MiniWarGaming Responds to Beasts of War

October 8, 2013 7 Comments

There’s a pretty cool video out by Matthew from MiniWarGaming.com with his take on the Beasts of War-issue (and the broader context).

I admit I may be late to the “news”. I still haven’t figured out how I’d be able to follow “news” on YouTube in an economical fashion. There doesn’t seem to be RSS feeds or similar for YouTube channels to view them in a reader. Or perhaps I am just too thick to find it.

Thankfully the Overwatch got me covered! Cheers guys.

Either way, I really liked this response. Covers all the basic points and – laudably – avoids the gut-response of descending into overtly simple GW-bashing (of which I may be guilty of as well).

Have a look!

#1 – MiniWarGaming Response to Beasts of War

#2 – Covering Games Workshop or Not?

I admit it is all too easy to just bash away at Games Workshop for being stupid, or evil, or both. And there certainly is something flawed about the way they handle things.

Still, I admire people with a clear head that at least try to look at it from both sides, even more so when they’ve themselves been “burned” by a business-relationship with GW gone bad.

In particular, Matthew briefly talks about the tricky question of “why still cover GW products at all?”, which Beasts of War evidently have been asked roughly a million times over the last few days.

Most, (the most vocal) fans seem to be in favour of a “Games Workshop coverage boycott”, while Beasts of War – quite on the contrary – even floated the idea of a fundraiser to actually raise the money for covering Warhammer and Warhammer 40K again in more depth!

Is that just masochism?

I don’t think it is.

However, it may well be the most bizarre conundrum all these sites (and ultimately my blog too) have to face. GW is making it hard to live with them – I’ve let 40K slip a bit recently (except for “rumours” & “releases”, ironically) – but neither can you really live without them:

  • Not financially, if you depend on a wargaming website to make money like BoW or MWG.
  • Not “intrinsically”, if you were foolish enough to start a website about your wargaming hobby and “Games Workshop” (or rather their games) is part of that.

#3 – Sorry for Rambling

All Right, I am rambling again.

BoW vs. GamesWorkshop’s been discussed a lot the last few days, so this’ll be my last post on the issue (unless some major changes come along).

However, if you’ve followed the debates so far (or just came to it today), let me know what you think about it (now, with a bit of time to think on it).

Your comments are appreciated!

Z.

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.
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  • Al

    I thought this was very well thought out video

    I think he has it exactly right

    Al

  • Puck

    I’m guessing they are hard on pre-release info to maximise the period of when older models and books are bought. They would have the sale numbers, maybe that 1 month or so pre-release sale drops is seen as significant enough to target. Makes sense when bringing in new players, and keep store staff in the dark if you don’t want any spoiling of profit.

  • Martin O.

    I thought I would hear a ‘clear head’ comment on something but I am sorry to say that for me this is half an hour of waffle. I believe that after half an hour listening I can make out the following: he thinks that only releasing information on new products 1 week in advance is too short and that he still sells 40K because it still makes the most money. So what? I can say that in 30 seconds. The rest is some half-baked speculations on the why and how and maybe and so on…

    I believe it is all very simple. Firstly GW has been wanting to draw a line in the sand regarding internet sales for a very long time. They have always seen themselves as a brick-n-mortar company, selling hobby products in brick-n-mortar shops by real human beings who are able to share their enthusiasm face to face. Is that ‘old-fashioned’? Absolutely. Next.

    Secondly, everything they do is IP that belongs to somebody, the artist, the writer, the sculptor, even the photographer. They have the duty to defend the IP of their company and their employees and will go to any length within the law. That does include ‘leaks’. A leaked word becomes a picture, a picture a drawing, a drawing a sculptor’s concepts for a new miniature and so on. Is that being OTT? If you employ 100s of artists of all kinds, you try to explain to them you’re not too bothered about their ideas and concepts being leaked. How much longer do you think you will keep your most talented guys?

    Thirdly, 100s of hardworking employees in their stores and independent game stores, depend on paying their bills on the sales of GW products in their stores. If you work hard to promote the products of your company by word and example, you want to be awarded with a successful sales and commission at the end of it. I can assure you from personal experience that no matter how big a company or product is, the wrong strategy, and specifically the wrong internet strategy, can bring you down in no time. If you don’t understand its power, leave it alone. It’s cautious and may even make you look like you’re behind the times, but they rather be old fashioned and alive.

    • http://pinsofwar.net/ Zweischneid

      I think he made a lot of the points you mentioned (possibly not with the greatest possible brevity, but hey..)

      And they are good points.

      But from your post, you don’t seem to be looking for anything evenly clear-headed.

      You seem to think that anything GW does is self-validating. That by having “noble reasons”, they can do no wrong.

      Nobody doubts that GW is doing what they do for reasons they believe justified. Nobody does things because they “want to be the cartoon villain”. Every bad act is always committed by somebody who thinks it is justified.

      But believing yourself to have the right reasons, doesn’t necessarily make it so, and even if your reasons are good, they don’t necessarily justify all means.

      • Martin O.

        Well, tell me then what their bad acts are? They do things not because it is noble but because it makes commercial sense to them. In my opinion GW have done some very “un-noble” things in the past to people, to put it mildly. I also believe they regret quite a bit what happened in the past. The wargames world has plenty of companies started by former GW employees who fell out badly with GW. It is not a democracy where decisions are taken by vote. They are a hard nosed PLC who do things their way and not because of any opinion expressed by any gaming community. Ultimately they believe they will be judged by whether or not people buy their products.

        • http://pinsofwar.net/ Zweischneid

          It’s still the same world we all live in. You are not exempt from morality and human decency simply because you are incorporated.

          This is the 21st century, and you ought to watch your reputation, corporate social responsibility, the “values” associated with your brand, etc.. BECAUSE it affects your bottom line as a business.

          To name another prominent example, United Airlines lost an estimated 180 Million US$ because an upset customer recorded a little video called “United Breaks Guitars”, and it happened to go viral.

          If you think you have less an obligation to do the “right thing” because you are a business, as opposed to you being a private person, charity, etc.., you are a bad businessmen.

    • Wolfgard

      There are a few things that GW does that contradict your points though:
      You claim that GW wants to sell their product through brick-&-mortar stores to maintain their face to face relationship with their customers. However, they reserve all of their highest profit margin items (collectors edition books, cards, limited editions) to “Direct Only” cutting out the brick and mortar stores and keeping those profits for themselves. Then look at the current state of GW stores. They are going to more and more 1 man stores with no room to play, limited hours, and limited stock. These stores don’t develop relationships with their customers but function to be cheap.

      You claim GW is protecting their employee’s ideas, however, notice that in every IP dispute, GW isn’t protecting their employee’s IP, they are protecting GW Corporate’s IP. GW employees (like in most companies), as a part of their employment are required to not license, but give full ownership of any IP they generate to the company. When they leave, they don’t own any of the work they created, GW does. On top of this, every previous employee of GW who speaks of their experience notes the extremely high turnover rate of employees.
      To add to this, their tactics of pursing legal action against websites is often outside the law. GW often uses extortion by false accusation through their legal department to force websites to comply with their demands simply because these websites cannot afford to defend themselves legally whether or not they have infringed upon GW’s IP. Any business model that relies on lawsuits or the threat of lawsuits to be successful, is a sure sign of a failing business model.

      You claim that the hardworking employees FLGS’s depend on GW sales to pay their bills. This is simply not true, when you look at the major revenue sources of FLGS’s, they are Magic The Gathering and other collectable high-margin items, not any tabletop gaming product. As for GW employees relying on the sales, that is true to a degree, but GW stores have been a net money loser for years. Really they are relying on GW corporate not to shut down their store since they lack a diverse revenue stream, a shrinking playerbase, and corporate policies that continually shift more income from the local store to direct only.

      You claim it’s better to be old fashioned and alive, but in this internet age, that simply isn’t true. No internet strategy is just as disastrous as a bad internet strategy. Look at what is happening to the Newspapers, Magazines, Book Publishers, Record Industry Etc. If “piracy” is a problem in an industry, that means there is something wrong with the industry because the innovators of new/profitable business models are being ignored.The amount of “piracy” of GW products, IP, copyrights, etc is strongly demonstrating that their existing business model is failing.

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