Dark Elves, Games Workshop and Beasts of War

October 5, 2013 11 Comments

Censorship Stinks

If and when you reading the title of this post, you’re asking yourself what the hell this is all about?

Well, to be fair, this blog post will most likely be a bit of rambling without a point or structure. Just what’s going through my head, misusing my blog as a personal soap-box for a day.

It’s a strange mix of issues, so please bear with me!

#1 – Beasts of War & Wayland Games Part Ways

For a start, the hobby-portal and YouTube giants of Beasts of War came out with a statement yesterday explaining why they haven’t covered Games Workshop games in a while.

I’d urge you to read the full story on Beasts of War. In a nutshell, they’ve been bullied by Games Workshop legal for the past few years for covering Games Workshop products.

It’s clearly only one side of the story. You don’t need to root for Beasts of War unconditionally.

It is not 100% implausible (tough improbable) that Wayland sought a partnership with a site like Beasts of War, at least in parts, to wiggle around some of the contractual obligations they signed with Games Workshop in the first place. Anything’s possible. Yet even if (!) that were the case, the requirements from GW still strike me as idiotic.

In the end, it’s still worth reading though!

The particulars of the three-way dispute between Beasts of War, Wayland Games and Games Workshop don’t really apply to your regular ol’ “non-business” blog such as this one, but the basics still remain: Games Workshop still seem over-eager to send out nasty legal letters!

Over the past two and a bit years, Beasts of War have received a number of missives from Games Workshop’s legal team (Even one including a request to remove every video containing a GW product).

The difficulty with legal letters, is they cost us a lot of money every time we get one, you could easily pay five hundred to a thousand pounds just to get an appropriate solicitor to read it and give you some advice on how to respond! So they really do take their toll on a small business.

As said, the specifics of the issues Beasts of War has with Games Workshop (as a result of their alliance with Wayland Games) don’t apply to my blog.

Likewise, the specifics of the issues … to name another prominent example … Faeit212 had (has?) with Games Workshop (as a consequence of being stuck on a piece of internet-property rented from Google, rather than owing his own server-space), don’t apply to my blog.

Games Workshop, however, seems awfully creative in finding ways to mess with people’s stuff. I never received any letters or phone calls from Games Workshop, but I certainly don’t want to either.

Independently of the specifics of these two cases, these things always leave me wondering what I would be allowed to post (if anything at all) if I truly sought 100% Games Workshop compliance?

 #2 – Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves Released

Which brings me to the other “news” of the day.

It’s Saturday, and Games Workshop is launching a new line of miniatures and a new Army Book for Warhammer Fantasy Battle: Dark Elves.

Today, by all means, should be the day I write a blog post titled “Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves Released”… or something along those lines. Or should I?

Now, I know that posting leaked pictures is a gray area at best… and… well, I still do it sometimes.

Maybe I should stop. On the other hand, these leaks tend to be the things that interest me too, so it feels odd to not blog about the wargaming things I am looking at when I have a wargaming blog. Hell, I don’t really know what to do there.

Curiously, Beasts of War seems to have been slammed even for “normal” and “non-leak” coverage of GW products. They even received some heat for embedding YouTube videos?

On 26th June 2012 … (All our YouTube are belong to us!!!)

On this day Games Workshop contacted us to state…

I have had yet another report of your site posting Games Workshop images, text and video, at this page:

http://www.beastsofwar.com/warhammer-40k/feast-eyes-40ks-latest-incarnation/

We haven’t given you permission to post our images, text or video. Please remove them from your site.

We had embedded a YouTube video on Beasts of War from Games Workshops own channel on YouTube, we believe in accordance with section 8 of the YouTube terms of service…

Seriously?

Isn’t that the point of promotional YouTube-videos posted on YouTube, promotional pictures posted on Facebook, that people get excited about them and share them?

These aren’t exactly “leaks” that Games Workshop “doesn’t control”. These are the dedicated advertising materials Games Workshop puts out for the explicit purpose of advertising, no?

#3 – Long Story Short

Long story short, today a miniatures gaming company I may or may not be allowed to name has released a new range of miniatures of a Tolkinesque and Nautical theme with an evil twist for a fantasy miniatures game that I may or may not be allowed to name.

I don’t think I am allowed to link to it, or describe them, draw a sketch of them, and I am clearly not allowed to use official promotional videos or – the horror – pictures to show you the new releases.

Lol…

Is that how it’s supposed to look like?

I’ve probably overstepped even with these two short paragraphs.

Either way, I’ve been rambling as I feared.

Nothing more to see here… I am gonna go write about DreadBall or something to cheer me up.

Have at it!

Z.

Image: Demotivational by quamp @ DeviantArt
Zweischneid

Zweischneid

I am Zweischneid. Wargame Addict. Hopeless painter and founder of Pins of War. I hope you enjoyed this article. Don't forget to share your favourite miniature pictures and wargaming videos at www.pinsofwar.net.
Zweischneid

@pinsofwar

Spikey Bits Warhammer 40k, Fantasy, Conversions and Painted Miniatures: Games Day Past, Present & Future http://t.co/OWWyYXzFl0 #40k #wh40k - 15 hours ago
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  • belverker

    I think you are being overly dramatic mate, Beasts of War were targeted because their relationship with Wayland games, which in the past gave Wayland an unfair competative advantage over other online stores, they haven’t been stopped from making their videos about gw, they just can’t do it as a part of wayland

    • http://pinsofwar.net/ Zweischneid

      I don’t disagree.

      Doesn’t change the fact that it seems strange a company like GW would seek to prevent third-party retailers to create promotional content, or use the promotional material produced by GW themselves, to promote the stuff they are selling.

      The very oddity of the Wayland Games-Beasts of War relationship wouldn’t be an issue if stores, Wayland Games, Element Games, etc.., could just have their own blog/youtube-channel/etc.. to do a bit of promoting of the stuff they sell.

      No leaks obviously, but .. ya know .. basic coverage, reviews, unboxings, etc.. .

      • belverker

        yeah but, as beasts of war themselves admit in there thing early on they were doing massive leaks that wayland was directly benefiting from, so it isn’t like it was an overnight decision from gw, it is something they have been working on for awhile, and beasts of war were an originator of a lot of those spoilers in 2011,they are lucky gw didn’t take them down then.

        • http://pinsofwar.net/ Zweischneid

          No argument at all on the leaks.

          But what struck me as odd was the letters (taking them at face value as posted by BoW) that forbid them to embed official GW YouTube videos, etc.. ,

          It seems like a crackdown on any social media advertising to sell GW products.

          Oddly enough, it is almost the inverse problem to the US 3rd party sellers.

          In the US, you cannot sell GW stuff by online-shopping carts, but many of the largest wargaming blogs (Bolsmarket, Spiky Bitz) seem to exist in no small part to draw customers and have them call and order by phone.

          In the EU, you can have online-shopping carts (EU-regulation?), but GW seems committed to stop etailers from starting/buying/partnering with a YouTube-Channel/Blog/Forum/etc.. to draw traffic to their site.

          If GW ever manages to combine those, you’ll have 3rd party etailers who (a) can’t use online-shopping carts and (b) can’t have a blog/social media presence to direct customers to the right phone number/order form/whatever….

          What does that leave?

          • Mike Sweetman

            I agree about the embedded videos…they’re basically saying we don’t like free advertising! In their defense though they clearly state in their TOS you can not profit in any way from their content, and that is exactly what was happening at BOW.

          • http://pinsofwar.net/ Zweischneid

            That is fine. If that’s in their TOS and BoW/Wayland violated the TOS, that’s that. For this specific case, it’s the reaction they ought to take.

            That said, why would you want to have TOS that prevent your own business-partners from using your own promotional material?

            Arguably, most businesses would handle it the other way around.. if you’re an official re-seller of products from company X, you usually must use the official promo-material, if anything.

          • Mike Sweetman

            They have no concept of internet marketing. If they really wanted to maximize sales they’d have BOW as a direct affiliate helping them drive traffic and sales to the GW website.

          • http://www.flickr.com/photos/9360674@N04/sets/72157600510023664/ BrassScorpion

            GW has done a lot during the past few years that is supposedly designed to drive customer traffic to actual retail shops to buy their product, but then they turn around and do some things that short-circuit that in the worst way. I recently saw an online comment from a GW customer saying he wasn’t buying any of the new GW Space Marine releases which are available in shops worldwide because he was buying Forge World Horus Heresy models which as we know are available only by mail order. Forge World’s “Warhammer 30,000″ game system is now competing directly with GW’s mainstream 40K game system and taking customer purchases out of retail shops in doing so.

            Another problem is that when GW stopped doing “Black Boxes” with product previews in shops they also discontinued preview copies of their rule books. Due to this problem pre-orders at shops on some models are at times low because people want to see the rule book (e.g., army book or codex) before buying anything. Rule books will sell well on release weekend and then model kits will start to trickle out the door a few days later instead of being a huge rush on pre-order weekend or the release weekend as the shops need.

  • Chronosmaximus

    Lets hope that the Anonymous group will teach the greedy capitalist money hungers at GW a lesson. GW should be a company owned by gamers for the gamers, not a cynical Bilderberg firm only wanting to maximise their profits without solidarity for the small gaming communities.

    • Mike Sweetman

      We could actually own them…they are publicly traded :)

  • OMGXIII-IV

    GW logic: DAMN YOU TO HELL FOR THE FREE ADVERTISEMENT!!!