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 jonolikespie wrote:


*Slow clap*

They are really killing themselves with their attitude towards social media. But to be fair I guess they can't really embrace it without completley changing their public image.

This is why white knighting GW just makes people look stupid.

I cannot fathom how ridiculous this is. It's like a schoolyard bully has gotten hold of the reins and is now flailing about.

Deleting their Facebook page smacks of nothing but petulance.

Wow.... Dear GW, hire ONE GUY with a marketing degree and listen to what he tells you. Bloody hell.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Wow.... Dear GW, hire ONE GUY with a marketing degree and listen to what he tells you. Bloody hell.

Sadly that's not how they operate... they'd rather hire one guy with a beautifully painted Ultramarines army and a marketing GCSE, and then if he ever tells them to do anything useful or sensible, they'll sack him for not fitting in to the corporate culture.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Wow.... Dear GW, hire ONE GUY with a marketing degree and listen to what he tells you. Bloody hell.

Sadly that's not how they operate... they'd rather hire one guy with a beautifully painted Ultramarines army and a marketing GCSE, and then if he ever tells them to do anything useful or sensible, they'll sack him for not fitting in to the corporate culture.

I swear for a bunch of greedy gits, you'd almost think GW hates money...

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Ian Sturrock wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Wow.... Dear GW, hire ONE GUY with a marketing degree and listen to what he tells you. Bloody hell.

Sadly that's not how they operate... they'd rather hire one guy with a beautifully painted Ultramarines army and a marketing GCSE, and then if he ever tells them to do anything useful or sensible, they'll sack him for not fitting in to the corporate culture.

I swear for a bunch of greedy gits, you'd almost think GW hates money...

I really am boggled by their behavior sometimes.

Hell, if BP America can maintain their Facebook page through and beyond the Deepwater Horizon debacle, then Games Workshop can keep theirs going. Why aren't they filling it with 'Oooh Shiny!' to distract people? Lots of beauty shots of new WoC models should be the order of the day instead of taking it down in a fit.

Without a doubt they love money hence the yearly price increase. It's their methods which are suspect.

 Sidstyler wrote:
You know, you'd think a smart business would get wise after a while...when your public image is so bad that any time you poke your head outside your "fortress wall", you're met with such hatred and scorn that it sends you scurrying back inside in retreat of the mob, you'd think someone over there at GW would look at all that mess and say "Gee, this might be a problem. We should fix this."

LOL NOPE

But OTOH, it's no different from any other company dominating their respective field. McDonalds goes nuts in very public fashion every time any product or service with the letters "M" and "C" in the name appears somewhere, and they get incredible hate for it. Yet they seem to do just fine. And if you think GW is ridiculous in their attempt to own up "Space Marine", I might remind people that Facebook has tried to trademark word "book".

Backfire wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
You know, you'd think a smart business would get wise after a while...when your public image is so bad that any time you poke your head outside your "fortress wall", you're met with such hatred and scorn that it sends you scurrying back inside in retreat of the mob, you'd think someone over there at GW would look at all that mess and say "Gee, this might be a problem. We should fix this."

LOL NOPE

But OTOH, it's no different from any other company dominating their respective field. McDonalds goes nuts in very public fashion every time any product or service with the letters "M" and "C" in the name appears somewhere, and they get incredible hate for it. Yet they seem to do just fine. And if you think GW is ridiculous in their attempt to own up "Space Marine", I might remind people that Facebook has tried to trademark word "book".

Nope, that's completely different. GW owns Space Marine TM for games and such, and then decided that because they publish books that they now own a common law TM for Space Marine in literature. McDonald's didn't say, oh, hey we make food for people, so since our employees and customer are people are TM extends to them through common law usage, and now we'll lobby the government to remove anyone with the last name McDonald.

Plus wasn't Facebook's TM'ing of 'book' the same thing that GW did - just SAY they own it, without actually trying to register it? (as the Chapterhouse case is now revealing that GW doesn't actually own most/all of it's trademarks)

According to the GW twitter feed, of their Facebook page they say...

Our website Servitors will soon be conducting some 'essential site maintenance' - that means they'll be hitting... http://t.co/CAOrL0e3

And later on...

Well, folks, the website is still down for maintenance. Clearly some of you haven't been chanting the litanies... http://t.co/1fqf9bNe

So just down for maintenance, not removing the huge number of critical comments being left about them or preventing more going up.

 judgedoug wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
You know, you'd think a smart business would get wise after a while...when your public image is so bad that any time you poke your head outside your "fortress wall", you're met with such hatred and scorn that it sends you scurrying back inside in retreat of the mob, you'd think someone over there at GW would look at all that mess and say "Gee, this might be a problem. We should fix this."

LOL NOPE

But OTOH, it's no different from any other company dominating their respective field. McDonalds goes nuts in very public fashion every time any product or service with the letters "M" and "C" in the name appears somewhere, and they get incredible hate for it. Yet they seem to do just fine. And if you think GW is ridiculous in their attempt to own up "Space Marine", I might remind people that Facebook has tried to trademark word "book".

Nope, that's completely different. GW owns Space Marine TM for games and such, and then decided that because they publish books that they now own a common law TM for Space Marine in literature. McDonald's didn't say, oh, hey we make food for people, so since our employees and customer are people are TM extends to them through common law usage, and now we'll lobby the government to remove anyone with the last name McDonald.

Plus wasn't Facebook's TM'ing of 'book' the same thing that GW did - just SAY they own it, without actually trying to register it? (as the Chapterhouse case is now revealing that GW doesn't actually own most/all of it's trademarks)

Refresher for those who might not have noticed that GW isn't alone in being dumb...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/facebook-asserts-trademark-on-word-book-in-new-user-agreement/

...but like your mother probably told you, just because everyone else is jumping off a cliff - doesn't mean you should too. Same goes for McDonalds for that matter too (and dozens of other companies). Trademark, copyright and patent laws have been abused by companies for decades. Usually the only ones who are capable of actually attempting a defense against the abuses are those who have a vested interest in not trying to change the way in which the laws are administered...so more often than not, they end up coming to mutually beneficial agreements. Most the cases which actually are litigated exist on the periphery and have little long term impact on the way laws are written or enforced.

That was the posts about working on the actual GW website a couple of days ago. That fb thing was just likely a cross post/link thingy to their facebook account.

I'm pretty sure GW doesn't actually do anything remotely involving 'maintenance' of their facebook page. And you don't delete a facebook account if you're just redesigning it.

Someone should open there own GW facebook page. After all facebook says anything posted on there site they can use, all the pic GW used should on FB should now be able to be posted by others on facebook with no problem, as they have all ready been giving to facebook by GW. Atleast by facebooks own rules, love to see that one go to court GW vs. Facebook.

Facebook is as hated as GW. Not sure how that absolves either company from its virtual sins.

The national and local GW facebook pages are still online, just saying folks
Oh, and https://www.facebook.com/gamesworkshopofficial is now free for everyone to register

 judgedoug wrote:

Backfire wrote:

But OTOH, it's no different from any other company dominating their respective field. McDonalds goes nuts in very public fashion every time any product or service with the letters "M" and "C" in the name appears somewhere, and they get incredible hate for it. Yet they seem to do just fine. And if you think GW is ridiculous in their attempt to own up "Space Marine", I might remind people that Facebook has tried to trademark word "book".

Nope, that's completely different. GW owns Space Marine TM for games and such, and then decided that because they publish books that they now own a common law TM for Space Marine in literature. McDonald's didn't say, oh, hey we make food for people, so since our employees and customer are people are TM extends to them through common law usage, and now we'll lobby the government to remove anyone with the last name McDonald.

GW specifically stated (in their now removed Facebook page) that they do not claim ownership of the term "space marine" in general usage, for example in body of prose. As for McDonald's, yes they do try to extend their ownership of "McSomething" trademark outside food industry.

Backfire wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

Backfire wrote:

But OTOH, it's no different from any other company dominating their respective field. McDonalds goes nuts in very public fashion every time any product or service with the letters "M" and "C" in the name appears somewhere, and they get incredible hate for it. Yet they seem to do just fine. And if you think GW is ridiculous in their attempt to own up "Space Marine", I might remind people that Facebook has tried to trademark word "book".

Nope, that's completely different. GW owns Space Marine TM for games and such, and then decided that because they publish books that they now own a common law TM for Space Marine in literature. McDonald's didn't say, oh, hey we make food for people, so since our employees and customer are people are TM extends to them through common law usage, and now we'll lobby the government to remove anyone with the last name McDonald.

GW specifically stated (in their now removed Facebook page) that they do not claim ownership of the term "space marine" in general usage, for example in body of prose. As for McDonald's, yes they do try to extend their ownership of "McSomething" trademark outside food industry.

Here is the bigger issue though - they only have a pair of unmatched prosthetic legs to stand on with specific useage, for example as the title of a product. It has been used in the nomenclature of goods sold (yes - even miniatures) since 1977 (FanTac - Space Marines, Asgard Miniatures - Space Marines...).

The mark is also descriptive, which greatly limits it's protectability. If I were to make sci-fi marines (in or out of power armor) a reasonable name for them would in fact be Space Marine miniatures. It describes their purpose and function. It would be like Yellow Jacket attempting to trademark the term "Extension Cord" - yes...it is what they sell, but that term already has meaning.

They do have the right to protect it regarding specific packaging and things like the font and display methods to avoid confusion between GW products and a potential competitor.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Wow.... Dear GW, hire ONE GUY with a marketing degree and listen to what he tells you. Bloody hell.

Sadly that's not how they operate... they'd rather hire one guy with a beautifully painted Ultramarines army and a marketing GCSE, and then if he ever tells them to do anything useful or sensible, they'll sack him for not fitting in to the corporate culture.

Actually you are still wrong, they would rather hire one guy that allows Tom Kirby to do "things" to him in a dank and dirty back alley than have any meaningful PR and ad campaigns.

[quote=Howard A Treesong

 Lanceradvanced wrote:
[quote=Howard A Treesong

So just down for maintenance, not removing the huge number of critical comments being left about them or preventing more going up.

Sod writing books, I'm gonna change my name to Space marine, let them try and sue me!!!!!

They shut it down obviously to hide while it blows over, GW are nortorious for that, they are still waiting for the internet to blow over.

Of course they are doing surprisingly well considering what they have done and how the internet has reacted. The internet is slipping if they can't take down a little thing like GW.

This debacle is actually making bbc now, and since GW looks,so,bad in this this is bad publicity. Maybe they could,advertise their point, like a FB page or something....

 Harriticus wrote:
This debacle is actually making bbc now, and since GW looks,so,bad in this this is bad publicity. Maybe they could,advertise their point, like a FB page or something....

I suppose next, Tom Kirby will be so distraught over the whole affair, he'll take hostages and barricade himself inside Bugman's Bar.

The whole thing ends in tragedy when police negotiators arrive, but he refuses to say a word to them - he simply glared, and turned away until they left.

More than likely "Kirby" in that situation will be a loyal white knight here from Dakka acting as a body double. The real Kirby will be at his estate, enjoying his millions he's already pulled out of the company.

everytime I see the name Tom Kirby, I think of the adorable-pink Kirby in a suit...or Pierre Kirby from American Commando 2

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
everytime I see the name Tom Kirby, I think of the adorable-pink Kirby in a suit...or Pierre Kirby from American Commando 2

I can see him devouring everything set out before him. Definitely not far fetched.

 Harriticus wrote:
This debacle is actually making bbc now, and since GW looks,so,bad in this this is bad publicity. Maybe they could,advertise their point, like a FB page or something....

There is no such thing as "bad publicity".