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.

I just read that as 'sniping' at GW for sloppy writing, and I praised their writing earlier, ironic I know. It was the fact that W&S didnt dispute GWs claim to those colours. But I see they have touched on them later on.

What did I miss?

Cheers

Andrew

If I understand that correctly;

A Tactical Squad box set costs them 7.70 to make
They charge 55% retail to FLGS
They make $12.78 per Space Marine box profit
They sold 1692 units in the United States
They made $21,623 dollars off Tactical Squad boxes in 2006 in the United States

Is that right--or am I reading the sales sheet wrong?

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
If I understand that correctly;

A Tactical Squad box set costs them 7.70 to make
They charge 55% retail to FLGS
They make $12.78 per Space Marine box profit
They sold 1692 units in the United States
They made $21,623 dollars off Tactical Squad boxes in 2006 in the United States

Is that right--or am I reading the sales sheet wrong?

You are correct as far as I am reading it. The costing now for many kits would be less too, as the tooling and design costs would have been written down to almost nothing at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AndrewC wrote:
I just read that as 'sniping' at GW for sloppy writing, and I praised their writing earlier, ironic I know. It was the fact that W&S didnt dispute GWs claim to those colours. But I see they have touched on them later on.

What did I miss?

Cheers

Andrew

Basically, if they are making a claim for a trademark violation against CHS for using the colors - they also must make the same claim for trademark dilution against anyone, anywhere who uses studio color schemes on their figures. Using them commercially isn't necessarily important in that regards. You see this with trademarks from time to time to prevent them from becoming generic, as well as to maintain the validity of the mark. They can't give a blanket free use for everyone...except a few people and expect the trademark to stand.

Well, I thought so too--but it seems much lower (Qty) than I thought. For example, 845 Terminator boxes dispatched for 2006 in the entirety of the United States?

What's interesting (and granted I'm using 2012 prices here)--but the direct only Techmarine would make them 26k+ in profits this year if it sold in the same quantity (and had the same tooling costs). That's more than the Tactical Squads sales would clear.

In fact Sean, reading further W&S have completely sidestepped the issue by ignoring the entire thing repeatedly pointing out that CHS products are unpainted. (I should have read further before posting here) So actually I guess that the painting/colour issue wont actually be settled here at all. But it doesn't surprise me that GW really 'hates' it's customers to the point where you're not allowed to paint your figures in their colours....

Cheers

Andrew

Basically that's it.

These numbers are what came out of Memphis at the time so they wouldn't include any finished goods that needed to be shipped from the UK due to manufacturing backorders.

If we had backorders and we couldn't make the box sets due to missing components then we would either get the components from the UK to make them or just order finished boxes if they were a rush, which happened a lot in the early days of Memphis.

I said they included the Canadian and Australian quantities as well, but I might be mistaken. It's been a while (6 years!) so I'm not really sure if these sheets include those quantities, we didn't separate out those numbers at the time.

The cost for GW to make the tools for plastics is also much less than what many on these forums speculate since they are made by GW staff with an hourly wage. Most of them don;t cost anywhere near the $100,000 amounts I hear thrown around, more like $5,000 to $15,000 per tool (what I was told by a former manufacturing manager from Memphis), and GW gets better and more efficient at making them every year.

prplehippo wrote:

The cost for GW to make the tools for plastics is also much less than what many on these forums speculate since they are made by GW staff with an hourly wage. Most of them don;t cost anywhere near the $100,000 amounts I hear thrown around, more like $5,000 to $15,000 per tool (what I was told by a former manufacturing manager from Memphis), and GW gets better and more efficient at making them every year.

A lot of the costing ends up being confusion between in house costs versus contract costs. A contract company charges much more than it would cost to perform the same work in house as they have all the same basic expenses (wear and tear on equipment, utilities, facilities, man power...) plus they have to add on a profit to make it worth while. In house though, unless you can keep your machine shop working full shifts, you are loosing money when they are just sitting idle (still paying for the roof over their head and man power related expenses). I know from personal research that you can do the work in house for fractions of the contract cost regarding machining in general and tool and die specifically...though I have never gotten into pricing out miniature molds themselves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AndrewC wrote:
In fact Sean, reading further W&S have completely sidestepped the issue by ignoring the entire thing repeatedly pointing out that CHS products are unpainted. (I should have read further before posting here) So actually I guess that the painting/colour issue wont actually be settled here at all. But it doesn't surprise me that GW really 'hates' it's customers to the point where you're not allowed to paint your figures in their colours....

Cheers

Andrew

They do - however, you must remember that the way the court will rule on this...CHS will offer up more than one way in which they are in the clear.

Their first point of fact is that they sell unpainted miniatures. If however the judge doesn't buy into that as being a valid defense to the issue which GW raised, the next point of defense will be that GW doesn't prohibit thousands of others from using the same colors to paint their own miniatures with.

Generally, the judge will only speak to the first point which withstands the law as the court interprets it - however from time to time...they do extend their opinion if they see merit or just feel like writing a good bit (I haven't gone through this particular judges rulings to get a feel for him though). In those cases, the first opinion is considered to be the one which will be addressed in future cases...however the secondary statements carry a significant amount of weight as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
Well, I thought so too--but it seems much lower (Qty) than I thought. For example, 845 Terminator boxes dispatched for 2006 in the entirety of the United States?

What's interesting (and granted I'm using 2012 prices here)--but the direct only Techmarine would make them 26k+ in profits this year if it sold in the same quantity (and had the same tooling costs). That's more than the Tactical Squads sales would clear.

I would guess that is probably about half or less of the actual product movement for the North America region if my memory serves me based on what Purple Hippo says above. 2006 was the year that they moved warehousing from...I believe Baltimore and started to move manufacturing back from China. It was a bit of a mess all around based on info I have from other sources due to the way they were trying to move the stock and get manufacturing up and running at full tilt.

It is an interesting snapshot, but just a snapshot.

Perhaps the judge is just giving them as much rope as they want...

 Aerethan wrote:

 darkPrince010 wrote:

czakk wrote:Supplemental declaration - those sworn financial figures we gave you before weren't accurate. Whoops.

As I'm sure someone has mentioned previously, this case is best read to background music of Yakety Sax. I'm surprised the judge has even entertained GW's case for so long when they keep boffing it like this...

The judge is letting it continue so that he has a good story to tell the other judges on the golf course.

"So then they tried to copyright the things after already starting the suit!"
"Surely no one is that dumb"
"you'd think"

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So I saw this on the thread about the new WD:

 filbert wrote:
Jervis also let slip that his vision of GW is as a seller of collectible models; Jervis is of the opinion that collection comes first and everything else (painting, gaming) comes secondary to that.

Which caused me to immediately think of this:

http://ia600405.us.archive.org/18/items/gov.uscourts.ilnd.250791/gov.uscourts.ilnd.250791.213.22.pdf
wrote:·Q.· And would you agree that if in fact it's true that the
·5· · · ·game pieces are primarily made for and sold to
·6· · · ·collectors to use them simply as -- for purposes of
·7· · · ·painting and collecting and displaying as opposed to
·8· · · ·playing in a game, that that factor would favor
·9· · · ·a finding that they're sculptures?
10· ·A.· I think if -- if they are created for collection and
11· · · ·consumed by collectors, that is certainly a factor that
12· · · ·is relevant under Mann's list, insofar as it indicates
13· · · ·that things are created for their visual appeal and are
14· · · ·consumed for that visual appeal.

Another case of GW trying to modify fact after the case? If they can convince their customers that the largest demographic buying GW products are collectors, perhaps they can convice a court of law, thereby garnering am artistic copyright, rather than the production copyright perhaps?

Pfft, what? So there you have it I guess, the "GW Hobby" is all about buying GW product.

Well that solves that age-old debate, painting and gaming are both second to the real "joy" of this hobby: wasting stupid amounts of money on models.

I shed tears of joy when I buy GW.

prplehippo, I haven't had a chance to sink my teeth into those sheets yet, but I just wanted to tell you that you are my favoritest person ever right now.

Sean, thank you for the clarification on my query. I read it as they were using Excel as a scapegoat. And if that was the case then it would be another mark against GW for me to add to the list.

More than 7 dollars to produce a box of Tactical Space Marines is much more than I expected...

 Lordhat wrote:

Another case of GW trying to modify fact after the case? If they can convince their customers that the largest demographic buying GW products are collectors, perhaps they can convice a court of law, thereby garnering am artistic copyright, rather than the production copyright perhaps?

Entirely and completely. They know that what they produce as Games Workshop, are components for a game. The LucasFilm case set out that the primary purpose for an item be its first indicator to determine whether or not something should qualify for copyright protection or design right protection. Further, since they are Games Workshop - all "artwork" is what would actually be considered a design document, not regular artwork to exist for its own purpose - so even that wouldn't stand on its own as art either.

The duration for an unregistered design is now expired for...pretty much everything, except maybe a few of the new chaos items (will need to watch the design right registry to see if they are attempting to register those designs now...). Chances are pretty good that their lawyers have informed them of this and now Nottingham is trying to adjust 35 years of history in order to make them different then what they are.

Just a quickie, pertinent to Gary Chalk's deposition. Another artist who used to work for GW is Russ Nicholson and he has received a similar letter. He blogs about it here: http://russnicholson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-horror-of-it-all.html

Sounds like GW Legal won't be getting any help from him

Russ Nicholson wrote:This all made more amusing in a cynical sort of way by two letters from Games Workshop just recently. Apparently, according to the nice letter sent, which was quit complimentary about my work for Games Workshop, they had 'lost' contract copies of my signing over the rights to my work and they'd like me now to re-affirm the rights by completing a draft document sent by separate letter.

I have not replied to either letter, especially as when I originally did the work I never signed over rights to my work in the first place, and this goes back to the 'Warlock' and 'Doctor Who' games they produced.

Clearly GW are trying to pretend they had the rights to works they (and their artists) knew fine well they never possessed rights to!

Tsk tsk!

Osbad wrote:
Just a quickie, pertinent to Gary Chalk's deposition. Another artist who used to work for GW is Russ Nicholson and he has received a similar letter. He blogs about it here: http://russnicholson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-horror-of-it-all.html

Sounds like GW Legal won't be getting any help from him

That's hilarious, and a definite display of karma coming back to bite them on the ass.

I'd die for the sales statements for 2010-present.

The fact that actual cost of a $10 item is as low as $1.76 is just hilarious when GW employees are whining about how much money they were losing on metal models.

I think they meant how much money they weren't making with resin models vs actually "losing" money on metal models

 Pacific wrote:

Osbad wrote:
Just a quickie, pertinent to Gary Chalk's deposition. Another artist who used to work for GW is Russ Nicholson and he has received a similar letter. He blogs about it here: http://russnicholson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-horror-of-it-all.html

Sounds like GW Legal won't be getting any help from him

That's hilarious, and a definite display of karma coming back to bite them on the ass.

Indeed. I think someone from CHS's legal team should write a polite e-mail to Mr. Nicholson asking if he would be willing to appear in court.

 BewareOfTom wrote:
I think they meant how much money they weren't making with resin models vs actually "losing" money on metal models

The schpiel from my local manager is that for the last year or two, every single metal model sold they mostly broke even on or lost money on it, which is why they switched to resin, which they then raised the prices on.

 Aerethan wrote:

The schpiel from my local manager is that for the last year or two, every single metal model sold they mostly broke even on or lost money on it, which is why they switched to resin, which they then raised the prices on.

If that were true then the Perry brothers must be a registered charity considering the prices of their metal models, and they aren't the cheapest you can find either.

Sidenote: Apparently I'm in Tanzania today, news to me...

 Aerethan wrote:

 BewareOfTom wrote:
I think they meant how much money they weren't making with resin models vs actually "losing" money on metal models

The schpiel from my local manager is that for the last year or two, every single metal model sold they mostly broke even on or lost money on it, which is why they switched to resin, which they then raised the prices on.

I do a fair amount of casting for my own and local friends needs. Right now, it costs me around 25-50 cents per figure in terms of metal costs. Sculpting fees generally run me $300-500 depending on the figure we want done. Molds cost me about $30. So far, I have only had to replace a couple molds for often requested items - but normally they are good for a few hundred spins with the fairly hard tin alloy we are using. I'm slow and clumsy and so is my equipment, so I generally take about 2 minutes per spin because I get distracted by looking at the neat stuff which I just made. Better spin casters than me can do 2 or 3 spins a minute. Each of my 12" molds holds around 16 figures worth of stuff - though again, better mold makers than me are able to cram two and sometimes three times as much stuff in a mold. Primarily metal shops like Reaper manage to do pretty good business by it, and the vast majority of their product is sold wholesale (figure 50% or so of MSRP). They also pay their sculptors better than I do and probably pay themselves better than I do (normally, when someone needs something I have the molds for they bring a case of beer and order a pizza). Metal is definitely more expensive in many ways...but far from horrible. What kills a lot of the small companies on metal pricing is the contract costs and what not. Even there though, a small company like Hinterland or Micropanzer who is entirely contract (sculpting, molds, castings...) can keep the price at or below $10 per figure for largish figures.

If they say that Metal is more expensive, they're blowing it out their arses, unless they're talking about shipping costs.

Osbad wrote:
Just a quickie, pertinent to Gary Chalk's deposition. Another artist who used to work for GW is Russ Nicholson and he has received a similar letter. He blogs about it here: http://russnicholson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-horror-of-it-all.html

Sounds like GW Legal won't be getting any help from him

Russ Nicholson wrote:This all made more amusing in a cynical sort of way by two letters from Games Workshop just recently. Apparently, according to the nice letter sent, which was quit complimentary about my work for Games Workshop, they had 'lost' contract copies of my signing over the rights to my work and they'd like me now to re-affirm the rights by completing a draft document sent by separate letter.

I have not replied to either letter, especially as when I originally did the work I never signed over rights to my work in the first place, and this goes back to the 'Warlock' and 'Doctor Who' games they produced.

Clearly GW are trying to pretend they had the rights to works they (and their artists) knew fine well they never possessed rights to!

Tsk tsk!

Hang on, so GW is half way through a legal case and finding it has been challenged to prove ownership of certain images. So they then write to these artists claiming to have 'lost' the contracts in which the artists signed the rights over and ask them to write a letter to say that they dif give over the rights back in the day. If the artist is correct and that such a thing never happened then GW are effectively fishing for someone to retroactively have over the rights to their work which is little more than robbery if they can convince someone that this did happen when it did not. How on earth can that be legal, especially half way through a legal battle?

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

Osbad wrote:
Just a quickie, pertinent to Gary Chalk's deposition. Another artist who used to work for GW is Russ Nicholson and he has received a similar letter. He blogs about it here: http://russnicholson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-horror-of-it-all.html

Sounds like GW Legal won't be getting any help from him

Russ Nicholson wrote:This all made more amusing in a cynical sort of way by two letters from Games Workshop just recently. Apparently, according to the nice letter sent, which was quit complimentary about my work for Games Workshop, they had 'lost' contract copies of my signing over the rights to my work and they'd like me now to re-affirm the rights by completing a draft document sent by separate letter.

I have not replied to either letter, especially as when I originally did the work I never signed over rights to my work in the first place, and this goes back to the 'Warlock' and 'Doctor Who' games they produced.

Clearly GW are trying to pretend they had the rights to works they (and their artists) knew fine well they never possessed rights to!

Tsk tsk!

Hang on, so GW is half way through a legal case and finding it has been challenged to prove ownership of certain images. So they then write to these artists claiming to have 'lost' the contracts in which the artists signed the rights over and ask them to write a letter to say that they dif give over the rights back in the day. If the artist is correct and that such a thing never happened then GW are effectively fishing for someone to retroactively have over the rights to their work which is little more than robbery if they can convince someone that this did happen when it did not. How on earth can that be legal, especially half way through a legal battle?

Yes, it is pretty underhanded to lie to someone to induce them to sign over their rights. It is even more underhanded to lie to them to get them to assign you their rights for free, while you are suing someone with the expectation of getting damages (money) based on those rights.

It's also sloppy as feth to start a lawsuit without having proper standing. Of course if I am remembering correctly, this was just a thrown together intimidation suit at the beginning. Am I remembering correctly?


Re Metal Prices: The most common complaint I've heard is the difficulting in getting consistent pricing on tin, especially for folks who can't buy in bulk and store when it is cheap. Hedging metal prices / futures contracts is a way to lose your shirt as a little guy as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Pacific wrote:

Osbad wrote:
Just a quickie, pertinent to Gary Chalk's deposition. Another artist who used to work for GW is Russ Nicholson and he has received a similar letter. He blogs about it here: http://russnicholson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-horror-of-it-all.html

Sounds like GW Legal won't be getting any help from him

That's hilarious, and a definite display of karma coming back to bite them on the ass.

Indeed. I think someone from CHS's legal team should write a polite e-mail to Mr. Nicholson asking if he would be willing to appear in court.

Has anyone sent CHS's legal team an email about it? They may not even know he exists, GW was dropping claims rather than providing discovery on people who didn't reply or replied in the negative.

If it was me I'd just go into my records and get a notarized copy of the original contract sent back to GW... the single use one.

Something I just remembered as well is that we used to get, as staff, a discount on metal purchases.

We paid ¢4 per gram for metal, pretty cheap.

So if you were to buy 9947010131212 Servitor Body 3 which weighed about 12.7 grams it would cost you around ¢50.

So GW made a profit off staff purchases as well, kinda shows you just how cheap metal is.

@Sean_Obrian

For smaller casters it would naturally cost them more though. GW fits anywhere from 4 to 100+ cavities on each mold depending on the part. The average number of cavities is 18 per mold.

For casting a box set run of 1500 units with say 10 components, we would make 2 molds for each component; 3 or 4 if the component went into the box more than once (say for backpacks)

But in Memphis the mold/casting manager was improving their casting times and costs by spruing things like backpacks to the model (Cadian Kasrkins come to mind) instead of having them separate parts. He was also simplifying their moldmaking as well. It took about 2 hrs to press a mold in silicone, but only about 12-15 minutes to cut it in and get it to casting, and the molds that went to casting had a %90 fill rate.

So you have less molds to press, less molds to cast, shorter casting time to complete the order, less packing time since the packers didn't have to count out each backpack (and possibly miscount).

Add to the at the semi-automatic casting machines GW used for metal casting which means one ot two casters can knock out the entire order in one or two days at most, during which they are also casting up metal for 2-3 other orders. They generally had 25-30 molds on each side of the casting station being rotated for casting. One staff cast while the other quality checked and talced the mold before sending it back to the caster.

I attached an old pic that was sent to me of the Memphis casting station for you to get an idea of how organized and efficient GW has gotten their casting.

Add two cars, a water heater...take away the shelves...replace the nice clean automatic casting station with a 30 year old manual one which was used for casting fishing weights...throw some half full gallon and 5 gallon containers of paint under the benches and it looks a bit like my shop if I squint really hard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

rigeld2 wrote:
If it was me I'd just go into my records and get a notarized copy of the original contract sent back to GW... the single use one.

Same here. I don't even sell my castings, but I have contracts done with the sculptors to allow for production and resale should I ever wish to torture myself that way. In each instance I have three notarized copies of the contract - one for the sculptor, one for my own records and one which I keep in offsite storage with the rest of my important papers in the event of a fire or flood. Would think a company like GW would have at least managed to grasp the concept of filing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

czakk wrote:

Yes, it is pretty underhanded to lie to someone to induce them to sign over their rights. It is even more underhanded to lie to them to get them to assign you their rights for free, while you are suing someone with the expectation of getting damages (money) based on those rights.

It's also sloppy as feth to start a lawsuit without having proper standing. Of course if I am remembering correctly, this was just a thrown together intimidation suit at the beginning. Am I remembering correctly?

..........

Has anyone sent CHS's legal team an email about it? They may not even know he exists, GW was dropping claims rather than providing discovery on people who didn't reply or replied in the negative.

I have it on good authority that they are watching.

Largely, this was likely an anti-competition lawsuit in an attempt to get CHS to go away. Most small shops can't afford to fight a case like this on their own - so just filing the paperwork will generally deal with the annoyance. I don't think GW will have ever come out and said as much - though IIRC, when the case was in mediation, the judge overseeing that more or less addressed what he thought the case was about (would have been around December of last year). To paraphrase, he asked GW if their goal was to make CHS file for bankruptcy go into a corner and die.

Sean, you mean 'cant' right? Because CHS wouldnt have been able to get to this stage without the pro-bono work being done by their (now) legal team...

Also, thank you for the legal insights

Yes. Fixed.