does any one else know of a mini company that is actively trying to protect its IP as viciously??
Come to think of that, what companies are most ripped off by mini makers. the movies right? how many IP C&D's have been sent out by universal? fox? paramount? against mini companies. specificaly... aliens? maybe starwars cause they licene out to mini makers? Star trek, we all know they are heavey handed with IP. ?? fact is i only see GW feeling the need.
You never see a swarm of C&Ds go out from the movie makers, heck most of the time they rip each other off as a sort of fair play deal (think of bugs life and Antz).
Will they really loose IP if a fan site puts up pics of their stuff? come on. with all the fan sites for everything out there, not one has ever lost anything, especialy IP.
It all comes down to GW crying wolf, GW IP is in as much danger of being lost as Benidict is of being bent over the Popemobile and bailer poled.
Its just the iron fist when it comes down to it, GW obviously thinks theirs isnt tight enough.
And thats sad cause i dont know of another mini company that is as strong. their like the microsoft of the mini world. what really do they have to fear?

Whoa dog, you know we agree right?

Osbad wrote:...much as GW might wish it was otherwise, you cannot copyright an actual rule, or instruction or idea. All you have is the copyright to the "artistic expression" of that rule. This is a fundamental principle of copyright law. In other words, copy and pasting text from a rulebook is illegal, but expressing it in a different, shorter, handier way is perfectly legal and there shouldn't be a damned thing GW could do about it.

Is this true? Anybody know where I can find out? If I can verify that my next project will be Jabba's guide to 40K.

**Miguelsan**

If things are reaching BoingBoing I say we are on the right track to make GW change their policies. Once the genie is out of the fan bottle and reaching more mainstream sites sooner or later somebody in the finance world might echo this fracas as a lesson on how not to treat your clients and then GW´s shareholders will start asking nasty questions that the board will have a difficult time answering like how are you going to franchise additional stuff (and give us more money) if fans are foaming at the mouth against anything that has the brand GW attached to?.

M.

**Kanluwen**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:I just remember the first real post I had there was discussing the proper usage of Prince Tyrion and Teclis in a High Elf army...and getting shouted down for it being "unfluffy".

So, basically, Warseer. Right?

Hrm.

Other than I think I got banned from Warseer for shooting down somebody who kept postulating that: despite the fact that Imperial forces completely control the spacelanes surrounding Cadia, constantly landing reinforcements on the ground and beginning to gather forces for a full on Crusade...the planet is somehow lost.

**Alpharius**

insaniak wrote:
Having said that, by comparison to a lot of the other 'bigger' GW forums, the signal to noise ratio was pretty high, and the (I suspect... I don't have actual figures to back it up) lower average poster age and spotty moderation made the forums pretty unpleasant as often as not.

Can you imagine what kind of job that was over there?

I've love to have a chat with one of the old 'Eye of Terror' Moderators... Can you imagine the stories?

And not just about the posters, but, I imagine, the Imperial Directives From On High?

**jabbakahut**

Kilkrazy wrote:Trademarks can be lost if not defended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark

I still don't buy it. GW is trying to avoid genericide because Blood Bowl is going to become as ubiquitious as Kleenex, Velcro, Xerox, Aspirin, Zipper, Lego, Google, etc? And even working with that logic, how bad is it if any miniture figure football style game becomes generically Blood Bowl? I still don't understand how any company can loose money on this. Companies loose money because of their quality, price or service.

**SuperCow**

Sarigar wrote:Wow, I feel I've had my head buried in the sand for so long.

According to the GW site, you can't even get a tattoo depicting their IP? Really. Would they really stoop so low as to sue someone for having a tattoo? Or, you can't start a gaming club and call it the 'Warhammer Club'. Really? Did they just hire a bunch of overzealous young attorneys trying to flex their knowledge?

This really makes me a sad person.

lol..what are they going to do if someone has a WH tat?

**Kanluwen**

SuperCow wrote:
Sarigar wrote:Wow, I feel I've had my head buried in the sand for so long.

According to the GW site, you can't even get a tattoo depicting their IP? Really. Would they really stoop so low as to sue someone for having a tattoo? Or, you can't start a gaming club and call it the 'Warhammer Club'. Really? Did they just hire a bunch of overzealous young attorneys trying to flex their knowledge?

This really makes me a sad person.

lol..what are they going to do if someone has a WH tat?

...
As stated earlier...
It's not something they really enforce. If they were going to go after anyone, they'd go after the tattoo artist.

**insaniak**

Alpharius wrote:
insaniak wrote:
Having said that, by comparison to a lot of the other 'bigger' GW forums, the signal to noise ratio was pretty high, and the (I suspect... I don't have actual figures to back it up) lower average poster age and spotty moderation made the forums pretty unpleasant as often as not.

Can you imagine what kind of job that was over there?

I try not to...

And I should point out, the 'spotty moderation' thing wasn't a dig at them personally. They were volunteers, just like we are (although people tended to assume that they were GW employees) and I'm sure they were doing their best. Just obviously weren't enough of them to actually keep things under control, and the dodgy, built-in-house forum software probably made things more difficult than they needed to be...

**Alpharius**

insaniak wrote:
Alpharius wrote:
insaniak wrote:
Having said that, by comparison to a lot of the other 'bigger' GW forums, the signal to noise ratio was pretty high, and the (I suspect... I don't have actual figures to back it up) lower average poster age and spotty moderation made the forums pretty unpleasant as often as not.

Can you imagine what kind of job that was over there?

I try not to...

And I should point out, the 'spotty moderation' thing wasn't a dig at them personally. They were volunteers, just like we are (although people tended to assume that they were GW employees) and I'm sure they were doing their best. Just obviously weren't enough of them to actually keep things under control, and the dodgy, built-in-house forum software probably made things more difficult than they needed to be...

I didn't think it was a dig - just like you spelled out, I always figured they were volunteers, or, at least GW employees who 'volunteered' to do it in their spare time.

For fun.

Because, you know, Moderating is fun!

Yeargh!

**agnosto**

Alpharius wrote:
I didn't think it was a dig - just like you spelled out, I always figured they were volunteers, or, at least GW employees who 'volunteered' to do it in their spare time.

For fun.

Because, you know, Moderating is fun!

Yeargh!

Yeah, who wouldn't want to walk around all day smacking people with a giant ban-hammer?

**H.B.M.C.**

Kanluwen wrote:Other than I think I got banned from Warseer for shooting down somebody who kept postulating that: despite the fact that Imperial forces completely control the spacelanes surrounding Cadia, constantly landing reinforcements on the ground and beginning to gather forces for a full on Crusade...the planet is somehow lost.

I saw a multi-page thread about painting styles for an army.

This was in the tactics forum.

**Fateweaver**

I guaranteed it got moved to the appropriate thread.

For ripping on Warseer they sure seem to feed you lot the new rumors. I've seen rumors copy/pasted on here from Warseer that had been on 'Seer for 3 days.

Different types of moderation.

**Quintinus**

Fateweaver wrote:
For ripping on Warseer they sure seem to feed you lot the new rumors.

Just because we get some of our rumors from there doesn't mean that it's good.

Personally I don't think that Warseer is as bad as people say it is, like most things it has its good sides and bad sides.

**Kanluwen**

Fateweaver wrote:I guaranteed it got moved to the appropriate thread.

For ripping on Warseer they sure seem to feed you lot the new rumors. I've seen rumors copy/pasted on here from Warseer that had been on 'Seer for 3 days.

Different types of moderation.

The painting thread, sure.

But man. Considering the lout that started arguing about Cadia? Bahahaha. He had himself a nice lil' posse too.

**Fateweaver**

I've for sure not seen favorites of the mods as much as I have here.

Dakka has its ups and downs. Mostly downs though. I like dakka for the OT forum as it seems a little livelier than 'Seers non-40k forum but for rumors, tactics advice, painting and batrep reading I go to 'Seer.

No different K than the little posse's that band together here. Hah, just read the 6 different anti-gw C&D threads to see that to about 8-10 users on dakka who somehow think they represent ALL of the 40k fanbase GW can do nothing right.

**Kanluwen**

Don't you worry, I know what ya mean

**Kilkrazy**

jabbakahut wrote:
Hawkins wrote:
jabbakahut wrote:GW can loose the IP if they don't protect it by sending C&D's,

You know ive been hearing nothing but this: 'GW need to protect its IP' from the pro Gee Doubleyas (not you Jabba) . does any one else know of a mini company that is actively trying to protect its IP as viciously??
Come to think of that, what companies are most ripped off by mini makers. the movies right? how many IP C&D's have been sent out by universal? fox? paramount? against mini companies. specificaly... aliens? maybe starwars cause they licene out to mini makers? Star trek, we all know they are heavey handed with IP. ?? fact is i only see GW feeling the need.
You never see a swarm of C&Ds go out from the movie makers, heck most of the time they rip each other off as a sort of fair play deal (think of bugs life and Antz).
Will they really loose IP if a fan site puts up pics of their stuff? come on. with all the fan sites for everything out there, not one has ever lost anything, especialy IP.
It all comes down to GW crying wolf, GW IP is in as much danger of being lost as Benidict is of being bent over the Popemobile and bailer poled.
Its just the iron fist when it comes down to it, GW obviously thinks theirs isnt tight enough.
And thats sad cause i dont know of another mini company that is as strong. their like the microsoft of the mini world. what really do they have to fear?

Whoa dog, you know we agree right?

Osbad wrote:...much as GW might wish it was otherwise, you cannot copyright an actual rule, or instruction or idea. All you have is the copyright to the "artistic expression" of that rule. This is a fundamental principle of copyright law. In other words, copy and pasting text from a rulebook is illegal, but expressing it in a different, shorter, handier way is perfectly legal and there shouldn't be a damned thing GW could do about it.

Is this true? Anybody know where I can find out? If I can verify that my next project will be Jabba's guide to 40K.

You can find out by reading the government copyright and web pages of the USA and UK. There's a sticky thread about copyright at the top of this forum to get you started.