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weeble1000 wrote:

GW raising prices is frustrating, the company's willingness to alienate fans and customers is baffling and seems counterproductive, but GW is willing to engage in questionable and predatory business practices, and its management is motivated by greed, hatred, paranoia, and vindictiveness.

Good grief.

Given some of your recent posts argued that making Space Marines heroic glorifies racism and xenophobia, that a store using that Hatred rule against unpainted models promotes bullying and hazing... it's hard to conclude anything other that you're constructing your own little dystopian universe, one with less connection to reality than 40k.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

GW raising prices is frustrating, the company's willingness to alienate fans and customers is baffling and seems counterproductive, but GW is willing to engage in questionable and predatory business practices, and its management is motivated by greed, hatred, paranoia, and vindictiveness.

Good grief.

Given some of your recent posts argued that making Space Marines heroic glorifies racism and xenophobia, that a store using that Hatred rule against unpainted models promotes bullying and hazing... it's hard to conclude anything other that you're constructing your own little dystopian universe, one with less connection to reality than 40k.

One has naught to do with the other, really. I think the fluff has gone in a whitewashed direction that is creepy in its apparent glorification of a universe that was originally intended to be sharp criticism of society. I am not alone in that view by a long shot. There's nothing deliberately wrong or evil about that. It is just lazy people writing 40K crap to appeal to a younger audience without bothering to consider the underlying meaning of what they are doing.

And that shop, that thread had a Hell of a lot more to do with people plainly incapable of understanding a simple point, as if I thought that plastic miniatures hated me for realizes. I could barely care less about that policy, which I plainly stated multiple times in that thread. I did not agree with it, and on an academic level, as a person who studies human behavior and psychology for a living, I found the particular choices of wording to be interesting. It absolutely amounted to a subtle form of hazing, but again, that does not make it deliberate, evil, or even a big deal.

The way GW treats indy stores, that's a big deal. The way GW abuses the legal system to bully individuals for no coherent reason, that's a big deal too. The way Alan Merrett treats the people around him, that's not a big deal in and of itself, but it does mean that I personally think he's a horrible person. Anyone who behaves like he does deserves no respect.

The point is that it is one thing to dislike and disagree with the polices and practices of a company, and another thing to discover that the people making decisions at that company are individually not very nice people. One does not necessarily follow from the other, but in GW's case, because the company so highly values loyalty and conformity, the people who are successful at GW long term don't really need to be nice people with a strong moral compass. They just need to do whatever Tom Kirby says, never disagree, and never ask questions.

More significantly, that means it is clown shoes over at GW HQ. GW is managed by a group of people who have been with the company for 20+ years, and who have survived by kissing . They don't seem to trust each other, and most of them were promoted to their level of ineptitude long ago.

Why is Andy Jones Head of Legal and Licensing? The man has no relevant experience. Why is Alan Merrett Director of Intellectual Property? It is a vanity title. The man does not understand the differences between a copyright and a trademark and a patent. He understands nothing cogent about intellectual property, and that's a fact. Go read his depositions. So why is that his job? It is his job because GW values his ability to shut up, do what he's told to do, and ruthlessly stay on message more than his relevant qualifications. It is no real surprise that GW is flailing around.

There are people working for GW that are not GW insiders. The accountants, the lawyers, the people who have to have some actual qualifications to do what they do. Those people are probably the ones keeping GW afloat along with the company's massive size relative to the market and huge amount of momentum. The folks in management aint helping.

Here's a project for you: get the name of a GW employee in a management position at GW. Go find that person's Linked In page and check the list of previous jobs. Ten to one you will find that the person started out in some unskilled, minimum wage, entry level position at GW: working in the factory, working in the call center, entering data, etc. etc. Then watch as that person slowly rises through the ranks of GW, bouncing from job to job until they finally land in some sort of incongruous management position. Promoting from within is laudable, but GW does it for the wrong reasons.

weeble1000 wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

GW raising prices is frustrating, the company's willingness to alienate fans and customers is baffling and seems counterproductive, but GW is willing to engage in questionable and predatory business practices, and its management is motivated by greed, hatred, paranoia, and vindictiveness.

Good grief.

Given some of your recent posts argued that making Space Marines heroic glorifies racism and xenophobia, that a store using that Hatred rule against unpainted models promotes bullying and hazing... it's hard to conclude anything other that you're constructing your own little dystopian universe, one with less connection to reality than 40k.

One has naught to do with the other, really. I think the fluff has gone in a whitewashed direction that is creepy in its apparent glorification of a universe that was originally intended to be sharp criticism of society. I am not alone in that view by a long shot. There's nothing deliberately wrong or evil about that. It is just lazy people writing 40K crap to appeal to a younger audience without bothering to consider the underlying meaning of what they are doing.

And that shop, that thread had a Hell of a lot more to do with people plainly incapable of understanding a simple point, as if I thought that plastic miniatures hated me for realizes. I could barely care less about that policy, which I plainly stated multiple times in that thread. I did not agree with it, and on an academic level, as a person who studies human behavior and psychology for a living, I found the particular choices of wording to be interesting. It absolutely amounted to a subtle form of hazing, but again, that does not make it deliberate, evil, or even a big deal.

The way GW treats indy stores, that's a big deal. The way GW abuses the legal system to bully individuals for no coherent reason, that's a big deal too. The way Alan Merrett treats the people around him, that's not a big deal in and of itself, but it does mean that I personally think he's a horrible person. Anyone who behaves like he does deserves no respect.

The point is that it is one thing to dislike and disagree with the polices and practices of a company, and another thing to discover that the people making decisions at that company are individually not very nice people. One does not necessarily follow from the other, but in GW's case, because the company so highly values loyalty and conformity, the people who are successful at GW long term don't really need to be nice people with a strong moral compass. They just need to do whatever Tom Kirby says, never disagree, and never ask questions.

More significantly, that means it is clown shoes over at GW HQ. GW is managed by a group of people who have been with the company for 20+ years, and who have survived by kissing . They don't seem to trust each other, and most of them were promoted to their level of ineptitude long ago.

Why is Andy Jones Head of Legal and Licensing? The man has no relevant experience. Why is Alan Merrett Director of Intellectual Property? It is a vanity title. The man does not understand the differences between a copyright and a trademark and a patent. He understands nothing cogent about intellectual property, and that's a fact. Go read his depositions. So why is that his job? It is his job because GW values his ability to shut up, do what he's told to do, and ruthlessly stay on message more than his relevant qualifications. It is no real surprise that GW is flailing around.

There are people working for GW that are not GW insiders. The accountants, the lawyers, the people who have to have some actual qualifications to do what they do. Those people are probably the ones keeping GW afloat along with the company's massive size relative to the market and huge amount of momentum. The folks in management aint helping.

Here's a project for you: get the name of a GW employee in a management position at GW. Go find that person's Linked In page and check the list of previous jobs. Ten to one you will find that the person started out in some unskilled, minimum wage, entry level position at GW: working in the factory, working in the call center, entering data, etc. etc. Then watch as that person slowly rises through the ranks of GW, bouncing from job to job until they finally land in some sort of incongruous management position. Promoting from within is laudable, but GW does it for the wrong reasons.

Exalted.

To paraphrase a certain infamous promo from pro wrestler CM Punk with obviously a few bits changed to incorporate GW.

"GW make money despite themselves. They are a million pound company that should be a billion pound company. You know why they're not a billion pound company? It's because they surround themselves with glad-handing, nonsensical donkeycave yes men who are going to tell upper management everything they want to hear..."

That just reverberates so much with me. I've also seen comparisons of The IoM being a metaphor for GW, which is shockingly apt IMO. Every time I read it more and more of it rings true with each passing day.