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I think it would be hilarious if everyone tranfered over to Grind (privateer press's footballesque boardgame).

I wonder what the NFL would think of a UK company basing a game off of their sport? Or College Leagues? Or High School Leagues? Or Pee Wee Leagues ...

Should Cease and Desists be sent to GW from them?

NO !! GWs childish stance and pathetic grand-standing is ludicrous !! It's acting like a grown child that wants it's forgotten baby toy back just so it's younger sibling won't play with it !!!

What next? Withholding rules for special characters in Warhammer or 40K because other companies produce suitable and diverse alternates for them ?

Can it be said that Fantasy Football is as generic a game genre as fantasy or sci fi skirmish or large-scale battles?

And didn't GW climb into the ring with historical games companies with "Warhammer Ancients" and produce suitable alternate models?

Sorry for the rant but I've ignored the antics of GW Corporate in favor of GW Games but this is getting to be just too much. The company is run by a bunch of Geico Cavemen (sorry if you are one) and doesn't deserve my fanboi loyalty. Who wants to play Warmachine? Infinity? AT-43? Flames of War? etc ....

Death By Monkeys wrote:As for complaints about the BB ruleset, it's one of the easiest GW games to play with a minimum of muss and fuss.

You obviously never played in a league.

skrulnik wrote:GW has lost control of the BB community and are now trying to smash it.
They realize that the gamers do not need them to keep the game going.
And they are pissy because of it.
I am sure they had hoped it would quietly die like Necromunda, Gorkamorka, and Mordheim.

That makes a frightening amount of sense.

Da Boss wrote:I think it would be hilarious if everyone tranfered over to Grind (privateer press's footballesque boardgame).

It's a different game. I mean, completely.

To be fair to GW, they have produced a very popular game which has stood the test of time [written by Jervis Johnson no less, no wonder it get more support than other specialist games!] Why shouldn't they protect this in any way they see fit? If I had created a product for sale, developed that overtime and someone else started producing contrived facsimiles in direct competition then I would be fairly pissed too.

With Bloodbowl you have a new computer game, a complete range of teams, allot of the SP's and updated rules which GW give you and update for free! That’s pretty good coverage in my book, to complain at GW for not having all SPs covered seems pretty foolish to me [no different from most games systems].

I would suggest that it is childish to points fingers at GW for protecting its product from what are after all freeloaders/parasites. As some have pointed out other have been making their own fantasy football ranges for some time, what has happen here is that some have taken the piss a bit and stepped over the mark. Suggesting that sculpt A is best used as Herman Bollocmuncher [tm ] from GW's Bloodbowl game is being too blatant and has registered with GW. No disimilar in general terms from what Battlefoam were doing last month when a new rival started to move in on its territory.

So by my reckoning GW have three options;

1) Do nothing take a hit - unlikely, they don't pay Lawyers and marketing people to sit on their thumbs all day, plus what precedence does it set?
2) What they have done - unhappy campers, hopefully a reduction in infringements/freeloading.
3) Withdraw from the game completely - GW withdrew its support from BB I think that the community would slowly die a death along with the freeloaders and in five years time GW would release a new version of BB for £80/$150 with a clean field and probably a whole lot of unhappy BB vets.

#2 seems reasonable enough to me, the parasite companies aren't foolish enough to upset the company that they are feeding from after all. Also by my reckoning a little bit of support for GW wouldn't go a miss on this issue, Jebus knows there are enough real issues to worry about!

Oh wait a minute there is option #4 - GW produces model ranges derived from other games systems in revenge......in plastic. I can just hear the howls of anger as the "little guys" start dropping like flies.

Anung Un Rama wrote:

skrulnik wrote:GW has lost control of the BB community and are now trying to smash it.
They realize that the gamers do not need them to keep the game going.
And they are pissy because of it.
I am sure they had hoped it would quietly die like Necromunda, Gorkamorka, and Mordheim.

That makes a frightening amount of sense.

This makes no sense at all, actually. You are mistaking GW, a corporation, for an individual who may have emotional responses such as getting pissy.

Corporations do not do things because they are upset. Corporations do things for reasons. The reasons may seem somewhat esoteric and random, but they're not. They have actual concrete reasons for what they do, and in general, they're financial.

Legally, if a corporation does not protect its trademarks, it stands to lose them. If you intend to make money by licensing rights to a game to a video-game company, you need to maintain the rights to that game. GWs game designers and studio people would probably be quite happy to allow Bloodbowl to be a public-domain game. But the money-men and lawyers can't allow that - not if they intend to profit from the license they've contracted out to the video-game.

Why are all these C&D letters coming to BB sites, but not to Mordheim, Necromunda, etc. sites? Because when it doesn't conflict with their business interests, it is to GW's benefit to allow fans to keep such things going. It builds goodwill, sells a few miniatures every so often, and doesn't cost them anything. It's only when it starts to cost them something - in this case, the possible loss of license revenue - that they're going to take action.

Redbeard wrote:
Corporations do not do things because they are upset. Corporations do things for reasons. In GW these reasons are somewhat esoteric and random,

There I corrected your post

M.

notprop wrote:To be fair to GW, they have produced a very popular game which has stood the test of time [written by Jervis Johnson no less, no wonder it get more support than other specialist games!] Why shouldn't they protect this in any way they see fit? If I had created a product for sale, developed that overtime and someone else started producing contrived facsimiles in direct competition then I would be fairly pissed too.

With Bloodbowl you have a new computer game, a complete range of teams, allot of the SP's and updated rules which GW give you and update for free! That’s pretty good coverage in my book, to complain at GW for not having all SPs covered seems pretty foolish to me [no different from most games systems].

I would suggest that it is childish to points fingers at GW for protecting its product from what are after all freeloaders/parasites. As some have pointed out other have been making their own fantasy football ranges for some time, what has happen here is that some have taken the piss a bit and stepped over the mark. Suggesting that sculpt A is best used as Herman Bollocmuncher [tm ] from GW's Bloodbowl game is being too blatant and has registered with GW. No disimilar in general terms from what Battlefoam were doing last month when a new rival started to move in on its territory.

So by my reckoning GW have three options;

1) Do nothing take a hit - unlikely, they don't pay Lawyers and marketing people to sit on their thumbs all day, plus what precedence does it set?
2) What they have done - unhappy campers, hopefully a reduction in infringements/freeloading.
3) Withdraw from the game completely - GW withdrew its support from BB I think that the community would slowly die a death along with the freeloaders and in five years time GW would release a new version of BB for £80/$150 with a clean field and probably a whole lot of unhappy BB vets.

#2 seems reasonable enough to me, the parasite companies aren't foolish enough to upset the company that they are feeding from after all. Also by my reckoning a little bit of support for GW wouldn't go a miss on this issue, Jebus knows there are enough real issues to worry about!

Oh wait a minute there is option #4 - GW produces model ranges derived from other games systems in revenge......in plastic. I can just hear the howls of anger as the "little guys" start dropping like flies.

That would be a good argument except the facts do not bear it out.

GW aren't protecting sales because they don't sell the models they want Impact to stop selling.
They aren't protecting IP, because there isn't any IP to protect. If there was, they could send C&D letters to Impact.
They aren't the game rules or fans' emjoyment, -- the very opposite! They are threatening to cripple the game rules by deleting the Special Characters.

It can't be worth GW's time to make and fulfil plastic models of the special characters because they haven't even bothered to make metal ones which are much cheaper to do in the volumes required.

Option 5 is for the LRB committee to sever links with GW, alter them 6e rules enough to publish under a new name (Gore Ball, perhaps) without violating GW IP. A lot of fans would follow.

Kilkrazy wrote:
That would be a good argument except the facts do not bear it out.

...
They aren't protecting IP, because there isn't any IP to protect. If there was, they could send C&D letters to Impact.
...

IP is more than just sculpts. IP includes the names of the characters, background material, etc. If Impact is directly using the names of the characters to sell the figures, GW owns the IP behind those names. If GW doesn't protect those, then they can lose the right to them. GW is licensing such characters to the Videogame, and therefore needs to retain them.

If Impact simply sold 'medieval football warriors', and left it to the fan's imagination for what they might be used for, then no one cares. It's that they're using GWs names that causes the issues.

Woah gw is going crzy

Redbeard wrote:Legally, if a corporation does not protect its trademarks, it stands to lose them. If you intend to make money by licensing rights to a game to a video-game company, you need to maintain the rights to that game.

What's funny is that they're doing all this for a video game which, according to what I keep hearing, sucks.

Redbeard wrote:Impact is directly using the names of the characters to sell the figures.

Where is Impact doing this? I've yet to see any mention of Blood Bowl on their website. (In fact, I did a Google site search, and the only mention of BB is on the product page of a team they did for the World Cup, a limited edition item that's out of stock) Or have they already mutilated their webstore? I did notice the "Pro Players" section is empty.

Do they send a C&D to the Perry twins? they make great models for warhammer ancients.
hun no? I wonder why

Kilkrazy wrote:GW aren't protecting sales because they don't sell the models they want Impact to stop selling.

GW is protecting *future* sales.

If a BB player already owns a non-GW version of a star player, they won't buy the GW version if/when it is released.

And quite frankly, companies do this kind of thing all the time. Companies have bought exclusive distribution / production rights for various products simply to kill them off, while introducing and building their own competitors. It prevents competition in the company's best interest.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Redbeard wrote:If Impact simply sold 'medieval football warriors', and left it to the fan's imagination for what they might be used for, then no one cares. It's that they're using GWs names that causes the issues.

This.

+1

QFT.

JohnHwangDD wrote:GW is protecting *future* sales.

Bullsh!t.

JohnHwangDD wrote:If a BB player already owns a non-GW version of a star player, they won't buy the GW version if/when it is released.

Based on what? Because of? Due to?

We already see people buy new versions of GW models they already own when GW releases a new one, so what do you base this notion on DD?

JohnHwangDD wrote:And quite frankly, companies do this kind of thing all the time. Companies have bought exclusive distribution / production rights for various products simply to kill them off, while introducing and building their own competitors. It prevents competition in the company's best interest.

Trust you of all people to come in here defending GW's actions here.

Redbeard wrote:This.

+1

QFT.

Where are Impact selling models labelled with GW names? Show me and I'll drop this. I've been through their entire Elfball line, and cannot find a single 'Star Player' that bears a GW name.

There is a lot of GW apology going on with very little to back it up. This action by GW is nothing more than veiled threats because the legalities of the issue are simply in no way supporting GW's intended business action at all.

I personally can't wait for GW to screw LRB 6 up horribly and have the rules commitee quit in disgust and release their own (house rules for LRB5) which the community would take up in a jiffy.

Breotan wrote:Wait, wait wait... GW is threatening to pull the plug on a game they don't really support anyway?

This.

Its amazing ho wmuch GW is getting pissy over this, considering they pretty much shut down specialist games and made it extremely hard to support and then left the games pretty much dead in the wind. Only now after almost a decade of fan support and pissing all over its fans and such.

Blah.

Must be based on GW's policy...

Redbeard wrote:If Impact simply sold 'medieval football warriors', and left it to the fan's imagination for what they might be used for, then no one cares. It's that they're using GWs names that causes the issues.

Sorry I'm late to the party here ... but I just saw this thread tonight and needed to respond.

We have only ever sold Elfball miniatures. There are no references on our website to any game sold by GW and there have not been for the 4 years we've been open. In fact, we openly support GW figure sales through a seperate website we own ... BBFigs.com where we sell team sets for the teams in Blood Bowl that GW does not sell the correct figures for on their website.

We have never sold any of our figures with the same name as an existing GW miniature on Impact!'s site. We have on BBFigs.com but it was always with a GW figure for that name.

We have never sold any of our figures with the name of GW hero/star in any rulebook that they do not have a miniature for on Impact!'s site. We have on BBFigs.com but it was always with a GW figure for that name.

When I saw that Redbeard was a mod ... I know this makes statements like his have extra weight. And when they are not true I'd like to make sure we don't get the image tarnish from that.

If you look earlier in this thead ... you'll see it was Zenit Miniatures that was saying they were going to do what Redbeard said (sell Star Player miniatures directly with GW names) ... not Impact! ... I think a previous post confused him.

Since we've opened ... Impact! has had only one goal ... supporting the gaming community and their needs as best we can. Most of our products have come from suggestions or requests by our customers. We also license fan kits (for 1 GBP) to folks that want to set up sites for Elfball (rather than shut them down). We are young and have only had 2 people request to do so but for example ... www.elfball.net is a fan site that we licensed to them when requested with instructions to maintain our IPs.

Tom @ Impact!

Thanks for the clarification. I've always wanted to try Elfball, but sadly,
I could never stand behind entire teams of your miniatures much less
the required two teams I'd need to show my friends the game. I really
liked some of the figs, but I think the larger ones threw me off.

Edit: Article Mods have no real power here except over the articles section
of the site. So Redbeard does a lot of work editing 40k summaries and I
spend my time on the Warmachine ones.

Otherwise, the only thing we can do is hit the Alert a moderator button
like everyone else.

ImpactMinis wrote:Tom @ Impact!

Godspeed, Impact!

I may be an idealist and an iconoclast, but I firmly believe it is your game and games like yours that are the future of this hobby.

I plan on ordering an Elfball team from your site directly after I make this post.

ImpactMinis wrote:In fact, we openly support GW figure sales through a seperate website we own ... BBFigs.com where we sell team sets for the teams in Blood Bowl that GW does not sell the correct figures for on their website.

Tom @ Impact!

So Redbeard was right, you guys *are* poaching on GW's BB brand and IP?

JohnHwangDD wrote:

ImpactMinis wrote:In fact, we openly support GW figure sales through a seperate website we own ... BBFigs.com where we sell team sets for the teams in Blood Bowl that GW does not sell the correct figures for on their website.

Tom @ Impact!

So Redbeard was right, you guys *are* poaching on GW's BB brand and IP?

HUH? BBFigs.com only sells GW miniatures. So how can it poach GW's IP when its selling only GW product?????

An example of what BBFigs.com does. The current rules for the last 3 years for the Norse team give it Nordic Werewolves and a Snow Troll. The team sold on the GW site doesn't have these figures. The 12 man team GW sells is for the old rules of the game (2005 and earlier). The rules for the team changed in 2006 .... but GW never updated the team on their webstore.

So on BBFigs.com we package Blood Bowl Norse figures with 2 Werewolf figures from another part of GW's range and with a Yhetee from the Ogre Kingdoms range so that folks can purchase a Norse team that actually matches the rules.

We also offer the same service for the Dark Elf (which now have 2 Assassins on the roster) and Ogre teams (which now have Snotlings) which are not properly packaged by GW either on their webstore.

I'm really struggling to understand how you can poach IP when you are retailing only GW product to properly match GW rules???

ImpactMiniatures.com is a seperate website and it sells the game Elfball and figures for that game and never mentions any game from GW on the site. We do mention Deathball ... but that's because we have express permision from Heresy Minatures to promote his game and sell his figures for his game.

So JohnHwangDD ... did I miss that part of IP law where as a GW vendor the BBFigs.com webstore is poaching IP by selling only their product in ways to better match their own rules?

Tom @ Impact!

JohnHwangDD wrote:

ImpactMinis wrote:In fact, we openly support GW figure sales through a seperate website we own ... BBFigs.com where we sell team sets for the teams in Blood Bowl that GW does not sell the correct figures for on their website.

Tom @ Impact!

So Redbeard was right, you guys *are* poaching on GW's BB brand and IP?

You should probably check out their site before you post.

Welcome to BBFigs.com
Your one stop source for proper Blood Bowl teams and individual Blood Bowl figures

Legal Disclaimer: BBFigs.com is registered and solely operated in the U.K. All figures are purchased directly from Games Workshop only from funds in U.K. banks and all miniatures are shipped from the U.K.

malfred wrote:Thanks for the clarification. I've always wanted to try Elfball.

When I mentioned we had 2 fan sites that we sold licenses to ... the one that I didn't mention was to a person who wanted to set up the game on Vassal. He's the other guy we gave rules for using our IP and sold a license to set up a fansite (if you can call a Vassal ap a fansite).

Rulebook for Elfball is free online ... look up the game on Vassal ... you can give it a try and don't have to worry about purchasing two metal teams to play our game. Everyone has different tastes in miniatures ... so no worries if the look of our figures is not for you. Heck when we've run official Elfball tournaments ... we allow folks to bring in fantasy football figures from Heresy, Rolljordan, Goblin Forge, Orc from Bilabo, Hasslefree, Neomics, GreenDog, Gaspez Arts and GW for their teams as part of our rules (all 9 of those companies make decent looking fantasy football figures). Our bigger concern is for folks to have a good time playing the game than to use our miniatures to do so.

Tom @ Impact!

ImpactMinis wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

ImpactMinis wrote:In fact, we openly support GW figure sales through a seperate website we own ... BBFigs.com where we sell team sets for the teams in Blood Bowl that GW does not sell the correct figures for on their website.

Tom @ Impact!

So Redbeard was right, you guys *are* poaching on GW's BB brand and IP?

HUH? BBFigs.com only sells GW miniatures. So how can it poach GW's IP when its selling only GW product?????

So JohnHwangDD ... did I miss that part of IP law where as a GW vendor the BBFigs.com webstore is poaching IP by selling only their product in ways to better match their own rules?

Tom @ Impact!

You are certainly operating a commercial enterprise using GW's trademarks. And you're operating a website with "BB" for "Blood Bowl".

If you were US-based, I think you missed (or are willfully ignoring) the part of your vendor agreement whereby you cannot sell any GW product whatsoever via a web-based shopping cart, because that apparently infringes on GW's US IP rights.

If GW US found out, I wouldn't be surprised for them to slap a C&D on you in short order - after all, if GW is going after non-commercial fansites, you can bet they'll hammer your commercial one.

Of course, you being under GW UK, fair use and such conform to customer-expected norms...

Again, check their website. They're UK based.

Impact - John is a troll and a GW sycophant. Don't feed him.

ImpactMinis wrote:

malfred wrote:Thanks for the clarification. I've always wanted to try Elfball.

When I mentioned we had 2 fan sites that we sold licenses to ... the one that I didn't mention was to a person who wanted to set up the game on Vassal. He's the other guy we gave rules for using our IP and sold a license to set up a fansite (if you can call a Vassal ap a fansite).

Rulebook for Elfball is free online ... look up the game on Vassal ... you can give it a try and don't have to worry about purchasing two metal teams to play our game. Everyone has different tastes in miniatures ... so no worries if the look of our figures is not for you. Heck when we've run official Elfball tournaments ... we allow folks to bring in fantasy football figures from Heresy, Rolljordan, Goblin Forge, Orc from Bilabo, Hasslefree, Neomics, GreenDog, Gaspez Arts and GW for their teams as part of our rules (all 9 of those companies make decent looking fantasy football figures). Our bigger concern is for folks to have a good time playing the game than to use our miniatures to do so.

Tom @ Impact!

That is an outstanding outlook from a game company. I guess I have to buy that Siringit team now (Supporting good game companies and all that)

JohnHwangDD wrote:If GW US found out, I wouldn't be surprised for them to slap a C&D on you in short order - after all, if GW is going after non-commercial fansites, you can bet they'll hammer your commercial one.

H.B.M.C. ... I know you said don't feed him ... but I cannot resist one more post with two points.

As noted BBFigs.com is entirely UK based in its operations and as such the GW US's rules on this are not relevant. I do find it interesting you edited your post after you realized we were UK based ... but left in all the not relevant details of how it would be against the rules in the USA when those are not the rules of the UK.

But the more important point which is why I'm feeding here despire H.B.M.C. requested me not to. Employees of GW UK HELPED us set up BBFigs.com. They gave us some lengthly details on how to set up the webstore, the details to put on it, what images could be used to sell the product, disclaimers needed etc. Even BBFigs.com had their approval as a website name. So in the face of this .. it makes the details of your discussion points about how this would be a problem in the USA seem even further from relevance. ... eh?

Tom @ Impact!

Oh, and Impact, thanks for answering the question I posted a bit further up this page.

As I said a few posts before, I had gone over your entire site looking for even a single item that bore the same name (or even a derived name) of a GW 'Star Player' or other product.

I couldn't find a single one.

So any criticism levelled at you for trying to sell miniatures that 'fill in' GW gaps (and use their IP at the same time) are utterly unfounded and I can see how you'd be insulted by the insinuation.

Good to see the people calling GW 'fair and balanced' here are in the wrong. As usual.