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 jah-joshua wrote:
i am not going to stop buying the work of sculptors who i respect immensely, simply because the company they work for is run by a few jackasses...

And that's totally your choice. But by buying that work, you're endorsing the behaviour of said jackasses.

 insaniak wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
i am not going to stop buying the work of sculptors who i respect immensely, simply because the company they work for is run by a few jackasses...

And that's totally your choice. But by buying that work, you're endorsing the behaviour of said jackasses.

and as i said before, i am fine with that...
you seemed to want to convince me that i shouldn't be, which is why i asked you, "what is the solution???"
it seems to me like there are two choices:

1. take the moral highground, and actually boycott GW's products completely

2. endorse jackassery

i have chosen option 2, because a boycott would mean giving up one of the great passions of my life, as well as my job, which is painting Adeptus Astartes models...

if their is a socially acceptable option that does not make me a hypocrite, allows me to paint what i like, and continue to earn a living, i am all ears...
there has been a lot of judgement presented in this thread, but not much in the way of solutions to the perceived problems with management's behavior...

cheers
jah

 thegreatchimp wrote:
On the subject of trademarks and intellectual properties, one daft move GW made is changing the names of their model ranges. I get for example that they want Astra Militarium to replace the term Imperial Guard, because God forbid they can't copyright "Imperial Guard" But ffs, if you're going to make a unique trademark name for something, at least make it reasonably fething prounouncable! not that I have a difficulty wrapping my tongue around a bit of latin (or pseudo-latin?) but I doubt your average 11 year old walking into the store for the first time does...

If I may, I find this goofy simply because if they can't trademark it, nobody else can either so it's safe for everyone, GW included!
Refusing to use something like that because you can't claim dibs on it and exclude everyone else seems really daft and almost childish. Quite simply nobody else could invalidate your right to use it if everyone's allowed to use it.
I would've laughed if they tried to solve it for SMs by calling them SPESS MAHREENS at all times like Boreale though, I must admit.

On a sidenote, I just know remembered something I though about GeeDubs. They seem to have a real Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde thing going on, one minute they're making awesome creative stuff, the next minute they're borderline-insane douche-balls, it's almost hilarious when you contrast the two, but very difficult and confusing for those who want to form an informed decision about them and are hit in the face with both sides of the coin. It's especially hard because you can't support one side while screwing over the other, since you can't just buy models and books straight from the artists and writers without the high-up tools' involvement (though that gave me the mental image of Matt Ward in a trenchcoat approaching people in a dark alley and being all like "Psst, want some Grey Knights?").

 jah-joshua wrote:

there has been a lot of judgement presented in this thread, but not much in the way of solutions to the perceived problems with management's behavior...

Ultimately, if the company won't listen to their customers (and this is a company whose boss quite proudly pointed out to the world that they do no market research) then yes, not buying their product is really the only way to get the message across that you're unhappy with their business direction.

That balance between how much you care about their business direction and how much you want their product is obviously going to be different for everyone... Although if you are making a living from GW's product, I would think that self-interest should leave you at least slightly interested in the company maintaining some level of health...

 jah-joshua wrote:
if their is a socially acceptable option that does not make me a hypocrite, allows me to paint what i like, and continue to earn a living, i am all ears...there has been a lot of judgement presented in this thread, but not much in the way of solutions to the perceived problems with management's behavior...cheers
jah

It is your job so sometimes a moral high ground tends to be less of an option.
Going to used models would work but makes too much work and customers may not like that.
You do not usually get entire armies so I think your boycott would mean little anyway.
But making other company's game figures look better would be a positive impact.

My purchases to GW are about 1/3 of what they were annually (monetarily) so considering the cost increases physical model count is less than half.
IK's do not count!

It would not be a forum thread without being a little judgmental, especially when you disagree with others.

GW sometimes makes product that is "worth it" to me with all that entails, it is less frequent however.

 insaniak wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:

there has been a lot of judgement presented in this thread, but not much in the way of solutions to the perceived problems with management's behavior...

Ultimately, if the company won't listen to their customers (and this is a company whose boss quite proudly pointed out to the world that they do no market research) then yes, not buying their product is really the only way to get the message across that you're unhappy with their business direction.

That balance between how much you care about their business direction and how much you want their product is obviously going to be different for everyone... Although if you are making a living from GW's product, I would think that self-interest should leave you at least slightly interested in the company maintaining some level of health...

of course i am interested in GW maintaining some level of health...
i have said it a few times in this thread, i do not want to see GW die...
i have also said that i have zero control over Kirby, Merritt, or any of the other execs, so i am not going to worry about it too much...

at the end of the day, i am not unhappy with their business direction, in that they still produce products that i think are awesome (like the new Dev. and Assault squads)...
my beef is with people telling me that i should be unhappy about it...
i can't get behind it, because i simply don't feel the outrage or disillusionment that others do...
the heart wants what the heart wants...

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:

i am not going to stop buying the work of sculptors who i respect immensely, simply because the company they work for is run by a few jackasses...

That's a sentiment I can relate to.

I googled "space marine" and got Hicks from Alien.

I tend to look out for the box set starters or more recently the marines and tyranids box as they are good value.
I dont play the game but like the models so now and then a larger model catches my eye too.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I googled "space marine" and got Hicks from Alien.

I tend to think of Alien(s), Starship Troopers, Halo, and 40k, without a significant level of deference to any of them.

CrashGordon94 wrote:
That's not an opinion, it's a simple moral fact..

I was going to argue, but then I remembered being an idealist 20 year old...

Best of luck, young man!

Ps. Terms like "moral fact" lead to ulcers.

 insaniak wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:

there has been a lot of judgement presented in this thread, but not much in the way of solutions to the perceived problems with management's behavior...

Ultimately, if the company won't listen to their customers (and this is a company whose boss quite proudly pointed out to the world that they do no market research) then yes, not buying their product is really the only way to get the message across that you're unhappy with their business direction.

That balance between how much you care about their business direction and how much you want their product is obviously going to be different for everyone... Although if you are making a living from GW's product, I would think that self-interest should leave you at least slightly interested in the company maintaining some level of health...

I'm not sure that there's anything left that I haven't said before, but in short I guess I just don't really care about how a business is managed (at all) unless they're doing something repulsive to humanity, like having little kids slave away for my toys. Hell, I buy electronics from companies that use Foxconn, so sadly my threshold there can't be supremely high either. But in this respect I do care.

I could give a rat's ass as to how they listen to me as an individual, how they treat their vendors, how they don't foster a community, or any of that kind of thing. If they don't make nice minis, if I find the game loses its entertainment value or if they're perceived as too expensive for me, I wont buy them. If they mistreat my FLGS too badly, they can stop selling GW.

At the moment (nor at ant time since the me 80s), none of this is true. I like their stuff, like their game, and while it ain't cheap, neither do I find 40k horribly expensive. My stores obviously like them enough to give the best product placement, whatever other misgivings they may have --though I think it's not nearly as bad as some horror stories, especially in Australia, that I read about here.

Why don't I care about how the company is managed, or whatever? Well, first of all, it doesn't really affect me, personally. I believe it's for players to form successful (local) communities anyways, and personally, I've never cared much for tournaments. Not that I have anything against them. Bust secondly, and more importantly, I don't have this standard for any other company of any size that I deal with. Not for cars, cell phones, computers, monitors, TVs, air conditioners, tennis rackets, skiis, soft drinks, fruit, house paint, video games, or RCs/drones. Why would miniatures be so different? Also, I don't expect every company to act the way they were when they were a 20 man small company when they become a hundred-million-dollar public company. It might be romantic, but t's just not realistic.

Now, if I lived in Australia, I admit a lot of this might be different. Among other things, the pricing seems almost like personal animosity towards the region, lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:

Ps. Terms like "moral fact" lead to ulcers.

Just like the one "true faith"?

@Azrael13: do you really think that it is daft for me to think hat an author might want to do a Google search of the words "Space Marine" when thinking of using that in the title of the book, even just to see whether the term is being used by an existing company, and know what they may be in for, or are you just trying to be argumentative???

@MWHistorian: when i Google "Space Marine" i get a whole page of GW links and pictures of Adeptus Astartes artwork, right up until a Gears of War dude pops up at the bottom of the page...

wasn't Hicks a Colonial Marine???

anyway, thanks for a fun afternoon guys, but i am done arguing for argument's sake...
since there really is no constructive truth to get down to, i'm out...
time to go paint some Space Marines...

cheers
jah

 Talys wrote:
Why don't I care about how the company is managed, or whatever? Well, first of all, it doesn't really affect me, personally.

GW's choice to price their toys as high-end collectibles affects everyone who buys them. Their decision to make so much of their range either limited edition or only available through their own webstore affects everyone who wants those products, and anyone who relies on an independant store that's lost a substantial portion of their sales to GW pulling the range out from under them. And their compulsive need for secrecy, their refusal to hire an editor, their refusal to support the resultant shoddy rulebooks with errata or FAQs, and their general drawing back from all engagement with their customers have all resulted in a shrinking pool of gamers ... which affects anyone who isn't just playing at home with friends.

So yes, it's possible that none of that affects you personally... but their actions most definitely do affect a lot of their customers.

 insaniak wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Why don't I care about how the company is managed, or whatever? Well, first of all, it doesn't really affect me, personally.

GW's choice to price their toys as high-end collectibles affects everyone who buys them. Their decision to make so much of their range either limited edition or only available through their own webstore affects everyone who wants those products, and anyone who relies on an independant store that's lost a substantial portion of their sales to GW pulling the range out from under them. And their compulsive need for secrecy, their refusal to hire an editor, their refusal to support the resultant shoddy rulebooks with errata or FAQs, and their general drawing back from all engagement with their customers have all resulted in a shrinking pool of gamers ... which affects anyone who isn't just playing at home with friends.

So yes, it's possible that none of that affects you personally... but their actions most definitely do affect a lot of their customers.

I think the limited run stuff really doesn't affect nearly as many real players as forums might have you think. I mean, really, how many people were actually going to buy a skyhammer set just to get the glossy? And that's probably the best bundle they've ever had -- most suck. All the LE codex are available to local stores on launch week, and almost everything else is available, just not stocked locally. To give you an idea there isn't one item on the web store in stock that my store can't get within about a week (normal orders = day after next). Local stores are welcome to stock web exclusive products -- one store here puts lots on the shelf -- but the problem is, the stuff moves so slow.

Yeah, I wish I got a void shield generator, but I'll live.

With regards to the rules and errata, that's TOTALLY different. If I thought the rules were unplayable or not fun to play, I'd stop buying them. I mean, that falls under product rather than management, IMO. The thing is, even though the rules aren't perfect, we have tons of fun playing the game, and we even have fun laughing at GW.

Like I said, in your neck of the woods, I'd probably consider them extraordinarily high priced toys too... here in North America, they just feel like adult or young adult priced toys. My wife has some collectibles (plates for instance) and I assure you, GW product doesn't even come close. Add a 20 hour paint job by a golden demon winner doing commission work, and you're in the range.

Also, I get it for other people disliking the product -- I just don't share the sentiment. I understand even why people dislike GW as a company; I just think there might be a bit of a double standard being applied. Not that anyone needs a reason to dislike a company anyhow.

 Talys wrote:
I think the limited run stuff really doesn't affect nearly as many real players as forums might have you think.

Some of it, certainly.

SOme of it is just pants on head stupid, though. Like making the redone Apocalypse blast markers a limited edition that sold out within minutes... which meant that anyone buying Apocalypse couldn't get blast markers for several months until GW made the old ones available again.

To give you an idea there isn't one item on the web store in stock that my store can't get within about a week

It's possible that things work differently in Canada, but what I've been told by other retailers is that there are two 'grades' of exclusive product. One can be special ordered (for a reduced margin). The other is only available through GW, and has at times included things like the Wave Serpent... you know, stuff that clearly isn't necessary to stock in store.

Regardless even if this stuff can be special ordered, having to order stuff in rather than having it on shelf costs stores sales.


Just for reference, there are currently 1056 items listed in the 40K section on the GW website. 395 of those items are listed as 'Webstore Exclusive'.

@insaniak - yeah, it seems a recurring theme that stuff is just damned hard to get in Australia, which is mind-boggling to me.

Of those Webstore Exclusives, there are a few that are pretty useful, like Skyshield, Fortress of Redemption, Shrine of the Aquilla, and Eldar Falcon. Then there are hundreds of crappy finecast and metal minis that stores have stuck on their shelves forever and ever. They can't hawk them at 50% clearance.

I do believe at least in part of that is a stocking/manufacturing issue, as I *just* bought (another) Skyshield, special order from my FLGS, and it came in a generic white box. My old one came in a nice pretty box with photography on it.

And yeah, some of the "limited run" stuff is totally slowed forecasting. I've missed out on stuff like that, too. Head scratcher, to me. And some weird items, like edge paints, and certain bases that I just think would be popular (and high enough margin) to spread around to various distribution centers.

 Talys wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:

there has been a lot of judgement presented in this thread, but not much in the way of solutions to the perceived problems with management's behavior...

Ultimately, if the company won't listen to their customers (and this is a company whose boss quite proudly pointed out to the world that they do no market research) then yes, not buying their product is really the only way to get the message across that you're unhappy with their business direction.

That balance between how much you care about their business direction and how much you want their product is obviously going to be different for everyone... Although if you are making a living from GW's product, I would think that self-interest should leave you at least slightly interested in the company maintaining some level of health...

I'm not sure that there's anything left that I haven't said before, but in short I guess I just don't really care about how a business is managed (at all) unless they're doing something repulsive to humanity, like having little kids slave away for my toys. Hell, I buy electronics from companies that use Foxconn, so sadly my threshold there can't be supremely high either. But in this respect I do care.

I could give a rat's ass as to how they listen to me as an individual, how they treat their vendors, how they don't foster a community, or any of that kind of thing. If they don't make nice minis, if I find the game loses its entertainment value or if they're perceived as too expensive for me, I wont buy them. If they mistreat my FLGS too badly, they can stop selling GW.

At the moment (nor at ant time since the me 80s), none of this is true. I like their stuff, like their game, and while it ain't cheap, neither do I find 40k horribly expensive. My stores obviously like them enough to give the best product placement, whatever other misgivings they may have --though I think it's not nearly as bad as some horror stories, especially in Australia, that I read about here.

Why don't I care about how the company is managed, or whatever? Well, first of all, it doesn't really affect me, personally. I believe it's for players to form successful (local) communities anyways, and personally, I've never cared much for tournaments. Not that I have anything against them. Bust secondly, and more importantly, I don't have this standard for any other company of any size that I deal with. Not for cars, cell phones, computers, monitors, TVs, air conditioners, tennis rackets, skiis, soft drinks, fruit, house paint, video games, or RCs/drones. Why would miniatures be so different? Also, I don't expect every company to act the way they were when they were a 20 man small company when they become a hundred-million-dollar public company. It might be romantic, but t's just not realistic.

Now, if I lived in Australia, I admit a lot of this might be different. Among other things, the pricing seems almost like personal animosity towards the region, lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:

Ps. Terms like "moral fact" lead to ulcers.

Just like the one "true faith"?

Completely agree with this. I don't "take a stand" against every company that does unethical things, if I did I wouldn't be able to buy any product from a big corporation, ever. And what they do is orders of magnitude worse than anything GW has ever done. They produce most of their stuff locally, contributing to the economy and providing jobs, and they don't have Indian factories where workers handle carcinogens without safety equipment, or make use of child labor... In that context, IP bullying and an donkey-cave chairman are pretty low on the list of things that would make me boycott a company. Obviously if I lived in Australia and had to pay those prices, I would tell them to go feth themselves

Now if I DID boycott them, the only thing that would happen for sure is that I would lose my favorite pastime, and see a lot less of a ton of people in my gaming group I enjoy seeing. What could theoretically happen in several years, if enough people follow my example, is that GW might change their ways... By which time I would have missed out on years of enjoyment.

Who would ever consider that trade off worth it?

 Azreal13 wrote:
the term "Space Marine" is so generic that any half intelligent person can probably surmise what it is simply from the name, and I bet, if asked to draw one, sight unseen, a good percentage of people with no prior knowledge would draw something with at least some elements that could be ported straight onto GW's version.

This is a stretch. You have Colonial Marines, from James Cameron, or you have Space Cadets by Robert Heinlein. The actual term space marine was mentioned in a couple of books, but nowhere in a title to my knowledge, not to the extent it represents a recognisable and familiar image or brand. If I had written a book called Harry Potter before JK Rowling I might have had legal recourse against her; but if I merely used the name in passing, of a minor character, then I wouldn't.

I think GW were stupid to launch the action, which damaged the company's reputation - it was a classic example of the Barbara Streisand effect.

He didn't say Space Marine was used before, just that it's such a generic term it's obvious that it refers to soldiers in space.

Ask any arty person you know that doesn't know about GW, to draw you a space marine, and see what you get.

The Harry Potter Analogy isn't a good one, that's using a specific fictional name. It's more like Aliens. You can't trademark the term "Aliens".


To highlight GW's incompetence/malice, they tried to bring down Spots The Space Marine using Amazons DMCA form - digital millenium COPYRIGHT act. So they abused a copyright law to prevent use of a generic term in a book based on a trademark complaint.

Mymearan wrote:

Completely agree with this. I don't "take a stand" against every company that does unethical things, if I did I wouldn't be able to buy any product from a big corporation, ever.

For myself, I don't really see it as 'taking a stand' so much as that all of the nonsense makes me value the brand less than I used to, and that (coupled with the price rises and the drop in the quality of the game itself) has resulted in me just not buying any more.

I'd like to. Some of GW's recent releases, model-wise, have been awesome.

I do not run around and tell everyone to stop buying their products at full price but of course everyone who does has my gratitude. At least, once they sell their stuff again, to me, for 70-50% of the price.

 kronk wrote:

CrashGordon94 wrote:
That's not an opinion, it's a simple moral fact..

I was going to argue, but then I remembered being an idealist 20 year old...

Best of luck, young man!

Ps. Terms like "moral fact" lead to ulcers.

I remember being a crusty old cynic at age 20. (Believe it or not, I was considering joining the priesthood....)

The Auld Grump

Yeah, this thread turned into Philosophy 101 in a hurry.

If my BA in Philosophy taught me anything, it's that wisdom is the art of asking better questions, not necessarily getting better answers. The greatest minds in human history haven't been able to really nail down morality, and I doubt anybody here has a magic elixer.

Regardless, social construct or universal absolute, subjective or objective, there are clearly moral guidelines that nearly all people of nearly every culture have agreed upon. And when viewing another person's actions, that's the best way to judge them. Hold yourself to your own standard, but holding any other person to your own standard is going to be tricky.

From my view, bullying is wrong. Bullying being defined as using a position of power to harass, intimidate, or coerce those weaker than yourself with no justification. GW has done a little bit of bullying, and that's probably not honorable,

That said, who cares? When I"m buying a product, I don't care about the moral nuances of its production or backstory. I buy diamonds and electronics, gasoline and clothing, all things that have moral price tags on them I can' even fathom. So why on earth would it bother me that the producer of my toys bullied an author of the dumbest sounding Sci-fi enovel ever?

All the stuff about GW being the evil empire, or complaints (no matter how justified) about prices actually detracts from the biggest reason people stop buying GW: they don't need anymore.

Sure, with a weakening rule set and rising prices, long time players may decide to bow out, but I have a simple guideline: nobody that is having fun with 40k leaves because of prices. If you leave, it's because you stoppped having fun, and it's too expensive to buy and stick on a shelf.

But the real reason you see buying taper off for veterans is simple: they have nearly everything they need! When you first your own place, you buy a ton of furniture. Maybe you buy more as you get a better job, or move to a bigger place, but at some point you have all the furniture you can use. 40k models are like that. Sure, you can buy more, but will you ever use it?

Now, GW could make more of an effort to produce a product that older players want, but that's a different story.

Personally I don't care about GW's morality etc. What I care about is that they have ruined a game I love, are charging a premium for terrible rules, and are attempting to gouge loyal customers wherever possible while doing nothing to support the hobby. This is why I stopped buying, and it cost them $1000+/year in revenue. These are the reasons 40k has effectively died locally and the general moral for 40k has plummeted and every and anyone is playing other games. 40k reigned supreme, no longer.

GW could sell small Codices with minimal fluff in paper back and electronically with full priced fluff version in hardcover.
GW could errata and update online codices for balance.
GW could write rules with even a modicum of concern for balance.
GW could write rules with a general idea of scale.
GW could stop competing against FLGS and work with them.
GW could stop their pay to win mentality and direction.

GW could do a lot of things that would have kept me happily paying them lots of my hard earned money, but they've done none of it and have effectively lost me and many like me as a customer.

I think Polonius pretty much has nailed it.

There may be a group of people who have continued to collect 40k stuff even though the new releases weren't the most exciting new toy ever, just because it fell into a comfortable price range, and then once it grew out of that, it's just "too expensive to buy and stick on a shelf".

I think that for anyone who's spending significant time modelling the miniatures and playing the game, the product just isn't that expensive -- compared to anything else you spend that much time on/with, and if someone "really loved it", they'd find a way. Just like similarly priced PP models, if they're into WMH. At some point, they'll get bored of that game (might be 15 years!), and then the next model that costs, in today's dollars, $40 (then, it might be $100 accounting for inflation), will just be a step too far.

To your point, Polonius, gasoline is a perfect example -- I'm not sure there's an oil company that I'd consider an "ethical" company, yet I gas up every week. It would be almost impossible for me to live in today's world using vendors and manufacturers whom I respect or like.

To Insaniak's point -- your issue is mostly with not liking the game in it's current state. I think if you loved one of their models a lot, and wanted to spend 20 or 30 hours (never mind a real competition piece, and spend hundreds of hours) to make a great Dominus, to take the most expensive model as an example, the price tag wouldn't be the such an influence. What kills it is that you see it as a game piece, for a game you don't really like all that much in its current form. Maybe enough to play if it were a cheap game, but not as a premium game.

On the other hand, I'd submit to you, within your budget, play a game and paint the minis you really like rather than the ones that are cheap, anyhow, because life is too short to do otherwise!

@Polonius:
Weren't we supposed to drop the moral discussion after Insaniak told us to? That's why I stopped after that post (which I left up because i was ninja'd and didn't see him until after I posted it).

Regardless, the point about not needing any more is a good one, and probably the reason why GW introduced some new sides (like the AdMech) recently.

 Polonius wrote:
When I"m buying a product, I don't care about the moral nuances of its production or backstory. I buy diamonds and electronics, gasoline and clothing, all things that have moral price tags on them I can' even fathom. So why on earth would it bother me that the producer of my toys bullied an author of the dumbest sounding Sci-fi enovel ever?

Now, GW could make more of an effort to produce a product that older players want, but that's a different story.

OTOH, Subaru is growing faster than any other OEM, based on "feel good" marketing and action (green factory, charitable contributions, etc.).

The question is what this homogenous bloc of older players wants and is willing to pay for.

 Talys wrote:
To Insaniak's point -- your issue is mostly with not liking the game in it's current state. .

Not really, no. That's a big part of it, certainly. And if GW were still the only company producing awesome miniatures, they may well still be getting some of my cash... But right now, there are miniatures that are just as fantastic being released by companies that aren't doing everything they can to convince me that they don't want my money. And so those other companies get my money instead.

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Azrael13: do you really think that it is daft for me to think hat an author might want to do a Google search of the words "Space Marine" when thinking of using that in the title of the book, even just to see whether the term is being used by an existing company, and know what they may be in for, or are you just trying to be argumentative???

@MWHistorian: when i Google "Space Marine" i get a whole page of GW links and pictures of Adeptus Astartes artwork, right up until a Gears of War dude pops up at the bottom of the page...

wasn't Hicks a Colonial Marine???

That's probably the result of you googling (on your hardware) for space marines and they anticipating that you are looking for GW space marines (due to trackers/search history), somebody else who has no connection to this hobby would get something totally different, probably really generic, and not related to any of this.