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I think the facebook idea is a actual way of interest. If many websites are also linked to it, i believe it would drive quite a large amount of modivation.

Ha! wrote:I believe you mean The Grand Dakka of Strawmen. I was merely observing that I've been reading this particular thread, sometimes multiple versions of it, for over a decade now.
However, no one is forcing me to read this, and I must surely have something better to do. The burden of power is great. Therefore, I ceed the treefort to you. I hope that there will be no bad blood between our two great nations, at least nothing that an exchage of pleasantries, and well wishing, won't fix.

I don't mean to burst anyones bubble, but a multinational corporation isn't going to be particularly effected by the market churn of seven or eight players. People join and quit the hobby all the time. This is all a lot of nice grandstanding, but I don't think you guys can really accomplish much with just yourselves. You're better off trying a line of communication with the companies representatives and voicing concerns reasonably.

Oh no..GW the villagers are gathering torches and pitch forks. Baracade yourself in your offices!



Cheers

First of all is it worth writing to GW? Yes and No.

Will they actually give a personal reply? Yes - well they did when I worked there.

Will they care one whit about your complaint? No - they'll read it, send a personal reply but you will ultimately change nothing.

A mass revolt of players won't solve anything either as they don't even see PP as a threat. They see the video games Market as more of a threat than another hobby games specialist.

The only way to change a company is to hit them where they can feel it. And that is only in one place: The bottom line. And if we don't all join hands and march to the town square and refuse to buy their products they will continue.

If they lose creative people and their profits suffer, they'll have to pay more to people who can get that quality back.

If they lose veteran gamers who care about the nuance of legions and craftworlds and different chapters, they'll focus on 14 year olds who just want to pretend they're blowing stuff up.

If a race's sales begin to drop they'll either pump them up by making them fit perfectly with the current rules set or just drop them. If a race falls out of favour, they'll just favour someone else.

There's always a way out for big companies to not do the right thing. If we aren't in it together, they have no reason to think beyond short term profits to look at the long term trajectory.

Since we can't do that, it's just not going to happen, no matter what individual you're talking to. In companies this big, no one person yields enough power to change the course of the ship.

kinghammer wrote:Oh no..GW the villagers are gathering torches and pitch forks. Baracade yourself in your offices!



Cheers

If you're going to troll, don't be terrible at it.

Get better. Now.

Kinghammer always trolls these threads and he's always crap at it.

Ha! wrote:Just curious, how long have all you been playing? Cause my memory goes pretty far back, accounting for the standard lapses. Tell me about this golden age, when all the codexs were perfectly balanced, the models were beautiful and cheap, when GW swooped down the chimney with a smile and a ham sandwich, to ask, "What's wrong, little fella?", when no one played Marines, and all armies were supported equally.
Take me back past the mists of the red age, past the card stock models, take me back, to the long, long ago...

Hey, you know what they say about GW, "If you can remember the Golden Age, you weren't there."

More seriously though you only need refer to the numerous articles about making your own terrain, conversions and kit-bashing, Chapter Approved and so on, to know that GW do a lot less now than they used to. The quality of rules writing has improved, though the number of FAQs that still pop up about everything, show that they have a long way to go.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Ha! wrote:Just curious, how long have all you been playing? Cause my memory goes pretty far back, accounting for the standard lapses. Tell me about this golden age, when all the codexs were perfectly balanced, the models were beautiful and cheap, when GW swooped down the chimney with a smile and a ham sandwich, to ask, "What's wrong, little fella?", when no one played Marines, and all armies were supported equally.
Take me back past the mists of the red age, past the card stock models, take me back, to the long, long ago...

Hey, you know what they say about GW, "If you can remember the Golden Age, you weren't there."

More seriously though you only need refer to the numerous articles about making your own terrain, conversions and kit-bashing, Chapter Approved and so on, to know that GW do a lot less now than they used to. The quality of rules writing has improved, though the number of FAQs that still pop up about everything, show that they have a long way to go.

To back up KK, I was flicking through a PDF of WD 300 the other day sparked off by another post) and was amazed how different it was to the modern version. All the hobby stuff in it was amazing, which does back up our dreams of a golden age.

If it ain't got a Sabbat mini disk, it ain't a propa White Dorf.

I remembers... and it was great and new, if you want a golden age of Games Workshop, then for me it was the time of the Realm of Chaos books, the two tome halcyon times.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:If it ain't got a Sabbat mini disk, it ain't a propa White Dorf.

I remembers... and it was great and new, if you want a golden age of Games Workshop, then for me it was the time of the Realm of Chaos books, the two tome halcyon times.

Ere we go! and Freebooterz! I wonder if those poor poor Madboyz ever found their lost boots? TBF the 'Golden Age' also included Siege or was that the beginning of the end?

Kilkrazy wrote:

Ha! wrote:Just curious, how long have all you been playing? Cause my memory goes pretty far back, accounting for the standard lapses. Tell me about this golden age, when all the codexs were perfectly balanced, the models were beautiful and cheap, when GW swooped down the chimney with a smile and a ham sandwich, to ask, "What's wrong, little fella?", when no one played Marines, and all armies were supported equally.
Take me back past the mists of the red age, past the card stock models, take me back, to the long, long ago...

Hey, you know what they say about GW, "If you can remember the Golden Age, you weren't there."

More seriously though you only need refer to the numerous articles about making your own terrain, conversions and kit-bashing, Chapter Approved and so on, to know that GW do a lot less now than they used to. The quality of rules writing has improved, though the number of FAQs that still pop up about everything, show that they have a long way to go.

I've been playing 40k since 3rd edition. The current GW rules, Codices, and models are unambiguously better than those that were standard in 3rd and 4th, with few exceptions. The death of Chapter Approved (and the related Index Astartes articles) was a great step forward for GW. As fun as it can be to have special rules for whatever random Chapter or Regiment you choose, this approach was not balanced at all and required players to invest in additional books/magazines for no clear reason. In 5th edition, GW is three for three on strong Codices, especially with the much-needed SM and IG revisions, and the rumors seem to point to another good one coming out soon. I can't speak for what happened pre-3rd, but I think that 40k is better now than it was at any point I can remember in 3rd or 4th edition, and looks to be improving all the time.

Ouze wrote:Well, maybe.

After the Great Purge of 09 - Others smarter than me have mentioned in a different thread that perhaps we could try actually communicating with GWS. Yes, I know that this has been tried before on an individual level. I'd like to see about doing it in a coordinated way as a community.

The way I see it, here are the steps we need to follow:

1.) Determine if this is even worth doing. Do we as a community even want to, as someone else put it, "Save GWS from themselves"? Rather then just swap to a different game.

2.) Determine as a group how much correspondence it would take to potentially make a statement, and aim for that much.

3.) Create a list of gripes. This should be short and easily read, with realistic goals. Issue perhaps would be: lower the price on plastic models (or stop creeping upwards), permit sites to create fan content if they carry a disclaimer, un-maul the LRB6, make a ruling on the deffrolla... I'm sure a few people have other ideas.

4.) Indicate that although this is not a boycott per se, our buying habits have been/will be influenced by their behavior towards the community at large.

5.) Determine the best target for this gripe-bomb. Jervis, perhaps?
Several people suggested Jervis is not the best target, and this should go to an executive.

6.) Actually write out and send paper letters, hopefully reaching the goal in stage 2.
Chimera_Calvin suggested handing the letters in, in person.


Is this worth pursuing? Has it been tried in the last, say, year?

.... What is your overall strategic goal?

If it is to lower prices, you can forget that.

If it is to stop sending Cease and Desist letters to potential competition and /or upstarts with better or improved content, you can forget it.

If it is solely to "Rock the Boat", or initiate a change in the current grand scheme that GW's Board of investers is persuing. You can forget it.

Basicly anything to rock the boat is more likely to get you bought out by the status que, ignored, or ostrichised.

You guys over in Great Britain invented the game, you know how it is played.


Banking is a big dog game of warfare, you don't fight a multinational corperation with a slingshot and a bad feeling.

And make no mistake about it. YOU would be going toe to toe with serious heavy people, if at all.

More then likely, they will blow you out of the water, send you with your tail between your legs, and refanagle the stocks that you actually bought just to run you off.

REMEMBER, you are looking at messing with thier bread and butter. No one takes that and just rolls over.


Start here. look over this document and then lets see what you are dealing with.
http://investor.games-workshop.com/about_us.aspx

OK?

Who are These guys?

Tom Kirby
Mark Wells
Kevin Roundtree
Chris Myatt
Nick Donaldson

http://investor.games-workshop.com/information_for_investors/corporate_governance/the_board.aspx
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/people.asp?symbol=GAW:LN


You can see for yourself that these guys are not poseurs.

The you get to deal with these guys.

http://www.shareview.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.keele.ac.uk/
http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=6184504
http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=25957531

You can see Alumni to this University and its relationship to GW. here-

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


"He who holds the purse strings..." and all that. ( Remember, THESE are only the ones you are supposed to see.)
Dig a little deeper, see what shakes out.

You might be suprised.....

You really think you are going to get anywhere by rocking that boat? Pfft, good luck with that. Even after a reletivly general research, I came to the conclusion that you would just be better off buying in on your allotment of stock, riding the wave, and making nice with these tools, then you would be to be a crybaby about something that you have no control over.

In the real world, money talks, BS walks.

Status Que is king.

Want to send a message and have fun with it?

Take a couple of WD and put them in a box. Go to GW HQ, or a local GW store, and leave the open present for them on their doorstep. Then proceed to defecate in them with your own waste or an animals waste. Maybe it wont do anything but as fans we can say "Hey, I have had enough. So here is some back to hold onto till later."

And you wonder why GW doesn't take the internet seriously. Highlights of this thread so far:

- the inevitable observations that 'GW is a company that only wants to makes a profit'. Really? Dakka should have a filter that eliminates these comments - it would cut down the length of every thread like this

- a poster who dares to remind everyone that there is a degree of revisionism in current attitudes to GW is immediately labelled 'strawman' by Dakka's leading strawman.

- and someone suggesting crapping on a WD and leaving it outside a GW store. Genius.

How many of you have actually tried writing a letter to them, instead of just mouthing off here? I've written a couple, and both received a response. Apart from 'it's too expensive' and 'I want every codex to be balanced', what are you asking for? There doesn't seem to be any consensus, despite the number of threads devoted to this alleged backlash:

- the 'cease and desist' campaign. This would have been run from a high level (i.e. GW's board of directors), and since noone here knows what caused them to do it, it's pointless complaining to them about it. For all the chest-beating about the people who were the subject of these letters, does anyone know whether any of them challenged the letters they received? The only way you can register your disapproval of this is to tell GW that you're not buying their stuff as a direct response to their actions. However, I suspect they factored some sort of backlash into their decision. I'm not saying that the directors are infallible - they've demonstrated how wrong they can get it - but they won't be naive enough to think that there wouldn't be an adverse reaction to taking down fan sites. They will have decided that the business needs overrode this.

- 'they don't support the hobby anymore'. This line is a hard one to follow. It seems to be based on the lack of articles on how to build terrain etc. in WD. Yet we now have a plethora of terrain kits for both WH40k and WHFB, as a result of which much of the earlier advice isn't necessary. They've switched their focus to painting (there is a lot more painting advice in WD and on their site) and converting their models. Besides, let's be honest here - how many beautifully scratch-built terrain pieces did you ever see, apart from those built by a few talented individuals? The reality is that the majority play their games with a few bits of makeshift terrain strewn about the table. In any event, there's nothing to stop you building your own terrain. Again, a difficult line to take as part of a campaign.

- 'the hobby is aimed at kids'. Over 10 years ago I asked a senior GW executive about support for veteran players. The answer was that the growth of the business depends on new customers, and the new customers are primarily younger teenagers. There's no reason to think that anything has changed there. And since the funding to produce the models that we like depends on them growing their business, that business model seems to be one we're stuck with. That means, I think, that we're stuck with cycles of new editions to refresh the game and keep new people coming in. Veteran gamers have no choice but to suck it up or bail out. Every new edition I see people who've been playing for years become disillusioned and dropping out, and perhaps this is happening with a number of people who post here.

- 'the prices are too high'. I think this is the easiest point to make to them. While there are all sorts of arguments that justify the high cost of the hobby, I think GW have been pushing this to the limit recently (the Greatswords and Steam Tank are examples), and a concerted campaign aimed to tacking this might have an effect (especially if they're feeling nervous about price increases). For all we know their prices are driven by high cost/lack of profitability, but it's the easiest thing for consumers to push back on. Obviously simply not buying overpriced models/kits is the simplest way of sending that message.

- 'GW doesn't care about its customers'. Again, this is a hard one to base a campaign on. GW is far more sensitive to customer reaction than many other companies. Look at the way it deals with complaints about defective products - whether it's GW or FW, you'll nearly always get a new model/kit. 'GW doesn't communicate well with its customers' would be a better line to take, since GW does seem to have trouble addressing its customer base. I think this, and their frequent changes of direction/policy, are a major cause of such of the discontent out there that's genuine . They're still having trouble understanding their own market (especially outside the UK). And they've never had a satisfactory approach to releasing rules and army books. This has been a cause for complaint for as long as I can remember. I'd support any sensible ideas for getting them to improve this, as I think that's where they continue to lose customers. However, one area where they're clearly trying to please their customers is the models. Last year saw a steady flow of new plastic kits, most of which are of an unprecedented standard. This is clearly where GW is putting most of their resources. I'll take today's models over those of [insert preferred Golden Age here].

Good post.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Kinghammer always trolls these threads and he's always crap at it.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:That surely is the argument though? Can an effective response by found?

.

There was a sucsessfull campain waged with White wolf, from the fans. maybe the best start is to find out how they went about pressuring WW.

Facebook does sound like a viable option.

Once it gets rolling, it will attract more and more people.

It will have some real clout when it's several thousand strong.

MGS, the problem with this is the Trolls, its easy to get something shut down if a person is willing to act like a idiot with the attention of harming a cause. so how would we combat that as well?

Tailgunner wrote:And you wonder why GW doesn't take the internet seriously. Highlights of this thread so far:

- the inevitable observations that 'GW is a company that only wants to makes a profit'. Really? Dakka should have a filter that eliminates these comments - it would cut down the length of every thread like this

- a poster who dares to remind everyone that there is a degree of revisionism in current attitudes to GW is immediately labelled 'strawman' by Dakka's leading strawman.

- and someone suggesting crapping on a WD and leaving it outside a GW store. Genius.

How many of you have actually tried writing a letter to them, instead of just mouthing off here? I've written a couple, and both received a response. Apart from 'it's too expensive' and 'I want every codex to be balanced', what are you asking for? There doesn't seem to be any consensus, despite the number of threads devoted to this alleged backlash:

- the 'cease and desist' campaign. This would have been run from a high level (i.e. GW's board of directors), and since noone here knows what caused them to do it, it's pointless complaining to them about it. For all the chest-beating about the people who were the subject of these letters, does anyone know whether any of them challenged the letters they received? The only way you can register your disapproval of this is to tell GW that you're not buying their stuff as a direct response to their actions. However, I suspect they factored some sort of backlash into their decision. I'm not saying that the directors are infallible - they've demonstrated how wrong they can get it - but they won't be naive enough to think that there wouldn't be an adverse reaction to taking down fan sites. They will have decided that the business needs overrode this.

- 'they don't support the hobby anymore'. This line is a hard one to follow. It seems to be based on the lack of articles on how to build terrain etc. in WD. Yet we now have a plethora of terrain kits for both WH40k and WHFB, as a result of which much of the earlier advice isn't necessary. They've switched their focus to painting (there is a lot more painting advice in WD and on their site) and converting their models. Besides, let's be honest here - how many beautifully scratch-built terrain pieces did you ever see, apart from those built by a few talented individuals? The reality is that the majority play their games with a few bits of makeshift terrain strewn about the table. In any event, there's nothing to stop you building your own terrain. Again, a difficult line to take as part of a campaign.

- 'the hobby is aimed at kids'. Over 10 years ago I asked a senior GW executive about support for veteran players. The answer was that the growth of the business depends on new customers, and the new customers are primarily younger teenagers. There's no reason to think that anything has changed there. And since the funding to produce the models that we like depends on them growing their business, that business model seems to be one we're stuck with. That means, I think, that we're stuck with cycles of new editions to refresh the game and keep new people coming in. Veteran gamers have no choice but to suck it up or bail out. Every new edition I see people who've been playing for years become disillusioned and dropping out, and perhaps this is happening with a number of people who post here.

- 'the prices are too high'. I think this is the easiest point to make to them. While there are all sorts of arguments that justify the high cost of the hobby, I think GW have been pushing this to the limit recently (the Greatswords and Steam Tank are examples), and a concerted campaign aimed to tacking this might have an effect (especially if they're feeling nervous about price increases). For all we know their prices are driven by high cost/lack of profitability, but it's the easiest thing for consumers to push back on. Obviously simply not buying overpriced models/kits is the simplest way of sending that message.

- 'GW doesn't care about its customers'. Again, this is a hard one to base a campaign on. GW is far more sensitive to customer reaction than many other companies. Look at the way it deals with complaints about defective products - whether it's GW or FW, you'll nearly always get a new model/kit. 'GW doesn't communicate well with its customers' would be a better line to take, since GW does seem to have trouble addressing its customer base. I think this, and their frequent changes of direction/policy, are a major cause of such of the discontent out there that's genuine . They're still having trouble understanding their own market (especially outside the UK). And they've never had a satisfactory approach to releasing rules and army books. This has been a cause for complaint for as long as I can remember. I'd support any sensible ideas for getting them to improve this, as I think that's where they continue to lose customers. However, one area where they're clearly trying to please their customers is the models. Last year saw a steady flow of new plastic kits, most of which are of an unprecedented standard. This is clearly where GW is putting most of their resources. I'll take today's models over those of [insert preferred Golden Age here].

Personally? I could give a frak about what GW takes seriously.

That Cease and Desist campaign was the direct result of the guy that worked for the LRB6 for five years, and in between that time he is making special characters, alternative teams, and even a seperate game, all in direct competiton to the Blood Bowl game. Period. It doesn't really have anything to do with the whole, "Screw the fans thing." it has to do with messing with thier profits. They know people will cry a little, eventually shut up and fall in line like good little grots. People will keep buying, and if they don't then they will get others.

If it was not him directly, then at him and the others in general consensus for dipping thier beaks into someone elses till and getting into a conflict of interest. period. On one hand its cutting off the nose to spite the face, on the other, its GW's buisness as usual stance when they see a competition.
Instead of working harder to keep buisness, they go after the competition any way they can, and do it however they can get away with. Its war, deal with it. Kill the competitor, you have no competition.

They will continue to charge what they think they can get away with, partially because they are the biggest company, with name recognition, partially because of thier target audiance, and 100% because they know how to do it and can.

As for taking a dump on a WD and leaving it outside thier shop? All I can say is seriously? That will do nothing but be mildly amusing to a couple of low level employees and make the evening news as douche play of the week.

As for the whole letter writing?

It doesn't work. you'll get a nice form letter with a stamped signature, and they will basicly tell you the same thing.

"You are a valued consumer. keep up the great work. "
You are a number to them, and they don't owe you anything. No one owes anyone anything.

Great post, you have alot of good points here and bring a few more nuggets to the conversation aside from taking a dump on a WD and leaving it outside the store.

Hawkins wrote:

Chimera_Calvin wrote:That surely is the argument though? Can an effective response by found?

.

There was a sucsessfull campain waged with White wolf, from the fans. maybe the best start is to find out how they went about pressuring WW.

I think there's a difference between a company basically going bankrupt and a company caving in to neckbeards on the internet. Though the latter certainly likes to think it's responsible for the former. GW is doing better than it was a year ago, you should have organized when it wasn't successfully recovering.

If it was not him directly, then at him and the others in general consensus for dipping thier beaks into someone elses till and getting into a conflict of interest. period. On one hand its cutting off the nose to spite the face, on the other, its GW's buisness as usual stance when they see a competition.
Instead of working harder to keep buisness, they go after the competition any way they can, and do it however they can get away with. Its war, deal with it. Kill the competitor, you have no competition.

I think it's important to understand that GW doesn't really make money on blood bowl any more, and that it's legal department is semi autonomous. They don't really care about the blood bowl community because it's insignificantly small, has been violating copyright laws for years, and plays a game that GW no longer profits from. They are a company, not six dudes in an apartment making fun games for their broskies.

shum: the kreig with WW lasted years, i wouldnt say there is no parellel, in fact its the best model we have for a sucsessful campain by fans against an idiot company. the fans won (or at least forced WW to see its point of view) making money isnt a point, if you hit them in the other games they will feel it, how we do that is look into what worked in the past, adapt it to our situation and then red hot poker it into GW.

shum: the kreig with WW lasted years, i wouldnt say there is no parellel, in fact its the best model we have for a sucsessful campain by fans against an idiot company. the fans won (or at least forced WW to see its point of view) making money isnt a point, if you hit them in the other games they will feel it, how we do that is look into what worked in the past, adapt it to our situation and then red hot poker it into GW.

Yes, it lasted for years until market forces largely driven by an ineffectual plan for future profitability drove WW to restructure. You mistake a symptom for a cure, fans were pissy and complained because of issues, but those issues are what caused the financial troubles in the first place, not the fans. More people quit than complain online. A lot more. The fix may have occurred largely to supplicate WWs audience, but that audience is and would always be far, far, larger than a few loud fat dudes on the internet alone. The interesting thing about the internet is it's ability to magnify complaints without a point of reference. What you are doing is looking at a situation that is not well documented, nor particularly well reasoned, and now you're somehow trying to apply it to another company which is both larger and less vulnerable to the same "tactics". You can not avoid their tertiary products firstly because the numbers buying dawn of war and warhammer online are a different group than the numbers buying models, which is in turn different than the group buying the RPGs. There is overlap, but not so much as to cause the dissatisfaction of one group effecting the others. Getting down to real truths, the blood bowl community is small, loud, and unimportant. They do not effect the GW bottom line. The 40k line is better and more fun than it has been in 15 years right now, and while more expensive it's clearly a model thats continuing to work for them. Fantasy is about to turn over to a new edition and appears to be doing well on its own. Their games are selling fairly well (except for WAR which never got much traction, but it still soldiering on) and they have a good selling RPG line continuing to succeed.

You can't succeed because your only real point of traction, the dickish way GW handles blood bowl, is quite simply unimportant. Little timmy and joe friday don't give a damn, that game stopped being sold in stores a decade ago and they probably haven't ever even seen it played. Vote with your wallets and stop buying, thats all well and good, but attempting a campaign to tear down the business is simply doomed to failure. They're a public company, they don't care.

ok. i disagree. i went thru the WW Kreig era as a member of the Cam i dont see it the way you do, but fair is fair. im saying the outline that was used against WW is a starting point to look at. as need, change it and modify it to fit todays GW. apply what works, keep going till you have a model that forces GW to take notice, and use it ruthlessly. your post is all about how the ol WW cant be used today. i agree. it needs to be modified. and the first step in that is to look into why WW came around to acknowlage its fans. if its valid, then its something to look into.

WE need only to talk with those that were heading the anti WW campain. not hard considering the forums out there.

note the words please:, starting point, modify, first step.

Holy cripes. I actually have to agree with Shuma on this. Yeah Shuma, I'm shocked as well that I agree with you on something.

Shuma does sum up the situation in a good way. GW doesn't care about people pissed about BB as that is such a small group of people and contrary to what many Dakkaites believe Dakka community does not make up the GW fan base as a whole. Let's assume the player base worldwide is around 2 million gamers (again, just pulling this out because I don't think there is any hard record anywhere of the number of players). I'm willing to bet that if you compiled ALL the members of all the GW fan sites on the internet it would number maybe 10% of that, add in the lurkers and lets assume 15% of the GW fan/player base visits online forums. So, 15% of GW fan base reads or posts in response to what GW does on a daily basis. Let's assume that 8% of all forum goers get pissed enough to quit over lets say a 6 month period to be generous. For every 1 "veteran" that quits 3 more newbs will probably take his/her place. So in the end GW is gaining more people than it loses and assuming my numbers are accurate (and they won't be, I make no claim to that but nobody knows how many 40k players exist so nobody can dispute my numbers on sound evidence) the most vocal of complainers make up such a minute percentage of the player base that GW just isn't going to care if they quit. I'm the only one in my gaming group that goes on forums and when I mentioned the Bloodbowl thing they were like "who cares? Bloodbowl sucks". So again, Warseer and Dakka and BoLS and 40K online do not make up the majority or all of the player base like some hot-headed individuals like to tout.

It would be akin to people who like bottled water protesting against Coca-Cola for no longer selling their brands of bottled water. Coca-cola will not feel the loss in sales that hard (they'd maybe still feel it) that it would impact them as a company enough to start caring about the fact that a small percentage would stop buying their product altogether as the majority of their sales is from the sales of their main product; Coca-Cola.

But your assuming that were just not buying BB, and thats not the case, the fact is that most of the boycott has already targeted 40k and fantasy. and your also assuming that the letters and boycott are the only avenues availible.
My stance is to find otherpoints of leverage and use em. what works becomes a nail, what really works becomes a spike, that sort of thing. why would you say something will only fail when it hasnt been tried yet? asking question, gathering intel and setting up a model are all things that should be done.
and your saying 'no. it cant work, no, no way'. Even before its been looked into. sorry i dont agree, you dont shoot the horse before its even out of the gate. at least wait till its fallen and broken a leg.

er, nocant really get into it like the OP stated. If you really want to push back....stop buying and convince everyone around you to stop buying. Its the only real way they'd even remotely listen.

There's always been a crowd of people trying to spark or convince others of boycotting. Whether its price hikes or the flavor of the last couple of months about a game no one really cared about aka Blood Bowl; forum users don't need much to post their passionate discontent. You also see this on basically every other forum around as well.

As a customer, GW seems to have been doing well and have only given me more reasons to stick around like the improvement in model and rules quality particularly for the IG. Space Hulk, Planetstrike, and all the other new stuff are high quality and fun additions. I like that the US GW has an enticing grand prize for the best overall tournament player and that they're coming out with a 40k movie and more video games.

As long as they keep making bad ass models like the Valkyrie, upcoming Trygon, Space Hulk models, etc. - they'll do well. Especially considering that guys like Privateer offer so little value by comparison (worse models, no stores, less variety, smaller network of gamers, etc. all at a similar price to GW...no thanks!).