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There was a video title from Arch about this 3 or so weeks ago (obviously didn't watch the video, cause well... it's Arch, it just popped up on my suggestion) and I thought he was chatting bubbles over-reacting... No doubt his cult are part of a boycott.

Getting away from that point though, I think it is interesting, also, I wouldn't put it past just a sales slow down because people are back at work, and so don't have as much time to hobby, my spending on GW has vastly decreased again due to not having time to work on stuff.

I dunno anything about a boycott, but I can say that Killteam and BT didn't sell out, in fact the BT box was briefly up on the GW sale page yesterday. Octarius still available everywhere. I dunno about the Ork release but I'm going to assume that didn't sell out either since the rest of the statement is false.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
There was a video title from Arch about this 3 or so weeks ago (obviously didn't watch the video, cause well... it's Arch, it just popped up on my suggestion) and I thought he was chatting bubbles over-reacting... No doubt his cult are part of a boycott.

Never thought i'd see Arch and Sigmarxism agree on something.

JWBS wrote:
I dunno anything about a boycott, but I can say that Killteam and BT didn't sell out, in fact the BT box was briefly up on the GW sale page yesterday. Octarius still available everywhere. I dunno about the Ork release but I'm going to assume that didn't sell out either since the rest of the statement is false.

It's actually a little interesting that Octarius isn't up on the sales page as we know there is a mini Octarius coming out as the Kill Team starter set - I suppose that whilst it may not have sold out, they must not have a large amount.

Dominion really hasn't sold well though has it... GW have really really pushed AoS but it just isn't 40k or a derivative of it that sells so well. Great models in Dominion as well, but maybe the Sigmarines are not the hot item GW wants them to be so badly.

If only they would have over ordered Cursed City.

In regards to the BT box, there have been third parties selling it as low as £85 this week... Low model 'army' boxes where every model is not new is also a problem. There's been plenty of redemptors on the UK buy, sell and trade pages on fb this week... They should have done the box set without the dreadnought for £75 and I think it would have sold out no problem.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:

JWBS wrote:
I dunno anything about a boycott, but I can say that Killteam and BT didn't sell out, in fact the BT box was briefly up on the GW sale page yesterday. Octarius still available everywhere. I dunno about the Ork release but I'm going to assume that didn't sell out either since the rest of the statement is false.

It's actually a little interesting that Octarius isn't up on the sales page as we know there is a mini Octarius coming out as the Kill Team starter set.

Dominion really hasn't sold well though has it... GW have really really pushed AoS but it just isn't 40k or a derivative of it that sells so well. Great models in Dominion as well, but maybe the Sigmarines are not the hot item GW wants them to be so badly.

If only they would have over ordered Cursed City...

Yeah Dominion took like, actual weeks to sell out.
And given the fact GW designs the things to sell out as fast as possible and makes as few of them as possible...

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

caladancid wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

caladancid wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

caladancid wrote:
If you don't think the rules are meant to be different, and support a different set of actions by GW, then why did they bother spending the time to edit and change them?

Because they wanted to re-word the entire document - both the friendlier guidelines section, and the infringement section - to use more succinct, shorter wording rather than the paragraphs and unnecessary length of the original? That much should be pretty obvious by just looking at the two versions and how more briefly worded. You've said it's "proven not true" though, so please go ahead and prove how that doesn't say what it says, like you claimed?

One set of guidelines says you need a license for video games, apps, movies and animations, the other says you need a license for video games, apps, movies and "anything else", I'm curious to see just what you think the "different rules" are there that means somehow the former doesn't allow animations but the latter does.

I honestly for a moment could not tell if you were just trolling. The quotes you have quite literally do not say the word animations. You can argue that they meant it, but they did not SAY it, until the revisions. And I am not an IP lawyer so I don't know how strictly courts interpret those notices, but apparently GW felt they needed to clarify. And, after the clarification, they began enforcement.

So claiming that it has always said what it said now, and means the same thing, and that GW isn't enforcing this stuff is verifiably not true.

Animations were not allowed before. The only way you could think they were allowed is if you, for some strange reason, think that they don't count as "anything else that you will be distributing using Games Workshop’s IP ". The new version outright saying "animation" rather than "anything else" doesn't change that they'd be covered under that term.

GW HQ Circa Summer 2021---

Exec- "Hey James, with COVID shipping and Brexit going so great, can we finally start working on those to-do items that have been hanging around?"

James Workshop- "Now that is a great idea. We do have the extra manpower just hanging around."

Exec- "I was thinking maybe this small little document we have had in place for the better part of a decade. I keep meaning to get around to it, but its so meaningless that it keeps getting forgotten."

James- "Let's do it. What is it, the font on the webpage or what?"

Exec- "No its the IP section, we don't intend to ever use it, but why not just change the wording on everything?"

James- "Yes excellent idea. It isn't like IP law is an extremely complicated section of the law that has its own separate bar exam. This is such a low priority, get the intern on it. Anything they add will be meaningless anyway!"

Exec- "What could go wrong?"

Quite absurd that you're now having to resort to making up your own imaginary stories rather than trying to actually argue why animations were allowed under those guidelines before and for some strange reason don't come under "anything else that you will be distributing using Games Workshop’s IP ", you'd think that wouldn't be too difficult if it's been "proven".

The argument isn’t that they were allowed but that they were loosely enforced. GW intimidated content creators that have been producing content that the fan base cherished because they thought it would cut their bottom line and some that didn’t understand where they fell in all of this (like if the emp had a talk to text device) assumed that GW would come after them. It was likely not a priority despite the noticeable fan lash back and instead played the victim proclaiming that such indie content developers might kill 40k in a PSA... the big bad billionaires might get hurt by some dude launching 40k content independently and demonetized on YouTube in flash animations... there was a wave of crack downs as some of these indie developers got a wave of cease and desists...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I keep going back to it but the magical thing about the IP that GW purchased was that it was allowed to be owned by the fans. And they keep gutting that, progressively chipping away and proclaiming “only GW owns this universe and you will play within the confines of what GW says is OK.”

Boycott lmao. Please.

Like every store here in my area sells out continuously and the events are still just as packed.

What boycott?

macluvin wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

caladancid wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

caladancid wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

caladancid wrote:
If you don't think the rules are meant to be different, and support a different set of actions by GW, then why did they bother spending the time to edit and change them?

Because they wanted to re-word the entire document - both the friendlier guidelines section, and the infringement section - to use more succinct, shorter wording rather than the paragraphs and unnecessary length of the original? That much should be pretty obvious by just looking at the two versions and how more briefly worded. You've said it's "proven not true" though, so please go ahead and prove how that doesn't say what it says, like you claimed?

One set of guidelines says you need a license for video games, apps, movies and animations, the other says you need a license for video games, apps, movies and "anything else", I'm curious to see just what you think the "different rules" are there that means somehow the former doesn't allow animations but the latter does.

I honestly for a moment could not tell if you were just trolling. The quotes you have quite literally do not say the word animations. You can argue that they meant it, but they did not SAY it, until the revisions. And I am not an IP lawyer so I don't know how strictly courts interpret those notices, but apparently GW felt they needed to clarify. And, after the clarification, they began enforcement.

So claiming that it has always said what it said now, and means the same thing, and that GW isn't enforcing this stuff is verifiably not true.

Animations were not allowed before. The only way you could think they were allowed is if you, for some strange reason, think that they don't count as "anything else that you will be distributing using Games Workshop’s IP ". The new version outright saying "animation" rather than "anything else" doesn't change that they'd be covered under that term.

GW HQ Circa Summer 2021---

Exec- "Hey James, with COVID shipping and Brexit going so great, can we finally start working on those to-do items that have been hanging around?"

James Workshop- "Now that is a great idea. We do have the extra manpower just hanging around."

Exec- "I was thinking maybe this small little document we have had in place for the better part of a decade. I keep meaning to get around to it, but its so meaningless that it keeps getting forgotten."

James- "Let's do it. What is it, the font on the webpage or what?"

Exec- "No its the IP section, we don't intend to ever use it, but why not just change the wording on everything?"

James- "Yes excellent idea. It isn't like IP law is an extremely complicated section of the law that has its own separate bar exam. This is such a low priority, get the intern on it. Anything they add will be meaningless anyway!"

Exec- "What could go wrong?"

Quite absurd that you're now having to resort to making up your own imaginary stories rather than trying to actually argue why animations were allowed under those guidelines before and for some strange reason don't come under "anything else that you will be distributing using Games Workshop’s IP ", you'd think that wouldn't be too difficult if it's been "proven".

The argument isn’t that they were allowed but that they were loosely enforced. GW intimidated content creators that have been producing content that the fan base cherished because they thought it would cut their bottom line and some that didn’t understand where they fell in all of this (like if the emp had a talk to text device) assumed that GW would come after them. It was likely not a priority despite the noticeable fan lash back and instead played the victim proclaiming that such indie content developers might kill 40k in a PSA... the big bad billionaires might get hurt by some dude launching 40k content independently and demonetized on YouTube in flash animations... there was a wave of crack downs as some of these indie developers got a wave of cease and desists...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I keep going back to it but the magical thing about the IP that GW purchased was that it was allowed to be owned by the fans. And they keep gutting that, progressively chipping away and proclaiming “only GW owns this universe and you will play within the confines of what GW says is OK.”

I don't remember anyone who got a cease and desist recently, who was that? And what do you mean by "IP that GW purchased"?

You can't just use someone elses IP to do whatever you like without their permission.

My take on this.

First the reports say that Gw has had considerable growth over the last five years.
This has likely been a result of
a) no fething Kirby
b) Covid lockdown and people collecting armies as something to do.

This would raise GW from an underperformer to a more competent performer, but in doing so caused a bubble in its own market.

Now Covid lockdown is mostly over, and around the same time Warhammer + appeared alongside some rather predatory practices. GW is retuning to old form, so might share value regress also? it makes sense for an investment bank to allocate analyst staff to finding out.

Business analysts might not be interested if marines are OP or Tau are unplayable. They might however take interest in a predatory T&C that they can read for themselves and see as a sign of management inflexibility.
Also the boycott has not hit stores it has hit Warhammer +, which itself has been a financial failure and has hit market interest via YouTube.

It should also be noted that Jeffries claimns in the articles to have sent its analysts around the fan forums. It is likely whoever researched their view of Games Workshop for them came here amongst other places. We have not been silent and a fair few or us are intelligent and eloquent enough to string together an opinion. Many here have pledged to reduce spending on GW products, and some stated where else their hobby money would go. Some vocalised an intention to carry on as normal. Normally this would not reach the ears of market analysts, but Jeffries decided to quietly canvass online opinions for market stability data.

Yes some people will talk boycott then fold and buy Black Templars, but others won't. Increased interest in non-GW product and 3d printing will likely not have been overlooked and the share price has fallen due to lost sales. Jeffries wanted to know why so they could better inform their investors. Disgruntled clientelle is something business analysts look for, and these people are professional likely to do their job. I strongly suspect the analysts spent time here and on Warseer and other major GW based websites and read not only recent commentary and counted likes and hits but also went back a few months na years to get the zeitgeist of changing opinions.

I think it is highly plausible for Jeffries to issue warnings, citing loss of customer confidence and loss of fan based support via content creators being shut down. The latter is a direct shot to own foot with regards to market reach and traditional third party advertising, which are phenomena that analysts would look for.

Remember that comments that players will come crawling back are no less vacous than comments of players claiming they have given up on GW for good. Give these analysts some credit, they can read between the lines on angry forums posts, and they will also read the fluent input from grown ups inbetween the triggered txtspeak.. in is certainly arguable GW has lost some customer confidence recently, lost market goodwill and reduced their own online footprint for accessing new potential customers with their content creator policies. Plausible conclusions can be gleaned from this data and the bank may wish provide investors with information to help them speculate on investments in GW stock.

We shouldn't use the availability of the KT starter as a deciding factor on sales here. Remember, they promised everyone who preordered would get one, that's very different than other limited sets that disappear and never return.

Actually that is a fair point; no cease and desists actually have been served. The IP guidelines also isn’t really a legal document as much as it is advice for staying out of GW’s legal team’s crosshairs. However, updating them to include a niche occupied by the fans was enough to scare such content creators as the creators of If the Emperor had a text to speech device off, which is a parody and thus protected under fair use. Which doesn’t really mean anything when frivolous suits can economically ruin anyone that can’t afford costly court and lawyer fees regardless of exactly how right or wrong they are...

Anyways, the right thing to do would have been to explain that at least in that instance fair use applies because it was a parody. It also would have been nice to get a wink wink nudge nudge “by the way we aren’t interested in prosecuting demonetized usage of our IP and fan productions as long as you explain that it is unofficial and give us credit but technically we can.” If they choose not to encourage fair use of their IP then they absolutely deserve to suffer whatever losses are incurred.

As I've said though, animations were already something covered under the previous guidelines by the "anything else that you will be distributing using Games Workshop’s IP". This situation appears to be the result of some people not having read the guidelines in the first place and suddenly finding out about them because of the update or because of the change from "anything else" to "animation" having lead to a mix of hyperbole, misinformation and misinterpretations over the guidelines even though what's allowed is the same. That in combination with them offering animators jobs has been interpreted as GW suddenly trying to stop fan animations overall even though they haven't been doing that at all. The things covered by the guidelines were the same and the re-wording wasn't a change limited to just that infringement stuff either, which means the article was simply re-worded to make them more succinct and clear, not anything like "They changed it just so they could start going after animators!" like some imply, and those offered jobs said GW were perfectly reasonable. They've not cease and desisted anyone (Not that I know of) just because they've made an animation and the few that were taken down were for things like having used a significant amount of copyrighted music or were taken down by the creators for other reasons. I totally get why some are scared, and i certainly don't think GW is without fault in lots of other ways, but unless there's something that I've just entirely missed, so far they haven't actually done anything bad in this situation. They've reworded a set of guidelines but what is and isn't allowed hasn't changed, and they've hired some animators, but even those who refused were still allowed to carry on.

As for the "parody" thing though, that seems to be quite a common misconception as that's not quite how it works from what I've read of it, It isn't as simple as "This is a parody" and that's that, you can still make an infringing parody. In UK law, "fair dealing" isn't something that has a set criteria but is determined on a case-by-case basis only after legal action is taken to look into if it actually meets "fair dealing" or not. The exemptions allowed are for a limited use of copyright material, you can't just use whatever you want and however much you want.

Parodies are protected under fair use because of the nature of parodies; they are criticisms of often protected works. Trying to get a license to make fun of somebody else's IP can be incredibly difficult if not impossible, but criticism is generally allowed. TTS very clearly brought up some fair criticisms in fair fun.

Also of note is that we are in different countries with different IP laws; criticism is a fundamental value of the first amendment in our bill of rights of our constitution and we do have different IP laws. Parodies in essence are arguably our fundamental right to make.

The grey area is how flip floppity interpretations of fair use and the application of the first ammendment tends to be; court cases can have inconsistent outcomes and IP law is one of the most complex monstrosities out there. Many subject matter experts have been saying for a while that IP laws are way too strong and need to be relaxed. You can be entirely in the right and have an iron clad case for yourself but if you do not have the money to hire a ridiculously expensive lawyer to make that case and the cash to pay intentionally expensive court fees to get in a court in the first place frivolous lawsuits can financially ruin you for life. Such a court case would be referred to as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). Flexing muscles knowing that someone could technically be in the right legally speaking but still pretty much financially pay like they are not is something people can rightfully be very weary of, especially if the guidelines are trying to discourage fair use of their IP. Fair use is a fundamental right that has been diminished under decades of strengthening IP laws and IP laws have long overstepped their bounds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(I mean primarily in my country; I barely understand IP law in America let alone british or international IP law.)

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
We shouldn't use the availability of the KT starter as a deciding factor on sales here. Remember, they promised everyone who preordered would get one, that's very different than other limited sets that disappear and never return.

Fair point, though the real question is, does the guarantee help, or hinder sales? Are more people relaxed at the lack of FOMO, and thus take more time to consider the purchase and then decide against it?

However, content of boxes is also a factor, as popular as DKoK are, some people wouldn't buy Octarius due to how expensive it was as a buy in to get them (even though in hindsight it seems a fairly good deal compared to the latest KT box), Dominion was obviously not the right mix of models - the Orruks seem to have split opinion with their aesthetic and the sigmarines whilst nice models, don't seem allll that different to what has come before to the untrained eye. The inclusion of Tau might hurt the latest KT box sales. I've detailed the potential issues with the BT box above...

I think we will see less army boxes next year, and I think starter sets or setting boxes etc will be far more considered in terms of content.

The share price of companies rises and falls based on speculation and confidence of the market.

We'll have to wait for a profit statement before judging whether a boycott has had an effect or not.

Even then, could any reduction in profit also be a natural effect of COVID isolations ending and people going back to work?

This is probably nothing to do with boycotts or limited edition sets selling out and more to do with GW returning to it pre-8th 40k era ways with messy rules, high prices and just general anti-consumer dickery.

 Orlanth wrote:
My take on this.

Spoiler:

First the reports say that Gw has had considerable growth over the last five years.
This has likely been a result of
a) no fething Kirby
b) Covid lockdown and people collecting armies as something to do.

This would raise GW from an underperformer to a more competent performer, but in doing so caused a bubble in its own market.

Now Covid lockdown is mostly over, and around the same time Warhammer + appeared alongside some rather predatory practices. GW is retuning to old form, so might share value regress also? it makes sense for an investment bank to allocate analyst staff to finding out.

Business analysts might not be interested if marines are OP or Tau are unplayable. They might however take interest in a predatory T&C that they can read for themselves and see as a sign of management inflexibility.
Also the boycott has not hit stores it has hit Warhammer +, which itself has been a financial failure and has hit market interest via YouTube.

It should also be noted that Jeffries claimns in the articles to have sent its analysts around the fan forums. It is likely whoever researched their view of Games Workshop for them came here amongst other places. We have not been silent and a fair few or us are intelligent and eloquent enough to string together an opinion. Many here have pledged to reduce spending on GW products, and some stated where else their hobby money would go. Some vocalised an intention to carry on as normal. Normally this would not reach the ears of market analysts, but Jeffries decided to quietly canvass online opinions for market stability data.

Yes some people will talk boycott then fold and buy Black Templars, but others won't. Increased interest in non-GW product and 3d printing will likely not have been overlooked and the share price has fallen due to lost sales. Jeffries wanted to know why so they could better inform their investors. Disgruntled clientelle is something business analysts look for, and these people are professional likely to do their job. I strongly suspect the analysts spent time here and on Warseer and other major GW based websites and read not only recent commentary and counted likes and hits but also went back a few months na years to get the zeitgeist of changing opinions.

I think it is highly plausible for Jeffries to issue warnings, citing loss of customer confidence and loss of fan based support via content creators being shut down. The latter is a direct shot to own foot with regards to market reach and traditional third party advertising, which are phenomena that analysts would look for.

Remember that comments that players will come crawling back are no less vacous than comments of players claiming they have given up on GW for good. Give these analysts some credit, they can read between the lines on angry forums posts, and they will also read the fluent input from grown ups inbetween the triggered txtspeak.. in is certainly arguable GW has lost some customer confidence recently, lost market goodwill and reduced their own online footprint for accessing new potential customers with their content creator policies. Plausible conclusions can be gleaned from this data and the bank may wish provide investors with information to help them speculate on investments in GW stock.

What boycott?

there is none and share prices have nothing to do what is going on on the customer side of the market

people are selling their shares with the end of Lockdowns, while long term investors don't want to buy at the highest price, and the share price drops, mystery solved


that latest GW sales are not as good as they could be?
well, GW always tries to get their one working business model from 40k, to work with every other game and community

making Stormcast the Marines of AoS and try to push them into sales does not work as they are not that iconic and don't buy them just because there is a "new hat" like with Marines
having again Stormcast in the core box together with Orks with a complete new style and the potential customers are just a fraction of the players

Kill Team hindered itself with strange rule gimmicks that turned people off while at the same time promised that the models are going to be released stand alone, so no hype buying out from those that wanted just the models, at the same time no hype from the KT players who just bought an expensive box for the old game that is now worthless

and as we still don't know if the expanded team rules for the special box teams will be available outside the box, the game does not pick up very fast as people this time are going the "wait and see" route instead of instand buy



GW is testing waters at the same time they try to milk the existing customers and have to deal with a changing stock market while the part of the community that is upset is much better organized via youtube as it was the last time GW's special community interaction caused trouble