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.

Gw literaly brain washes staff, the young ones are like putty having never seen what a 90's gw store and staff were like..

you mean when it was all run by hobbyists and members of the old boys club who treated their stores as their personal fiefdoms and almost not a one of em knew what the concept of sales even was?

Man....people agreeing with me....that's different lol

As for you viper I do believe I quite clearly mentioned playing games being acceptable to so unless you are that guy who sits in the store all day with your used unpainted/mismatched models doing nothing but take up space you should be safe eh?

 Breotan wrote:
I don't know if he's really a white knight or not but he isn't wrong about what he said. People treating a GW store like a clubhouse to hang out at (loitering) are less likely to be welcome than paying customers or "regulars" who are there building and playing (thus advertising the game) on the open table.

Where does the OP in his post states that he was hanging around the store all day? In fact he very distinctly states that he was there for an arranged game with another player:

 MRPYM wrote:

I come into the store for a game against another dakkanite (this store was the only place he could go to). I see the manager and we banter for a bit, he then asks about what I am bringing, I say eldar and I have the new codex.

He then checks his computer and see's that I did not buy my codex from any GW store. He brings me aside and asks where I bought my codex. I tell him the truth.

After telling him the truth he goes into a speech about whether what I did was ethical. He says that what was I doing caused the closure of another GW I liked alot and that I have responsibility to make sure that his store stays open and that he keeps his job so he can feed his family.

PhantomViper wrote:

Where does the OP in his post states that he was hanging around the store all day? In fact he very distinctly states that he was there for an arranged game with another player:

He didn't state he'd been hanging around in the store all that particular day. But he'd been hanging around that store at various times, over a sequence of months in which he also exhibited some amusing clairvoyant skills. He even knew the manager was going to somehow mine his data before it happened. This shows a foresight on can only admire, eh?

Thread from a month ago:

 MRPYM wrote:
I ask because I am worried that my local GW will check thier records and see I did not buy any of my new eldar stuff from any gw store. After finding out ban me from the store.

My local GW manager has a history of threatening to kick me out of the store if I do not buy anything or game.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

Where does the OP in his post states that he was hanging around the store all day? In fact he very distinctly states that he was there for an arranged game with another player:

He didn't state he'd been hanging around in the store all that particular day. But he'd been hanging around that store at various times, over a sequence of months in which he also exhibited some amusing clairvoyant skills. He even knew the manager was going to somehow mine his data before it happened. This shows a foresight on can only admire, eh?

Thread from a month ago:

 MRPYM wrote:
I ask because I am worried that my local GW will check thier records and see I did not buy any of my new eldar stuff from any gw store. After finding out ban me from the store.

My local GW manager has a history of threatening to kick me out of the store if I do not buy anything or game.

So this is a recurring event and some sort of bad blood between this particular manager / client, got it.

MRPYM, why do you even go to that store any more? If any manager threatened to throw me out of their store, that would be the last time that I would set foot in there...

PhantomViper wrote:

So this is a recurring event and some sort of bad blood between this particular manager / client, got it.

MRPYM, why do you even go to that store any more? If any manager threatened to throw me out of their store, that would be the last time that I would set foot in there...

His stated reason is that it's the only nearby place to play that has a regular crowd of 40K gamers. Though perhaps this has changed, the story shifts often enough that it's difficult to tell.

 Raesvelg wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

So this is a recurring event and some sort of bad blood between this particular manager / client, got it.

MRPYM, why do you even go to that store any more? If any manager threatened to throw me out of their store, that would be the last time that I would set foot in there...

His stated reason is that it's the only nearby place to play that has a regular crowd of 40K gamers. Though perhaps this has changed, the story shifts often enough that it's difficult to tell.

But yet, he buys all his wargaming stuff at a FLGS across town he doesn't play at because they don't have good gaming.

All I can figure is he is getting some discount across town or something. If a GW store is where you play at, and they provide good gaming space, I can't see why you wouldn't buy at least 'some' stuff there. Buying nothing there ever but it being your primary/only gaming location makes no sense to me. Way to wear out your welcome and have nowhere to game.

 Raesvelg wrote:
Though perhaps this has changed, the story shifts often enough that it's difficult to tell.

He plays in the GW store because it has the best 40k games.

He doesn't play in the GW store but did this once to meet a friend.

He hasn't been in the GW store since October, or "for several months."

In June he worried the GW manager was getting suspicious of him.

He bought his stuff at the FLGS a month or so before he went into GW.

After going into the GW and being banned he has found a FLGS.

Actually, I'm sorry for the OP, as this sounds an upsetting experience, but I'm also sorry for the manager, 'cos he sure as hell must be confused. I know I am.

rustproof wrote:Gw literaly brain washes staff, the young ones are like putty having never seen what a 90's gw store and staff were like..

Orktavius wrote:you mean when it was all run by hobbyists and members of the old boys club who treated their stores as their personal fiefdoms and almost not a one of em knew what the concept of sales even was?

Umm... the 1990s was when GW exploded from a small importer of D&D products to dominate the UK game store market and then expanded to become a global company. It is the period that saw the largest percentage growth for GW year after year.

I remember the days, so far from the current...sigh

Rorschach9 wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:

 Raesvelg wrote:
I'm a little curious on how the GW guy checks all the GW stores myself. Or, for that matter, how he checked the OP's "account", since there's no compulsion to enter specific information if you're not special ordering something.

This particular bit of the story reeks of fabrication, to be honest. I mean, the manager might have had the guy's name and phone number for ordering purposes, but even if he had that information memorized (bizarre for a customer who apparently doesn't spend much money at the store, by the OP's account), it would be impossible for him to know if the OP hadn't just picked it up at another store without giving out that information, IF such a company-wide instantly-accessible database even exists.

When you first buy something at a GW you give your name, from that point on every single thing you buy in your country is recorded. All you need to do to look it up is type in the name and you have his entire ordering history. I worked at GW, its not hard, we did it all the time to help parents buy gifts for their kids on stuff they wanted.

I'd love to see them look up my entire order history .. I've never given my name (despite a half dozen purchases at the local GW myself in the past year) outside of my first name only (And good luck looking up an order history throughout the country based on nothing more than "James").

People keep saying this .. but ignoring the fact that unless the customer willingly gives the information (more than enough to ACTUALLY look up a particular person) it's just not probable (or even possible). It's entirely on the customer to give or withhold that information.

In any case .. this thread seems to be going in circles. I'm out.

You are ignoring several facts of how this.... issue... works. Not to mention, you didn't read through the link I provided. You don't have to "willingly" do anything anymore.
Companies have your information. They get it. You don't provide what you think you willingly give. Use a credit card? Go to the same store? Buy over the internet? People know you? You post on the internet? You buy particular products, and interact with the company?
Even in Canada... your being data farmed, get used to it.

GW's is pretty goddamn harmless with the data mining at least in Canada, they get your name, and record what you've bought from GW stores....that's about it.

Also Viper I never accused the OP of being someone who was just loitering, I commented on how many in the thread seem to think loitering in a GW store is perfectly acceptable.

The closest GW to me is in Kansas City. The few times I've been in there, the blackshirt has always been really nice to me, and I've only bought on a few occasions.

I just wanted to toss in that although I have had negative experiences in GW stores, the one that I frequent (in Burnaby, British Columbia Canada) has good staff that are knowlegable, helpful, and typically don't try to jam product down your throat.

I've come in many times to play and not purchased stuff. I also do buy things when it suits me. I'm not an "online only" sort of hobbist.

In either case, there are GW's that still "get it" and are still worth going to. I hope that people continue purchasing from these places (even though they ARE over priced, especially in Canada) so that we can keep this sort of store around.

For what it's worth (though there does seem to be some more complex things here). Anyone in the world has the right to file a Subject Access Request to a company in the UK under the Data Protection Act.

And, as Games Workshop is a UK company, I would imagine that they would even have to give you information that their oversees branches hold. In the current climate, I can imagine the UK government would come down like a tonne of bricks on any companies they have influence playing silly buggers about refusing requests.

Orktavius wrote:
Games Workshop, the only retail environment where a person can loiter the entire day in the store with poor hygiene, spending no money and doing nothing constructive and asking them to leave is a heinous crime.

You realize how foolish this statement is, don't you? I can go to Wal-Mart all day, just wandering the store, buying nothing. Nobody will tell me to get out. I've spent hours in Borders and Barnes and Noble buying nothing. Never told to leave. You could go to GameStop for hours, tell them you're trying to decide if you want something, demo things on the free consoles, buy nothing and later leave at your convenience. Toys R Us, same thing. Dick's Sporting Goods? Yeah, the same. If this is a current trend for GW, (and while others have claimed to see it, I have not) then they are one of the very few chain stores out there that would actually ask you to leave if you aren't contributing. And plenty of people go to game stores having decent hygiene. I realize you "amended" it in the rest of your statement, but the fact that you felt it was important enough to list means your amending of it is just to save face. Put your white armor in a closet somewhere-nobody is impressed when the logic is faulty and full of holes. Loitering may be illegal in some places, especially if you fall asleep in the middle of the floor, but if you're checking out products with no intent to buy but are just looking...most places find that totally acceptable. But don't let it stop you.

Actually if you went to a chain store persistently without buying anything you'd provably be banned. The average supermarket is also about a hundred times larger than a games workshop so there's that - two or three people in a supermarket are hardly getting in people's way, but in a tiny games workshop they certainly do. I have been dissuaded from browsing/buying games workshop because of the store being cluttered by regulars who don't buy anything and yes, have poor personal hygeine. But I'm just a paying customer so there's no reason a shop should prioritise me, right?

 Compel wrote:
For what it's worth (though there does seem to be some more complex things here). Anyone in the world has the right to file a Subject Access Request to a company in the UK under the Data Protection Act.

And, as Games Workshop is a UK company, I would imagine that they would even have to give you information that their oversees branches hold. In the current climate, I can imagine the UK government would come down like a tonne of bricks on any companies they have influence playing silly buggers about refusing requests.

Considering a GW store is usually a 1-man, low-traffic site with lots of repeat customers... the 'datamining' may be nothing more than the memory of the manager being able to remember the faces of 40-50 more-frequent customers and what they buy.

This is common for lots of industries... Bartenders have an uncanny knack for remembering 'regulars' and what they drink and being able to quickly get them their desired drink and ring it up with almost nothing more than waving as you walk in the door.

Being able to remember who is who and that guy who monopolizes tables and buys 'nothing' is pretty easy to do without a massive GW conspiracy machine.

 BryllCream wrote:
Actually if you went to a chain store persistently without buying anything you'd provably be banned. The average supermarket is also about a hundred times larger than a games workshop so there's that - two or three people in a supermarket are hardly getting in people's way, but in a tiny games workshop they certainly do. I have been dissuaded from browsing/buying games workshop because of the store being cluttered by regulars who don't buy anything and yes, have poor personal hygeine. But I'm just a paying customer so there's no reason a shop should prioritise me, right?

That's why I added places like Borders and Gamestop. I've gone into Borders a LOT while it was open without buying things-I'm a regular, I go in, browse, buy some other time. Regulars are trying to do this and getting the boot from certain GWs, as some members are posting. You shouldn't HAVE to buy every time you go-maybe you want to plan a purchase for later, and are looking for ideas without staring at a screen-you want to hold the product in your hand. That's a problem here. You'd have to be wearing blue armor to....oh. Never mind. Carry on.

Having known people that worked at GameStop, you should hear the things they say about the lurkers at the store.

Horrible, hysterical things. Same goes for your FLGS in some cases.

It can't be much worse than what GW management (allegedly) talk about all their customers.

lets face facts

GW created this mess. They give independant stockists the ability to sell cheaper, while giving their shops to way to really compete price wise. Yet give the managers (who are usually on their own) targets they must hit (along with bonuses to achive).

If this guy goes into a GW store and never buys from that store but yet he has bought loads from another outlet he has put money in the GW coffers. But since he isnt in anyway supporting his local store then the manager in my opinon has every right to tell the leecher to do one. Id make room in my store for a customer who supports it or even potentially will do rather than have someone who wont at all.

nkelsch wrote:

 Compel wrote:
For what it's worth (though there does seem to be some more complex things here). Anyone in the world has the right to file a Subject Access Request to a company in the UK under the Data Protection Act.

And, as Games Workshop is a UK company, I would imagine that they would even have to give you information that their oversees branches hold. In the current climate, I can imagine the UK government would come down like a tonne of bricks on any companies they have influence playing silly buggers about refusing requests.

Considering a GW store is usually a 1-man, low-traffic site with lots of repeat customers... the 'datamining' may be nothing more than the memory of the manager being able to remember the faces of 40-50 more-frequent customers and what they buy.

This is common for lots of industries... Bartenders have an uncanny knack for remembering 'regulars' and what they drink and being able to quickly get them their desired drink and ring it up with almost nothing more than waving as you walk in the door.

Being able to remember who is who and that guy who monopolizes tables and buys 'nothing' is pretty easy to do without a massive GW conspiracy machine.

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/jason.frand/teacher/technologies/palace/index.htm

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=3800003

- Where we will hold your information

The information we collect from you will be transferred to, and stored on, our servers in Lenton, Nottingham, England, and Annapolis, Maryland, United States of America. Your information may therefore be transferred to and stored at a destination outside the country in which you are resident. Your information may also be processed by staff who work for us, or for one of our suppliers, operating outside the country in which you are resident. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. By submitting your personal information, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing.

Contacting you

We may use your data to provide you with information about goods and services which may be of interest to you.

We will only contact you by electronic means (email or SMS) where you have consented to be contacted.

What to do if you do not want us to contact you

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes.

We will usually inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes.

You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by ticking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. You can change your mind at any time either to opt in or to opt out of receiving communications from us or third parties by contacting us using the contact details set out below.

We will use our reasonable endeavours to communicate with you according to the preferences that you share with us.

Contacting people who have opted out

In order to accurately maintain the information in our systems we may on occasions contact those customers who have asked us not to contact them to ensure that the information we hold is correct. This will normally be in the form of a letter or email, stating that our records indicate that they do not wish to be contacted by us and that we will not contact them unless they grant us their consent. It is important that we retain this right to ensure that we provide good customer service and accurately maintain our information.

What we do with your financial information

We will use your financial information to enable payment authorisation and billing. When you purchase any products from us, your consent is given to provide your financial information and personal information to those third parties necessary to process your transaction with us, such as credit card companies, banks and companies that handle delivery and shipping on our behalf. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk protection. We will not share your financial information with third parties without your consent for any other reason.

All financial information you provide to us is encrypted for security purposes.

Disclosure of your information

We may disclose your information to any member of our group which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company, and its subsidiaries.

We will not disclose your personal information to third parties with the exception of the following limited circumstances:

- In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective sellers or buyers of such business or assets.
- If we or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case the personal data held about customers will be one of the transferred assets.
- If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Terms of Website Use or Terms and Conditions of Sale; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Games Workshop Limited, its employees, or customers. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
- Such service providers as may from time to time assist us in engaging with you in the ways specified in this Privacy and Cookies Policy

In these circumstances we will use our reasonable endeavours to ensure your information is properly protected and processed under strictly controlled conditions and in accordance with current data protection legislation.

Your access to information

You have the right of access to, and to receive a copy of, information held about you. We are entitled to charge a fee of £10 to meet our administration costs in providing you with the information. Please contact us if you wish to see a copy of the information we hold and we will respond to you within 40 days of receiving your request.

If for any reason you are concerned that the personal information held by us is not correct, or you wish to have your name or information removed from our records, please contact us, and we will happily review, update, or remove information as appropriate.

Security

We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy and Cookies Policy. All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be encrypted. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online (e.g. on message boards, through e-mail, or in chat areas) that information can be collected and used by others.

Links

Our website may, from time to time, contain links to and from websites operated by individuals and companies over which we have no control. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy and terms of use policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

 Grot 6 wrote:





http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/jason.frand/teacher/technologies/palace/index.htm

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=3800003

- Where we will hold your information

And?

What does a website cookie privacy policy have to do with the OP being a non-customer mooch in his local store?

The Manager identified the OP as a worthless mooch not because of GW's cookie policy and internet datamining machine... it is because he never buys anything in the store... He didn't have a drastic spy network to deduce this...

The OP plays there frequently from what he posts in multiple troll threads... and he never buys there. A Manager is going to notice that without datamining. Once 'aware' he can easily spend the minor brain power to remember a pattern of a particular customer and then get pissy about it.

He doesn't need a massive GW datamining network to figure this one out.

There are no GW stores in my area (to my knowledge), but if their stores are now small, one-man enterprises, they should be treated as what they are - a sales counter. You go there only when you want to buy something, and no other time. They are not apparently interested in providing gamers with a place to play games with their products, in the same way a bodega is not going to provide seating for people who are buying beverages, snacks and newspapers in their store. You buy what you came to the store to buy, and you leave afterwards.

Expecting them to operate as something they are not even set up to operate as would be silly. Sure, the manager might have been brusk with you and could probably stand to be reminded that customers remember and tell others about bad sales experiences much more vigorously than good experiences, but you are also attempting to use his storefront for something that it is not equipped or intended to do. It's his call and his discretion whether you play there, or even if you are a welcome guest at his store.

Also, if GW stores are selling at full retail while other stores are selling at discounts, I can't imagine how they are going to sustain their business. Most people in today's economic climate are probably looking to support their hobby in the most affordable way possible, especially keeping in mind the price creep of GW products. GW might be banking on their expertise in their own products to get people into the hobby, but store loyalty only goes so far when it becomes a question of being unable to continue a hobby because of prohibitive costs, especially when you become aware of discounts that you could be making use of in other stores.

At this point it would appear that GW storefronts are serving as gateway introductions to their products and not really much more - especially considering that GW must still be making a goodly profit selling to FLGS and other retailers, who still make profit selling GW products to their customers at a markdown.

Bottom line though - If you've been going to a store to play and not been dropping money there, you aught not be playing at that store. Go play somewhere else, especially considering that a GW store might not be set up for accommodating games there. And yeah, if you're going to play at a shop a lot, drop them some money every now and then to let them know that you aren't some freeloader who'll happily use their space without giving them anything in return. That's just common decency.

I would just write a letter of complaint to Games workshop detailing what the manager said to you and why you are unhappy. I think his behaviour is absolutely unacceptable, its not like you downloaded a pirated copy of the eldar codex and printed it out and brought it into the store. Likely this probably hasn't been his first complaint.

Although I absolutely detest most of GW prices (ie 30 dollars for a single independent character, really?) I have always found their store staff at least in the Ottawa Bayshore mall really good, even to the point that one of their staff members has inspected the few finecast models I have bought for problems before letting me leave the store with them lol.

overtninja wrote:
There are no GW stores in my area (to my knowledge).

Psh, you don't need a GW in Albany: you have George's place on Central Ave. Best game store I've been in, tons of product, regular 25% off sales, and the guys there know the games they sell. Definitely no need for a GW with him there. It's called Zombie Planet, if you aren't already a regular.

Grunt22 wrote:
I would just write a letter of complaint to Games workshop detailing what the manager said to you and why you are unhappy. I think his behaviour is absolutely unacceptable, its not like you downloaded a pirated copy of the eldar codex and printed it out and brought it into the store. Likely this probably hasn't been his first complaint.

Although I absolutely detest most of GW prices (ie 30 dollars for a single independent character, really?) I have always found their store staff at least in the Ottawa Bayshore mall really good, even to the point that one of their staff members has inspected the few finecast models I have bought for problems before letting me leave the store with them lol.

Heh, that's funny.

They aren't doing that to help you, I know a few guys that are in black shirts and they get you to open them that way you cannot return them and impact their average sale numbers. If they do that all the way in Ottawa that tells me its a taught trick by either the trainer or was covered in a manager meeting

PhantomViper wrote:
So this is a recurring event and some sort of bad blood between this particular manager / client, got it.

Or it could be the poster is willfully lying. It would not be the first time.