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 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
1. GW must actually back up 'we make the best toy soldiers in the world' because other companies will be able to make directly competing figures. So, perhaps they'll be forced to consult and invest and avoid stinkers like the spikey pig or the new melee obliterators.

This is subjective. IMHO GW does make the best toy soldiers in the world. However the new stuff from Wyrd seems to be matching them or even beating them depending on your tastes. (I luvz me sum Thunders) Unfortunately, unless/until more companies step up their game, GW won't have much to worry about here.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
2. GW have the means of mass production and plastics, so they can also actually suffer a lowering of prices to remain competitive against 'all those little Polish firms'.

Never going to happen. This is a non-issue. GW's obstinance aside, it doesn't seem to be profitable enough for the recasters to make copies of plastic figures. The situation that concerns me is the impact they guys may wind up having on Forge World.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
3. GW might actually consider hiring out their IP and let independents take up the running of the specialist games (please give FFG BFG and let them run it... ).

I think GW management would rather choke to death than let this happen. FFG winding up with Talisman is apparently a different beast than BloodBowl, Epic, Mordheim, etc. I'm not sure what the exact details are though but it's apparently enough to let that be licensed while the rest aren't.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The reality I feel is that if GW lose it won't change a great deal. I'd love to be wrong because I think GW is unhealthy for this hobby, but they still are bigger than everyone else and can get their way by throwing their substantial weight behind actions against others. This is how large companies beat down small opposition, they can just run them out of money in legal actions, even if the opposition is in the right, they need money, and all those little firms we like don't have it.

Monopolies or near-monopolies are always bad for the marketplace. I expect GW to continue their attempts to supress the after-market companies even if they lose. If they win,be prepared for GW to become even more unbearable than ever. :(

1. Only positive things for the consumer will result in GW losing. (which I think is enevitable btw)

2. If you have read any of the court documents presented so far, you would not 'White Knight' for GW. Their claims are down right idiotic, and their legal team and management is beyond incompetent.

3. Garbage resin parts are garbage and will quickly fail. PuppetsWar, Kromlech and Maxmini will get more freedom, sell more stuff, and invest in making their products even better.

4. GW will either learn to compete fairly (lower prices and offer all options in a kit) or FAIL (raise prices even higher and offer less for you money, ie. 5 man tactical boxes for the price of the 10man box now)

Anyone who thinks "lower prices" will result from them losing this case is as out of touch with reality as GW's management team.

Higher prices and spiritual liege are the only words in GW's vocabulary.

hopefully they'll get up off their asses and start producing more products. Codex more often. Maybe they'll lower prices to compete with these 3rd party bits sellers. so people will say to themselves, "I can get the fake thing or i can get the real thing for 5 bucks or so more." I'd always pay a little extra for the real thing.

Maybe they can start selling more bits themselves. I know i'd love to have more hammers for my grey knights. One comes in a box when you have the option to put a hammer on all five guys.

Maybe GW will start treating their loyal fans better so we wont want to buy 2nd hand or from 3rd partys. I know i have stopped buying anything from GW or a store that supports GW in an effort to do my part to help drive down prices.

Fact is. They have an unlimited supply. The demand is only created by us. GW has even quit running tournaments. We are the ones who allow or do not allow non GW stuff at our tournaments.

Eventually, GW will have to let up on the price hikes and start taking them down. They are driving new players away with 100+ starters and 120+ battle boxes. In the end all they're going to have left are their old loyal players they've had forever. But guess what... I'm getting pretty darn close to having everything i could ever need for my nids. when they release another codex I'll buy it for 80 but will new players? I just started a year ago and prices, i think, have risen twice seance then.

two choices
Higher prices-Less players
Lower prices-More players

sure GW will net less per sale but with the higher number of players, and players like me wanting to buy from them instead of avoiding it like the plague, I feel it's just better for business.

morel of my story... They really need to lower prices before it's too late. I care about this hobby. More new players in stores would be so nice.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

GW's business model must change, they can't leave gaps in their product line lie fallow for months or years and expect no one to fill them.

I think the model has already changed, as we've seen with Chaos and the Flyers; Everything in the core Codex/Army Book comes with a figure at launch, with additional figures being released with an accompanied rule-expansion in the White Dwarf. I'm not sure how long it'll last though; how will people get the rules if they miss the magazine? Will they have to bring stacks of additional rule leaflets to tournaments?

GW want people to buy WD as well as the Codex and models but perhaps Chapter Approved will come back.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Anyone who thinks "lower prices" will result from them losing this case is as out of touch with reality as GW's management team.

Exalted, and quoted for cynicism

I can't see GW going back to selling bits whatever the results

The reason they stopped doing so was it was either making a loss (or maybe not profitable enough).

While it looks like there is a huge demand for them from what's said on forums I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Warhammer/40K players would never use them, it's only the veterans or really obsessed who pick them up

 MrScience wrote:
Higher prices and spiritual liege are the only words in GW's vocabulary.

Actually, there are at least two others; "cease" and "desist".

And CINEMATIC!

And FINE™!

I agree that we won't see lower prices, but we may see better value. There's already rumors of a new tactical marine box in the works that is supposed to have even more options in it than the current one. But will they release that at the same price as the current one, or higher? The same price would be the wiser choice, and would represent better value. Kind of like how I wish the GK terminator box included more than just one demonhammer and psycannon in it.

I don't want to use the phrase 'common sense' but, I don't have a better word for it, so my apologies...

Is there any way for a middlish outcome where neither side entirely win, that I'd call 'common sense' in my mind?

EG,

GW gets slapped for their hijinks with the artistic copyrights, their general incompetence with many things, attempting to copyright 'inverted chevrons.'

But!

Chapterhouse also get slapped for the tervigon, some of the storm raven things, their general website things and the like. I, personally just felt that all was simply not on and they deserved to get done for that stuff. It's just plain rude!

I'd say scibor's models are sort of at the right level for what I'm comfortable with and I feel 'should' be safe to sell, obviously inspired by and based on, but not taking the piss.

But then, I'm sure there's no chance of the law working that way, it'd seem too sensible to me.

All I know is that whatever can give businesses more freedom to GW IP has my vote. As it is, GW products are not worth how much you pay for, and I would love for competition in the Warhammer market to increase, for more variety, options, and increase in both quality of products and prices.

As for all you fancy sentence makers that have posted before me, please use words that allow me to understand while skimming through the thread, I don't have all day to read your posts. Thank you.

Round and round we go...

Why should businesses have access to GW's IP without licensing?

Because you feel you shouldn't have to pay as much?

It's naive to think that licensing will solve all the worlds ills.

Licensing of GW iP for mini manufacture would require a complete legal sweep. Forget the farce that is GW VS Chapter House. To Licence anything GW would need to bolt everything down tighter than a Nuns habit.

Once that is done a select few companies would have a licence under very specific terms.

Not that this will happen, mind.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
It's naive to think that licensing will solve all the worlds ills.

Licensing of GW iP for mini manufacture would require a complete legal sweep. Forget the farce that is GW VS Chapter House. To Licence anything GW would need to bolt everything down tighter than a Nuns habit.

Once that is done a select few companies would have a licence under very specific terms.

Not that this will happen, mind.

I believe GW is already licensing their IP out... FFG is not GW or a GW company (ala FW and BL), and yet at the same time there have been 0 licensing issues that I can tell.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Round and round we go...

Why should businesses have access to GW's IP without licensing?

Because you feel you shouldn't have to pay as much?

In this case at least, IP doesn't work the way you seem to think it does.

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
It's naive to think that licensing will solve all the worlds ills.

Licensing of GW iP for mini manufacture would require a complete legal sweep. Forget the farce that is GW VS Chapter House. To Licence anything GW would need to bolt everything down tighter than a Nuns habit.

Once that is done a select few companies would have a licence under very specific terms.

Not that this will happen, mind.

I believe GW is already licensing their IP out... FFG is not GW or a GW company (ala FW and BL), and yet at the same time there have been 0 licensing issues that I can tell.

I should have made myself clearer.

Licencing reagrds to wargaming minatures. Not current agreements with FFG.

Saldiven wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Round and round we go...

Why should businesses have access to GW's IP without licensing?

Because you feel you shouldn't have to pay as much?

In this case at least, IP doesn't work the way you seem to think it does.

In this case, you are not correct.

Chapterhouse's case is based upon the idea that they have "free access" to the material which inspired GW.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Round and round we go...

Why should businesses have access to GW's IP without licensing?

Because you feel you shouldn't have to pay as much?

In this case at least, IP doesn't work the way you seem to think it does.

In this case, you are not correct.

Chapterhouse's case is based upon the idea that they have "free access" to the material which inspired GW.

We all have free access to the material which "inspired" GW, Kan.

And that's kind of the crux of Chapterhouse's argument, while GW's is that though they took "inspiration" from it--the product they've created and the IP itself is significantly different that it is their own.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Anyone who thinks "lower prices" will result from them losing this case is as out of touch with reality as GW's management team.

While I agree fully that the current management probably would not be able to comprehend that path forward - they are a publicly traded company and everyone of them serves at the behest of the stock holders. A large legal defeat would likely be enough to have the funds which have large holdings with the company to send in their representatives and clean house a bit.

An example where you can see a similar parallel is with the LEGO company. While still more expensive than their competition, following the losses of the LEGO patent claim in the 1980s, the average price per brick on LEGO sets fell to the normalized price it had in the 1960s. Although the price has gone up on the product, the price increases have been inline with or below inflation after they lost their case. Prior to that (throughout the 1960s and 1970s into the early 1980s). In fact in the 5 years following their final appeal loss - the average LEGO price dropped by more than 50%.

LEGO and GW have similar stories in terms of how the company views their products. Each believes that they offer the toy equivalent of a Rolls Royce. However, when faced with actual market forces...LEGO adapted, and I believe ultimately GW will as well. Might be painful during the transition period...but the end result will be beneficial both to the customers and the company.

 Compel wrote:
Is there any way for a middlish outcome where neither side entirely win, that I'd call 'common sense' in my mind?

The common sense solution is that GW loses. Or would you pay licence fees for an arrow or skull? Or the Chaos Star GW stole from Moorcock?
To win, you must present a case and GW is not willing to present a case, so winning is not an issue.

BTW not GW is losing, just the higher management. The GW designers are aware that the official position is not of this world, they keep on working as always whatever the outcome, drawing inspiration from left and right like everyone does.

The "Chaos Star GW stole from Moorcock" is not singularly Moorcock's creation.

He was the first to associate the multi-pointed star with Chaos, but it is a device which has been dated back to the Greeks.

Here's Moorcock's own statement:

The origin of the Chaos Symbol was me doodling sitting at the kitchen table and wondering what to tell Jim Cawthorn the arms of Chaos looked like. I drew a straightforward geographical quadrant (which often has arrows, too!) – N, S, E, W – and then added another four directions and that was that – eight arrows representing all possibilities, one arrow representing the single, certain road of Law. I have since been told that it is an "ancient symbol of Chaos" and if it is then it confirms a lot of theories about the race mind. ... As far as I know the symbol, drawn by Jim Cawthorn, first appeared on an Elric cover of Science Fantasy in 1962, then later appeared in his first comic version of Stormbringer done by Savoy

 Kanluwen wrote:
The "Chaos Star GW stole from Moorcock" is not singularly Moorcock's creation.

He was the first to associate the multi-pointed star with Chaos, but it is a device which has been dated back to the Greeks.

Here's Moorcock's own statement:

The origin of the Chaos Symbol was me doodling sitting at the kitchen table and wondering what to tell Jim Cawthorn the arms of Chaos looked like. I drew a straightforward geographical quadrant (which often has arrows, too!) – N, S, E, W – and then added another four directions and that was that – eight arrows representing all possibilities, one arrow representing the single, certain road of Law. I have since been told that it is an "ancient symbol of Chaos" and if it is then it confirms a lot of theories about the race mind. ... As far as I know the symbol, drawn by Jim Cawthorn, first appeared on an Elric cover of Science Fantasy in 1962, then later appeared in his first comic version of Stormbringer done by Savoy

None of which suggests GW should control the usage of the 8-pointed star, in spite of their claims to the contrary in the ongoing litigation.

But we're wandering afield again - the merits of the case aren't the topic for this thread.

After seeing the chaos codex where everything was contained within, with all the new wargear mainly just for the new stuff..

Yeah, rather disappointed.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Anyone who thinks "lower prices" will result from them losing this case is as out of touch with reality as GW's management team.

While I agree fully that the current management probably would not be able to comprehend that path forward - they are a publicly traded company and everyone of them serves at the behest of the stock holders. A large legal defeat would likely be enough to have the funds which have large holdings with the company to send in their representatives and clean house a bit.

Don't forget that a sizeable chunk of the company is owned by those currently running it, they only answer to themselves. That's also why it's misguided for people online to suggest that someone else could buy lots of shares to take some control of GW, those running the company own a lot of it, aren't selling and run it for their own profit. Some shares are held by investment companies, but those might also have been bought on behalf of GW execs, we can only see the proportion acquired under their own name. How many shares are in the hands of people who can make a difference? I'm going to guess, not a lot, certainly not enough for them to sweep in and demand GW bosses sort themselves out.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Anyone who thinks "lower prices" will result from them losing this case is as out of touch with reality as GW's management team.

While I agree fully that the current management probably would not be able to comprehend that path forward - they are a publicly traded company and everyone of them serves at the behest of the stock holders. A large legal defeat would likely be enough to have the funds which have large holdings with the company to send in their representatives and clean house a bit.

How many shares are in the hands of people who can make a difference? I'm going to guess, not a lot, certainly not enough for them to sweep in and demand GW bosses sort themselves out.

Between the 4 largest fund managers - they control roughly 50% of the company (Nomad, Investec, Phoenix and Polar). It takes a whole lot less than 50% to throw out the board and sort the company out.

They have to care enough first. Those funds manage a lot bigger fish than GW.