Battlefront cuts down Maelstrom...( Maelstrom owner prespective on page 7)

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**powerslave84**

filbert wrote:From a personal perspective, it looks like pretty shabby behaviour by Battlefront and I hope they get their comeuppance. As Maelstrom note, the real loser in all this is the consumer, both in the fact that it hurts the wallet, and in the fact that this potentially could prevent new people buying into the game system.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I did look into starting FoW at one point, part inspired by Lego's gallery and blog about his company and part inspired by searching for an alternative to GW hegemony but the thing that put me off the most was that the prices seemed to be just as expensive as GW stuff. If discounters like Maelstrom are forced to keep prices artificially high then that can only act as a barrier to entry.

Honestly I feel FoW is cheaper than GW games. If you plan your army right, you could have 1750 points of just about anything for under $200 US.

Also: http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/downloads/3471_001.pdf States that the reason they were pulled, was because as a web store, they were discounting BF's prices and thus losing BF revenue. It is a sketchy situation, and they definitely could have been more professional about it. Seems they will actually be losing money in the end though. Oh well, I still enjoy their rules.

**ArbeitsSchu**

filbert wrote:
Mr. Burning wrote:
filbert wrote:From a personal perspective, it looks like pretty shabby behaviour by Battlefront and I hope they get their comeuppance. As Maelstrom note, the real loser in all this is the consumer, both in the fact that it hurts the wallet, and in the fact that this potentially could prevent new people buying into the game system.

Of course the totally professional approach by both parties would have been to keep correspondence private and to only release some brief press releases, regardless of the contents of Battlefronts' ugly email.

Maelstrom will continue as they always do, and good for them.

I don't see anything wrong or unprofessional in Maelstrom's response. Just because they are a business doesn't mean they should be bound an gagged and prevented from releasing the details. To be perfectly frank, I find it refreshing that they have exposed the sort of goings on that are normally behind the scenes.

Seems that given the curt and cursory nature of the Bf "newsflash" on their website, Maelstrom had to do some kind of damage limitation to protect themselves and their reputation, and what better way than to be perfectly open about the nature of the situation?

**Mr. Burning**

filbert wrote:From a personal perspective, it looks like pretty shabby behaviour by Battlefront and I hope they get their comeuppance. As Maelstrom note, the real loser in all this is the consumer, both in the fact that it hurts the wallet, and in the fact that this potentially could prevent new people buying into the game system.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I did look into starting FoW at one point, part inspired by Lego's gallery and blog about his company and part inspired by searching for an alternative to GW hegemony but the thing that put me off the most was that the prices seemed to be just as expensive as GW stuff. If discounters like Maelstrom are forced to keep prices artificially high then that can only act as a barrier to entry.

I don't for one minute think that Battlefront are/were trying to price fix, which is highly illegal.

As for artificially high prices, if no one discounted, then would the prices be too high? what is an artificially high price?

Using computer games as an example, if no-one discounted ,would £49.99 for a new release title be too high? Would GW prices be too high. If discounters didn't take it upon themselves to decide what they can sell an item for (as is their right) could you then call GW and BF et al thieving gypsies?

Lets be honest, discounters are not helping the consumer except to gain more business for themselves.

Still, I'll still check out Maelstrom for cheap goods, and I will continue to pick up BF stuff where sold.

**Wehrkind**

Mr. Burning wrote:

I don't for one minute think that Battlefront are/were trying to price fix, which is highly illegal.

As for artificially high prices, if no one discounted, then would the prices be too high? what is an artificially high price?

Using computer games as an example, if no-one discounted ,would £49.99 for a new release title be too high? Would GW prices be too high. If discounters didn't take it upon themselves to decide what they can sell an item for (as is their right) could you then call GW and BF et al thieving gypsies?

Lets be honest, discounters are not helping the consumer except to gain more business for themselves.

Still, I'll still check out Maelstrom for cheap goods, and I will continue to pick up BF stuff where sold.

Those are good points. "Artificial" doesn't really mean much of anything since you can't see what the counter factual would be.

On the other hand, discounters are surely helping the consumer and helping themselves, by offering lower prices to us and getting more business for themselves as a reward. That's the whole point of trade. I help them, they help me, and we don't need to care too much about each other otherwise. We don't need them to have high and noble motives; just wanting our business is motive enough

**ArbeitsSchu**

Mr. Burning wrote:

Lets be honest, discounters are not helping the consumer except to gain more business for themselves.

I don't mind (as a consumer) being not helped by having access to the goods I desire at a reduced price.

**Mr. Burning**

ArbeitsSchu wrote:
Mr. Burning wrote:

Lets be honest, discounters are not helping the consumer except to gain more business for themselves.

I don't mind (as a consumer) being not helped by having access to the goods I desire at a reduced price.

Neither do I its great to save £££, i dont care either. I was just putting the thought out there that discounters are not our shining saviours.

**Holdenstein**

Trouble at t'mill indeed. It's all about trying to keep the rest of BF's distribution network happy- probably including those in the antipodes.

I'm pretty meh about the whole thing. there's plenty of other places to get a 10% discount on FoW. Though the airing of dirty laundry in public is never good for any of those involved in the end (see the Chapterhouse debacle if you need any cofirmation of this).

**filbert**

Well of course not, they do exist as a business and unless Maelstrom has morphed into some sort of Co-operative, then they exist to turn a profit. But that's not to say it isn't mutually beneficial - I mean they aren't trying to rip people off, on the whole.

**perplexiti**

Well I just read Maelstrom's response, it's a shame it's come to this as I was looking into starting FOW this year.

But with my limited finances, two kids one wage and a mortgage, there's not much left over at the end of the week, Maelstrom's pretty much the only place I can buy from, even living all the way down here in NZ!

So no starting FOW for me for a while unfortunately, I feel this will lose Battlefront more than they will gain.

**lord_blackfang**

I'm sorry, I wanted to pick a side, but I just can't bring myself to care. I think there's been so much drama in the hobby lately that I'm all drama'd out.

**Ketara**

I found BF's business letters highly unprofessional. You would think the Head of their European division would at least run his correspondence through a spell checker first.

I got the impression from his letter that he basically wants BF to follow in GW's footsteps in terms of setting a certain price range and available discount across the internet, and thought he could intimidate Maelstrom into accepting his new terms. Unfortunately, due to not thinking it through, he left himself wide open for a legal rebuttal from Maelstrom, and was forced legally to acquiesce and fulfill order already made/paid for (and rightly so in my opinion).

His statement of how FoW does not need Maelstrom and therefore does not care due to the expension speed of their company leaves a bitter taste in my mouth though. Its definitely convinced me to avoid BF products in future as a result.

**Waaagh_Gonads**

Is the PDF link not working for anyone else?

**Corrode**

I quite enjoyed the BF guy freezing £20k of orders because of a petty squabble about discounts (which didn't apply to the order already placed as far as I can tell). That sure is some top customer service which persuades me to buy your company's products, jackass.

**derek**

powerslave84 wrote:

Also: http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/downloads/3471_001.pdf States that the reason they were pulled, was because as a web store, they were discounting BF's prices and thus losing BF revenue. It is a sketchy situation, and they definitely could have been more professional about it. Seems they will actually be losing money in the end though. Oh well, I still enjoy their rules.

Makes no sense that they would be losing BF revenue if they are paying the appropriate price for the items from BF, which they have been. There is no lost revenue, as the price they pay to BF was always the same. If anything, it would be Maelstrom losing potential revenue (though it's arguable if sales volumes increased) by discounting the product further through a glitch in the voucher code being erroneously applied to Flames of War items. Every discount voucher I've ever received from Maelstrom in the last few years has stated plainly that there is no additional discount on Flames of War items.

Maelstrom has a Brick and Mortar store, they stock a wide variety of usually complete ranges in their store. I'd say that qualifies them for the retailer discount.

**olympia**

Here's a pro-tip for Battlefront: you don't have a monopoly on 15mm Second World War miniatures, biatches. Nor do you have an intellectual property bulwark that insulates your high prices from competition, biatches.

**kinghammer**

BF gave them 20k(in pounds) in terms, that is crazy! At the end of the day you have to abide by the contract you signed and Maelstrom did not.

Cheers

**Panic**

yeah,
I enjoyed maelstroms announcement. First Class.
Also exchange of emails was interesting to read and made the start of my shift at work very enjoyable

So basically they emailed each other for a bit and it was all getting a bit bitchy, but under the radar.
Maelstroms solicitor seemed like a legal heavy weight and probabily made battlefronts solicitors gak themselfs!

BF made a very nasty public termination of all buisness relations.
So I think it's fair enough that maelstrom shows all the dirty washing if that's what they want to do.

I hope BattleFront take the hit and grow up.
I'd hate to see a game that is enjoyed by so many be run into the ground by a bunch of Dickheads.

Panic...

**notprop**

Is their no one in the gaming industry that can write a proper letter?!?

I'm so annoyed by yet another show and tell [what should be internal] dispute that it really took some strength of mind on my part to take advantage of that 25% off code.

Now if you other vultures could stop buying the stuff I want I would be really happy!

**Duncan_Idaho**

Frag! Some people her just want to read into it what pleases them....

@ Corrode
It got frozen because they bought products under B&M-terms but sold them online. If they would just have sold the stuff in their B&M store there would have been no problem. This way they were undercutting even every other online store that bought stuff on the online-terms. BF has to react to such a breach of contract.

@derek
Unfortunately there are at least 20-30 mails on my server that explicitely say that this voucher also applies to FoW stuff and if this is not enough there are several voucher threads on the web that say the same. This is no glitch, this is intentionally.

@olympia
They have no monopoly and they even write in their books that you are allowed and even encouraged to use minis from other companies if they seem better suited to you. Damn far from the evil empire you paint.

All they are doing right now is protecting all other online and B&M stores that abide to the contracts.

**Corrode**

Duncan_Idaho wrote:@ Corrode
It got frozen because they bought products under B&M-terms but sold them online. If they would just have sold the stuff in their B&M store there would have been no problem. This way they were undercutting even every other online store that bought stuff on the online-terms. BF has to react to such a breach of contract.

As far as I can tell from the letter, BF are asserting that Maelstrom do not have a physical store and therefore don't qualify as a B&M retailer. Having been to their top-quality physical store myself, it most certainly does exist, and as far as I can tell they certainly should qualify as a B&M. Obviously none of us are privy to the terms of the contract, which are only vaguely alluded to in the e-mails, but a lot would hinge on the exact language used - whether simply owning a B&M store is enough to qualify for that level of discount, or if one is required to sell products exclusively through the B&M to count. Given that the BF guys traded with Maelstrom for the better part of 5 years and several of them have visited the location I find it hard to believe that they were unaware of Maelstrom's business model until now.

**Duncan_Idaho**

It all depends on how much they sold online and how much via the store. I do know of quite some shops that have a B&M- and an online store and they either buy seperately for each or pay according to the terms that befit their main retail branch.

MG seems to see itself above such things and as it looks they got pulled back down to earth.

**Balance**

notprop wrote:Is their no one in the gaming industry that can write a proper letter?!?

I'm so annoyed by yet another show and tell [what should be internal] dispute that it really took some strength of mind on my part to take advantage of that 25% off code.

Now if you other vultures could stop buying the stuff I want I would be really happy!

I know you're writing a off-the-cuff comment and not a detailed legal missive, but I think you used the wrong form of there/their.

I probably made a mistake in my criticism as well, though.

**derek**

Duncan_Idaho wrote:
@derek
Unfortunately there are at least 20-30 mails on my server that explicitely say that this voucher also applies to FoW stuff and if this is not enough there are several voucher threads on the web that say the same. This is no glitch, this is intentionally.

I get that you want to vehemently defend Battlefront as you have done in every reply in this thread, but every voucher I have saved (going back to June of last year, I didn't keep the ones from before then) that is a storewide discount and not on specific items (including the one that BF is having their latest bitch about) mentions it doesn't work on Flames of War. If you have one that explicitly says to use it on Flames of War, I invite you to post the text, and the date you received it.

**Corrode**

Duncan_Idaho wrote:It all depends on how much they sold online and how much via the store. I do know of quite some shops that have a B&M- and an online store and they either buy seperately for each or pay according to the terms that befit their main retail branch.

MG seems to see itself above such things and as it looks they got pulled back down to earth.

Given that MG seemed to be in the belief that Battlefront were attempting a bit of (illegal in the UK) price fixing, they were perfectly right to be ignoring such demands.

Also, you're completely wrong about the discount vouchers. Maybe something's been lost in translation but every voucher I've received (about a year and a half's worth now) states that the discount does not apply to FoW items. Here's the exact text from the most recent one:

Maelstrom Games wrote:Please note that this voucher will work on all the items within our webstore, but:

- not on any Flames of War items

**Avatar 720**

Also, you're completely wrong about the discount vouchers. Maybe something's been lost in translation but every voucher I've received (about a year and a half's worth now) states that the discount does not apply to FoW items.

Just lurking around and keeping myself updated, but I also haven't recieved a voucher discount e-mail from MG that hasn't specified that it doesn't work on FoW stuff.

**NAVARRO**

Seems to me this is a huge loss for ALL... we as costumers lose the good prices, Maelstrom loses "15%" of their profit and Battlefront
only loses " his biggest retailer in europe"...
And if people think its to protect brick stores guess again... being forced to price fixing is not something any retailer in the EU should be happy about...

Ex GW workers learned their lessons quite well I just hope BF has the fatness to absorb these blows.

**Neffertech**

This really feels a lot like there is something else going on under the surface that has little to do with bussiness. This feels personal.

As for the FLGS vs Webstore debate, buy from wherever gives you the best service. I think if you play at your local store you should buy some stuff there, a place to play is a service. However if you don't buy from wherever gives you the best price, or ships the fastest or whatever you as a consumer value most.

I think most Brick and Mortars fail because they are just run badly, have poor locations or just bad luck. Seriously I know a place that for decades has smelled like Pee but has paid the bills solely due to Pokemon, 40k, BF, cheap rent and good fortune. I've also seen amazingly good stores that closed because their rent was a little too high, margins a little too narrow and they hit a bad stretch. Game stores are like resturants, it's a tough industry that takes a lot of hard work and dedication that few people can muster and owner burn out happens a lot. And if you find one you really enjoy you should support it, because it's hard to keep running. Unless you prefer home cooking, then invite friends

**Duncan_Idaho**

Sorry, but anyone in the business believing that BF asking shops to only use the account that befits their kind of shop is illegal should rather quickly close down shop since he will quite soon have other institutions breathing down his neck because of his strange understanding of business.

@vouchers

Starting with vouchers from 2009 on they were: BUNNY-SALE, RISE-BEATER, then there was a phase with FoW excluded and it started again in summer 2010 with

YOUR SUMMER SALE VOUCHER
----------------------------------------------------------
Your 15% off UK RRP discount voucher lasts for ten days, ending on Monday 13th of June 2010 at midnight (GMT) and it's a great chance to grab yourself all those superb new releases over the summer - the new Warhammer eighth edition rulebook, the new Hordes and Warmachine books and much more - as well as grab your favourites and try out all the superb new miniatures and hobby products we keep bringing you!
It will work on all the items within our webstore, but:

Apart from the above, the voucher will work on pre-orders and, crucially, you'll still earn Moneyback - although tiered discounts are disabled when using a voucher of course.

Your voucher code is: SUMMERTIME

To use this voucher simply register on the webstore, www.maelstromgames.co.uk (if you haven't already), copy and paste the code into the appropriate field in your basket when you have selected the items you want, press 'REDEEM', and the webstore will do the rest. You are not limited to one purchase and, indeed, we would ask you to recommend us to your friends with this voucher!

Remember though that this voucher is intended for the webstore only - it does not apply to any of our auctions or shop inventory items on eBay.

Happy Ordering!

YOUR EARLY CHRISTMAS VOUCHER
----------------------------------------------------------
Your 15% off UK RRP discount voucher ends on Monday the 11th of October 2010, at midnight (GMT) - so you've ten days to grab yourself a bargain!

It's a great chance to grab yourself all those lovely new ranges we've brought in over the past few months since our expansion as well as all your old favourites! It will work on all the items within our webstore, but:

- not on any Seeds of War items
- not on any Too Fat Lardies items
- not on any Games Workshop Direct items
- not on any event tickets
- and additionally, not on anything within our eBay store.

Apart from the above, the voucher will work on pre-orders and, crucially, you'll still earn Moneyback - although tiered discounts are disabled when using a voucher of course.

Your voucher code is: EARLY-CHRISTMAS

Your voucher code is: 2011-JANUARY
...ends on Monday the 10th of January 2011 at midnight (GMT).

And that was just a quick and dirty going through my server and got confirmed by people that have ordered FoW-stuff with these vouchers.

**derek**

I'm missing where any of those explicitly mention that they work on Flames of War.

**Corrode**

Duncan_Idaho wrote:Sorry, but anyone in the business believing that BF asking shops to only use the account that befits their kind of shop is illegal should rather quickly close down shop since he will quite soon have other institutions breathing down his neck because of his strange understanding of business.

And since we have an incomplete understanding of what kind of shop BF considers Maelstrom to be (since they are both a physical retail store and a webstore, which BF were surely well aware of what with staff having visited the physical location) accusing MG of bad faith in this case is a bit of a stretch. It's not like the Head of Europe woke up one day and realised Maelstrom also had a website they sold stuff from.

I'll admit to having been wrong on the voucher thing - so many were not applicable to FoW that the Christmas and VAT ones being applicable slipped past me.