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Yeah, it's looking like only Gothic is really gonna suffer on the model front. You can find figs for Necromunda and Mordheim pretty much anywhere and more and more companies are making suitable stand-in's for Epic.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:
This is a good little article on why GW is in trouble: http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.ca/2013/05/how-can-you-tell-when-business-is-in.html

Except that he completely misses the point on the Faeit issue. The problem was not that the published the photos. The problem is that they published the photos prior to the release date of the magazine.

The irony is strong in this one...

I'm not the only one who's been speculating that GW may be up for sale:

http://blog.spikeybits.com/2013/05/drop-it-like-its-hot-gw-killing-special.html

I really wish someone who cares takes over that nuthouse.

Kirby and company, just go away.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Yeah, it's looking like only Gothic is really gonna suffer on the model front. You can find figs for Necromunda and Mordheim pretty much anywhere and more and more companies are making suitable stand-in's for Epic.

There are lots of suitable ships for Gothic on Shapeways. I imagine more will spring up to meet the demand.

Do you have any links?

Right now, I'm just trying to figure out how to kitbash IoM and SM forces out of Empire shields and Ravenwing sprues.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Do you have any links?

Right now, I'm just trying to figure out how to kitbash IoM and SM forces out of Empire shields and Ravenwing sprues.

I just go to shapeways and search for "space ship"

Just found these

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/grimdarkbits <-- lots of BFG suitable stuff







Gothic Space Station
http://www.shapeways.com/model/69167/gothic-space-station.html?li=productBox-search

I'd use this one for Tau

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/objects?s=0§ion=Spaceships

The Grimdark guys is the only one who makes a suitable cruiser and even then it's only one. The rest of the ships are escort or smaller or fighter stands. I hope other stuff starts to pop up soon

Thanks!

I just ordered that cruiser. I was hoping for more, or at least more affordable, options. Maybe the mangozac guy will step up.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:
This is a good little article on why GW is in trouble: http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.ca/2013/05/how-can-you-tell-when-business-is-in.html

Except that he completely misses the point on the Faeit issue. The problem was not that the published the photos. The problem is that they published the photos prior to the release date of the magazine.

While I'm glad you read my article, I really don't think I missed the point, maybe you missed the point of my article, if so I guess it's my bad writing to blame. So what if faeit or Natfka (the author) published the article before GW got a chance to published the pic's on their website first? Because that's what GW always do. The pictures appear on their website before White Dwarf is out any way. They harm the value of White Dwarf themselves. So what's the big problem? They have a leak, scary, well sort the leak because they're going to keep leaking to others. What they going to do? Ban the Internet, I know they'd like to do that. The bigger question is why the hell do GW care about a small Blog? Seriously, nobody has been able to explain that too me. Everyone talks about the legality, the principle of the thing, who was in the right, who was in the wrong. Sure, I guess in some academic sort of way it's an interesting debate, but it totally misses the salient points for me. Ultimately it doesn't really matter does it?

No. The far more interesting and indeed pertinent question is... why did GW care? And why did they pursue it?

Loss of revenue? Oh come on please, that's really not likely. Damage to product image? Nope again highly unlikely. Or is it just yet again a further example of a company that is far too paranoid, unwilling to communicate with it's customers and that hates not being in total control of everything? I'll come back to it again, why did GW care about a small Blog, that not many people will have heard of. Hell the people who buy White Dwarf are highly unlikely to be the people looking at Blogs any way. Then there's the question of why go after small fry when bigger fry have leaked stuff in the past? Or were they controlled leaks? The whole thing seems a bit petty, and smacks of somebody who has had their nose knocked out of place. Yet again though it is indicative of a company that is out of touch with how the rest of the world works, and its customers. It shows a mentality and a mind set that is hardly conducive to cordial relations with their customer base. All in all it wasn't a wise move for them. What have they accomplished? Seriously, they need to sack their PR team and sack their legal team... especially their legal team. How many times have they had their backsides handed to them on a plate over legal issues recently? The company needs an attitude adjustment.

 Hulksmash wrote:
The Grimdark guys is the only one who makes a suitable cruiser and even then it's only one. The rest of the ships are escort or smaller or fighter stands. I hope other stuff starts to pop up soon

There is loads of GW compatible stuff on Shapeways, unfortunately, most of it is obscured with cryptic descriptions to prevent GW from discovering them.

That's what I found with 5 minutes of looking.

You might want to try contacting the artist and letting him know GW is abandoning BFG and then suggest something more in line with what you're looking for.

 Compel wrote:
I think "preparing for sale" as a result of the senior management choosing to retire is a far more likely explanation than, "oh GW is going out of business!"

It still doesn't make anything less sucky for us though.

If they want to sell the business, they will need to push their sales up and keep them up that way for 5 - 7 years because most companies sell for a multiple of their last 3 - 5 years average net income. If your company has sharp increases and decreases in both profit or revenues, the buyer will just expand the time frame or perform a more thorough due dilligence. if they were looking more at the short term to inflate their sale price, your due dilligence work should catch that and would alter your sales price. It should be interesting to read their next set of financials, as i would expect to see a discontinued operations foot note related to discontinuing an operating segment. Their income statement should breakout their revenues and costs for this segment.

Nobody would want to buy a billion dollar company if it wasn't making money. Then again, nobody would want to sell a company that was making money hand over foot.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:
This is a good little article on why GW is in trouble: http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.ca/2013/05/how-can-you-tell-when-business-is-in.html

Except that he completely misses the point on the Faeit issue. The problem was not that the published the photos. The problem is that they published the photos prior to the release date of the magazine.

The irony is strong in this one...

Yes Obi Wan Grimtuff,... your humble Padawan, Adam LongWalker feels that the Irony is very strong

If it gets sold it would be to one of the big American toy companies...

This is something I'd mentioned in the CHS lawsuit thread, they may be cutting all the specialist games as legal fall out. Since all the the specialist stuff was created in the UK they may only have a protected copyright lifespan of 15 years (if they are ruled as design rights). All of the various specialist games are right on that 15 year bubble. So they may be slashing all the games due to the difficulty of maintaining a proper grip on the IP for those lines.

Had they properly registered those lines in the US they'd be granted protection for between 90-120 years under the current laws. It makes sense that they might opt to sandbag the specialst lines to avoid any legal issues. While the US is a major source of sales a lot of long time community members feel that GW really only cares about how they do domestically within the UK, which influences the majority of their business decisions. If they lose the rights to those games due to expired registrations there's no push for them to keep supporting those games.

I also suspect that they are pruning their lines to preparation to make the company a more sales worthy product should they choose to dice up the company for sale to an outside investor.


I do find it odd that they'd axe the lines simply because tye are a low maitenance revenue stream. the sculpts and models were all paid for ages ago so any sales of those items are pure income (minus labor). The cost for spin casting those models is very low and they also further up their profit margin by having them as direct only which means they don't have dsitributors or LGS taking a cut of it. You could easily have just 1-2 people as dedicated specialist games casters/packers and likely be able to supply the entire demand for those lines. To me that indicates that there is another factor (like the IP situation) that is behind the decision to axe the lines.



.

 adamsouza wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
The Grimdark guys is the only one who makes a suitable cruiser and even then it's only one. The rest of the ships are escort or smaller or fighter stands. I hope other stuff starts to pop up soon

There is loads of GW compatible stuff on Shapeways, unfortunately, most of it is obscured with cryptic descriptions to prevent GW from discovering them.

That's what I found with 5 minutes of looking.

You might want to try contacting the artist and letting him know GW is abandoning BFG and then suggest something more in line with what you're looking for.

I know with Epic that are several, very high quality sculptors out there making stuff. You won't find it on an internet shop (they might not last very long if they did, even with GW having stopping supporting the game) but asking around on the forums can put you in contact with them.

I haven't ever been so into BFG, but I'm sure that game is probably in a similar situation? (i.e. sniff out a BFG fan-site, look at some people's galleries and then send some PMs?)

Thanks for the insight Paulson.

If the copyright is expiring as you say, hilarity will ensue !!

Blood Bowl, Necromunda, and Gothic would be fair game.

The possibilities are endless

The copyright issue would likely only impact the UK, however sicne all they seem to care about is the UK homefront... it'd make sense why they are abandoning those lines.

In the US they could try to hold the line and put up a fight over the copyright, however since it was likely a trademark registered under UK law prior to the US there may be underlying technicalities that might invalidate the US marks, as international rights can only be applied if they are deemed valid in the native cournty of orgin. It hasn't been much of a concern prior to this point as GW has always likened their IP castle and moat as being un-assailable, but that is only because they haven't been put to the test by any real legal firms.

The CHS case while still undecided (at this point) is showing there is a large potential for those IP walls to be a lot weaker than what they had so arrogantly assumed. There's a lot of major holes potentially being punched in their ownership claims and even if they win the case the prospect of having a weakened stance has them freaked out. Youc an only make bold claims about something being invincable until it's put to the test, and in many cases it can end up like the titanic, bold claims of being unsinkable are usually flat out wrong.

They've gotten by for years on threats and bully tactics which have worked as they had the school kids all cowed, but now that they are getting their nose a bit bloody they are starting to question that strength and confidence a lot. I think that the specialist lines getting dumped is a sign of much heavier internal issues at play. There are a lot of cost cutting choices being made right now that indicate the company is floundering to stay afloat and while they may keep the ship from sinking today, a lot of their current strategies are cutting into long term survival and we're going to see them slipping very heavily in the years to come.


Not saying for certain it's tied to the 15 year design rights window but it may well be a factor. (on top of floundering sales)



.

 paulson games wrote:
This is something I'd mentioned in the CHS lawsuit thread, they may be cutting all the specialist games as legal fall out. Since all the the specialist stuff was created in the UK they may only have a protected copyright lifespan of 15 years (if they are ruled as design rights). All of the various specialist games are right on that 15 year bubble. So they may be slashing all the games due to the difficulty of maintaining a proper grip on the IP for those lines.

Now waiting for the Space Marine IP to run out

 Kroothawk wrote:

Now waiting for the Space Marine IP to run out

Which is why I'll have my bucket of popcorn ready for the CHS trial.

The marine IP I'm sure they will prop up with as much legal firepower as possible as it's the cornerstone of their business. The specialist stuff they can likely afford to wash their hands of as it'd be preferable vs the legal costs of defending those. Marines however they need to fight for if they are to stay alive as a company. The trail may have some potentially huge implications for the future of GW, the ramifications of which I don't think were on their mind at the time they started picking that fight.

 paulson games wrote:
The marine IP I'm sure they will prop up with as much legal firepower as possible as it's the cornerstone of their business.

For a lawyer it might make sense to close Games Workshop, if GW can't prove their IP on "Space Marine". Only in the real world it doesn't matter. Never did. Heck before the CHS lawsuit, noone even cared, that's why GW can't find any documents on that.

Has there been an official announcement from GW or Forge World, other than emails from customers' questions?

 kronk wrote:
Has there been an official announcement from GW or Forge World, other than emails from customers' questions?

Proof? Nah, just a lot of people freaking out over (potentially) nothing. Of course, simply dropping something without an announcement would seem GW's style, so who knows. That said, I did a little falling skies myself and picked up a bunch.

I asked at my local GW and was told by the manager that yes it's offical and some of the stuff is already completely gone. The timing really stinks as we just started a Mordheim league. :(

 Mick A wrote:
If it gets sold it would be to one of the big American toy companies...

I really hope Hasbro buys GW if they go up for sale. I feel they would revitalize the hobby and usher in a new era for it. They've done it with MtG, they also would be king of the nerds. Magic, D&D and Fantasy/40k...

For those who play Mordheim(or wish to) there are still a few good forums and sites that are alive and well(most in the EU) with TONS of PDF's including official and unofficial rules and supplements.

My Mordheim folder is a good few GB in size, and has a ton of files.

Google is your friend here, for rules at the very least.

 kronk wrote:
Has there been an official announcement from GW or Forge World, other than emails from customers' questions?

You mean other than half the models being dicontinued in the last week?

I see a lot that say " Availability: No Longer Available" which means sold out. Not necessarily discontinued, though.

What I'm asking is, did an official "We aren't doing this anymore" announcement get released?

 kronk wrote:
I see a lot that say " Availability: No Longer Available" which means sold out. Not necessarily discontinued, though.

What I'm asking is, did an official "We aren't doing this anymore" announcement get released?

"Not currently available" would denote sold out.

"No longer available" denotes a permanency of unavailability.


I can't think of a time where GW had something show as not in stock that wasn't a discontinued item. Generally speaking, they take out of stock items off the site until they have more(Death from the Skies).

I'll refer to this page:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/armySubUnitCats.jsp?catId=cat500012a&rootCatGameStyle=specialist-games

The page exists, but the Mordheim box is long gone. Removed entirely.

And there are a good number of items gone entirely from the Mordheim range already that were there a few months ago.

No official announcement. But several of the orders I put in this week had items that are either a) out of stock and due to be in at a "later" date or marked obsolete. A lot of the Specialist stuff has been marked Obsolete in those emails.

My guess is if the mold is over 10 years old it's out (metal wise). If the mold is newer they might do another production run on the items that sold as a result of things being pulled and then drop get rid of the molds once the sales die down but even that isn't likely.

Basically GW is closing up shop on SG. That said the Epic community is pretty huge for online support, same with Necromunda, Mordheim, and Bloodbowl. The weakest online presence seems to have been for BFG and that's probably mostly because it was a pretty well self contained game with all models for it available.