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MarkNorfolk wrote:
I think it's important to remember that the real villains of the piece are the "gamers" that book and don't show, and the real victims are those gamers who show up but can't get a table because of all the 'reserved' signs.

Is that true though? GW set the rules, GW enforce the rules. If they don't set rules on how you use their tables, or fail to enforce the ones they do set, they're the ones who're ultimately responsible because they're the ones with the power to change things, and while people no-showing on bookings might be behaviour we think is wrong GW never bothered to give anyone that impression until right this moment when they radically overcompensate.

If GW were willing to impose sensible rules like hard time limits on bookings being retained, people not showing up wouldn't be an issue. If GW were willing to be more hands-on in their management of the venue even if people did no-show or show up really really late that wouldn't be a problem for walk-ins because vacant tables would be reassigned on the fly. As it stands, they offered a facility that people took advantage of according to the terms it was offered on, and while I might think they were inconsiderate I don't think it's possible to argue they're "the real villains" - I think people who use loopholes to avoid their taxes are scumbags, but the ones at fault are the politicians who set rules that have huge gaping loopholes in them.

 Yodhrin wrote:

MarkNorfolk wrote:
I think it's important to remember that the real villains of the piece are the "gamers" that book and don't show, and the real victims are those gamers who show up but can't get a table because of all the 'reserved' signs.

Is that true though? GW set the rules, GW enforce the rules. If they don't set rules on how you use their tables, or fail to enforce the ones they do set, they're the ones who're ultimately responsible because they're the ones with the power to change things, and while people no-showing on bookings might be behaviour we think is wrong GW never bothered to give anyone that impression until right this moment when they radically overcompensate.

If GW were willing to impose sensible rules like hard time limits on bookings being retained, people not showing up wouldn't be an issue. If GW were willing to be more hands-on in their management of the venue even if people did no-show or show up really really late that wouldn't be a problem for walk-ins because vacant tables would be reassigned on the fly. As it stands, they offered a facility that people took advantage of according to the terms it was offered on, and while I might think they were inconsiderate I don't think it's possible to argue they're "the real villains" - I think people who use loopholes to avoid their taxes are scumbags, but the ones at fault are the politicians who set rules that have huge gaping loopholes in them.

Other possibility is to acknowledge that the fault is shared. When you offer something in good faith and people takes advantage of that, ok, maybe you could have triet to have things with more contro, but that doesn't makes the people that did take advantage of that any less guilty.
Adults are adults, and they should be responsible for their actions. Putting the blame on the "big bad" is many times justified, but at the same time, overused by many people to remove all personal responsability from adult human beings that should know better and how to behave.

Thats why in videogames, if you find a bug and exploit it, you are punished. Then, the bug will be fixed. But you are responsible for taking advantage of it.

EDIT: I'll clarify. I'm agreein with you, at least parcially. I still think the solution is a bad one, and GW should do things diferently.

This is why you have people organising and running things.

GW just need to sort themselves out and hire some competent staff.

It's not rocket science.

 Sarouan wrote:

I also bet that the reason of their decision is actually based on what is the reality of games at Warhammer World, based on from where the people booking then not showing up and how often they do that. They have the data. Random people on the internet do not.

Dakka's raison d'etre is that random internet people know better than GW.

Odds are, that's actually true at some point, even if it isn't what you'd call 'frequently'.

Additionally, I get the point, buy 'villains' and 'victims' feels a bit...melodramatic.

Anyway, there's an easy solution to this, and I think they'll eventually get there.