Will customer action make GW lower prices?

[fuzzbuket]

this is intrestin:

a lioghtheated discussion about a GW boycott turns into a SEVREAL thousand word long flame war

dear old_pladin and weeble1000 are either of you laywers or english teachers. or are you part of GW/PP/Mantics leagle team? :P

[Col.Gravis]

*yawn*

Give the Chapterhouse stuff a break will you guys? Both sides of the argument are polarised and quiet clearly are'nt going to back down. You either believe GW have a case or don't, no number of lengthy posts which nobody is really reading properly now, perhaps bar those few who persist in flogging a dead subject, is going to change any minds.

Nobody going to suddenly stop and say, "Oh my gawd you were right!"

Just wait and see what happens like the rest of us and save yourself a bit of time, and some bandwith.

As for the original subject of the thread. If I buy GW, which frankly I don't very often these days having plenty of there product (often purchased second hand) already and an interest in other systems and manufacturers I don't particularly look at the price tag, I can either afford it with what disposable income I have or I can't.

It's a luxury item and while in the time I've played and collected the prices have increased considerably, so have prices on just about everything else as well. I'm not boycotting my favourite chocolate bar just because it's formally £0.25 price tag of about 8 year ago has now jumped to £0.45 (an incidently is now smaller then previously), shock horror, a whopping 80% price rise!

By all means if you as an individual feel strongly enough that enough is enough buy something else, or nothing at all, but don't kid yourself that this means swathes of those who buy from GW will agree. There will be no mass boycott, some people will stop buying, some more people will enter the hobby. At the end of the day most of those complaining are the same people again and again (no offence intended to those persons) and they represent a tiny fraction of GWs customer base.

[Old_Paladin]

Weeble:
You over-reach many of your claims again.

1) GW does have full IP of a lasgun; because it is a unique weapon, that has unique properties. It is in fact NOT a 'laser rifle' as it doesn't shoot lasers. It fires a 'las bolt' which causes recoil in the weapon, both burns and explodes as it strikes the target (causing ballistic shock and bleeding in the target) the energy transfer is enough to throw a grown man across a room when shot.

So GW does NOT claim to own all forms of sci-fi weapons, but the do own very specific weapons of their IP (such as the 'bolter-melta combi weapon' Chapterhouse produces).

Also, you are right to say that GW means the terms bits is assossiative; but assossiation does not mean copyright. Don't try to extend the meaning of one word to the other; most people won't buy into your exagerations.


Finally; GW is using IP specialists to defend their IP legal claims. Shock and awe!!!
They should be using divorce lawers in this case right?
Your use of legal defence 'fairness' has nothing to do with the actual law. Chapterhouse will be allowed to get a lawyer; whether they can afford the same quality has nothing to do with it (anymore then the 'fairness' of the working class dying in a hospital waiting room while a wealthy man gets to see a doctor right away; to a big name actor on drug charges gets the good lawyer and walks off with a slap on the wrist, while a normal person goes to jail for a decade).

[Inquisitor S.]

[...]

I didn't hear you say anything when GW sent C&D's to fantasy football groups, or when they went after Librarium or Lexicanum.[...]

For the record and to avoid the creation of false rumours: Games Workshop NEVER went after the Lexicanum or even contacted us (in an official, non-GW-employee-as-a-private-person-way). And no, I don't say that because there is a legal ninja standing behind me. I say it because it is the truth.

You might confuse this with "Damnatus", which is entirely a different matter (although of course team-wise there are overlaps between the two projects).

Kind regards

Inquisitor S.
Bureaucrat, Sysop
LEXICANUM

[Porty1119]

The price jack-ups are just getting annoying. I haven't bought any GW products in fairly close to a year, other than a handful of books. If GW wants to drive up prices and scare the daylights out of startups, I say that we boycott their products. My boycott is already in place, and I don't see this changing.

Oh, and I've started serious work on two games replacing 40k in my life. So there, startup and boycotter!!

-Porty1119, Administrator, Paradox Gaming

[weeble1000]

Porty,

If you haven't already contacted Games-Workshop about your decision, it couldn't hurt. Although it seems that a majority of people believe that communicating with Games-Workshop won't make a difference, it doesn't hurt to try and abstaining from communication out of the belief that it won't have an impact is a great way to make sure that it does not have an impact.

I've already received a response from Games-Workshop. Although we're only talking about some customer service guy, Games-Workshop's policy appears to be to respond to customer complaints and request more information. The fact that an actual person responded by composing an e-mail is at least a sign that this sort of thing does not go unnoticed. This is a start, and I believe that combined with Chapterhouse's defense and a class-action anti-trust suit it is sure to get the attention of Games-Workshop.

[geisthammer]

I hate price rises and the vat rise, but i think its OK value for the quality that we get. So I dont mind spending what i have left at the end of the month on a hobby that I enjoy. The rise in price will only prevent new blood from having the funds to start this expensive hobby.

[fuzzbuket]

weeble: yes as sad as i am too say it contacting them WILL eventually lower prices

not contacting them = GW thinks lower sales up prices
contacting them = GW Customer Service noticing something!

GW looks like the loacl corner shop compared to some :P [url]http://www.kallamity.com/[/url] (ive always wanted one )

[weeble1000]

Fuzzbucket, this whole thing has little to do with price increases. I'm not sure why that concept hasn't come across to most of the people posting on these threads. Games-Workshop's price increases are concerning to me mostly because the company is taking it for granted that loyal customers will be satisfied with paying a premium in spite of the fact that (and this is the important bit) Games-Workshop has done little over the past few years to deserve the loyalty of its long-term customers and is actively attacking the hobby community which the majority of these long-term customers are part of.

It's like a one-two punch, or like putting salt in a wound you just made, or just extremely arrogant and dismissive.

"Hey, you can't use Vassal to play 40K on the internet...and we're going to jack our prices up so that if you want to play 40K with your buddies it'll cost you more too."

"Hey buddy, you can't use boardgamesgeek to make replacement pieces for an out of print product 'cause we're going to release an absurdly expensive version of it and not print enough for everyone to have."

"Hey there friend, I know you'd love to buy that bit we have no intention of ever making, but we're going to run the company that makes it out of business because it's derivative of our massively broad and unquantified universe."

"Howdy guy, I know we used to encourage you enjoy our products by being creative and getting involved in the universe, but we're going to do everything we can to make you think it's illegal for you to teach your buddies how to scratch build Heresy-era land raider."

Just look at the options in this poll. Are you really going to let Games-Workshop believe that you're some kind of addict that will take any kind of abuse and still come begging for another hit Warhammer? It's certainly clear that Games-Workshop expects its customers to keep coming back even though they've been getting screwed.

[Gotthammer]

"Hey, you can't use Vassal to play 40K on the internet...and we're going to jack our prices up so that if you want to play 40K with your buddies it'll cost you more too."

I can't run PS3 games on an Xbox - sony makes me pay for the hardware to do so. GW makes yo upay for the minis to play. Vassal's mod was also taking the GW unit designs, and potentially breaching an agreement with Relic in regards to licencing for online gaming for 40k imagrey (the similar BB online system was hit around the same time as the official BB game appeared. Concidence?).

Unless you have a complete fiscal breakdown of GW, any statements about the fairness or otherwise of their price rises is mere speculation. And their prices are comparable to other manufatureres.
Privateer has thier box of six Satyrx raiders listed at $30. GW has ten Wyches for $26. The wyches come with a huge abundance of bitz and weapon options, as well as options for command and special weapon choices. The Satyrx are just six figures, command seperately and with no options as far as I know.
When Privateer switched their boxed sets to plastic the price stayed the same - shall we call for a government inquiry into their evil price gouging too?

"Hey buddy, you can't use boardgamesgeek to make replacement pieces for an out of print product 'cause we're going to release an absurdly expensive version of it and not print enough for everyone to have."

BGG was issued a C&D over unnamed infringing files. They never sought clarification over what the files were and removed everything of their own volition. There were many BGG members at the time calling this an unnecessary overreaction.
Limited editions exist in just about every niche hobby, that's the way it is.

"Hey there friend, I know you'd love to buy that bit we have no intention of ever making, but we're going to run the company that makes it out of business because it's derivative of our massively broad and unquantified universe."

Many rumours exist of upcoming direct bonesword and whip kits for nids. Also of future plans to release a Tervigon. And I'm not sure it's fair to say Chapterhouse was derivative of a broad and unquantified universe when they're using, you know, registered trademarks - the very essence of focused and quantified when it comes to this sort of thing.
And they were mmaking the same products as GW - fleshtearer shoulder pads.

"Howdy guy, I know we used to encourage you enjoy our products by being creative and getting involved in the universe, but we're going to do everything we can to make you think it's illegal for you to teach your buddies how to scratch build Heresy-era land raider."

Don't know to what ths refers, so can't comment.

Just look at the options in this poll. Are you really going to let Games-Workshop believe that you're some kind of addict that will take any kind of abuse and still come begging for another hit Warhammer? It's certainly clear that Games-Workshop expects its customers to keep coming back even though they've been getting screwed.

Getting screwed? I've constantly seen the quality of miniatures and books improving over the last 20 years. Sure you can't get three rhinos for a fiver, but the quality of the new rhinos makes the old ones look like garbage. It's like complaining a Dragon Tiger kit is a ripoff when an Italeri one is so much cheaper. The product's quality factors into cost, and the quality has been improving massively.