GW Tightens the Screws on Trade Partners

[Lord Anubis]

It'd be interesting to see how eager GW would be to enforce such a policy (if it is actually their new policy) if a third or half of their "partners" violated it. Would they really accept losing that much revenue for half a year...?

[Scripts]

It'd be interesting to see how eager GW would be to enforce such a policy (if it is actually their new policy) if a third or half of their "partners" violated it. Would they really accept losing that much revenue for half a year...?

If there's a nearby GW store, and they think it will drive traffic to those stores? Yes.

If news/release of "Product X" is earlier than GW is allowed to release it, and GW risks being fined for that news, then this is their safety net. They go to New Line, or whoever, and say, "Well yeah, Joe's Hobby Shop released that stuff early, but they won't get any of the new stuff anymore until 6 months after its new, so it won't happen again." This may be just enough CYA to prevent New Line or whoever from fining GW for product hitting the street early. (Sorry if there are any Joe's on this site that own their own hobby shop, just using your name as an example).

I know about a company that shipped the last Harry Potter book to its customers earlier than it should have, and both the company in question and the company's supplier both got in serious trouble with the book publisher in the US. There was talk that the publisher was going to cut off the supplier, who supplied a lot of the big box stores in the US well before they supplied the internet retailer that sold it early, and made a ton of money for the publisher in question. I also know the guy in charge of the book program at the retailer in question got fired because of this screw-up. I also know the publisher took the retailer in question to court saying that by releasing the book early, the retailer deprived the publisher of revenue as well as breach of contract, due to all of the stipulations about what had to be done around the shipping and receiving of the book by customers (Box was supposed to be labeled 'Don't Deliver before X date', etc.), and cut back on supplying the distributor that provided the book to the retailer because of this.

Licenses are big money, and carry big risks, especially if the licensee doesn't follow the contract.

[Lukas The Trickster]

I think that this is fair enough on GW's part. Imagine if a cinema had started screening a a big release for which there had been a considerable buildup, like Prometheus for example, a week before the premiere. It's not really that different, and in the case of revealing imagery or plot of The Hobbit before its release, could leave GW itself open to legal action.

[Scripts]

Looks like there's been some clarification from one of Faeit 212's numerous sources. It looks like its a "6 day" penalty, not a "6 month" penalty.

[url]http://natfka.blogspot.com/2012/08/getting-to-bottom-of-gw-rumor-control.html[/url]

Instead of getting stuff a couple of days before the scheduled release (like the Thursday before the Saturday of a release), the store in question will get it the delivery the next time they get product shipped to them after release (so the Tuesday/Thursday after the items in question were released). Seems a bit more reasonable. The store gets a slap on the wrist, since its patrons can't buy the new product immediately, and the store manager/operator gets a clear indicator that GW doesn't necessarily trust them as much as they did in the past, but the independants aren't completely screwed over.

Example: Instead of getting Demon product by August 2nd (2 days before it officially goes on sale), the store gets it August 6-9 (2-5 days after it goes on sale, and 4-7 days after you would have normally got it).

My guess is someone misread the information that was given to them.

[Captainparty]

Any company that regualrly releases new products and deals with retailers does this, video game companies, mobile phone companies, this isnt a story and its certainly not GW being the big bad.

[MarneusCalgar]

Any company that regualrly releases new products and deals with retailers does this, video game companies, mobile phone companies, this isnt a story and its certainly not GW being the big bad.

And for me is ok, is their company, their bussiness and they are the ones to decide when and where they give their exclusives...

Sorry if anyone is annoyed but Games Workshop is a bussiness company, dedicated to games, yes, but also a bussiness, and like ALL the bussiness they want to earn the more money possible.

I still don´t understand why there´s always people who think GW should be making friends and not money...

Some may still think GW is still the old and cranky eighties´s freak company

[Mr Mystery]

You know, GW wouldn't lost out in money. The Indy however would....

[SotonShades]

I can believe this is true. Partly because one of the independent stockists local to me sold 6th Ed stuff two days early to pre-ordered customers. Some of those customers were daft enough to bring those items into GW during that time as well, although the GW staff had known about it. because it got caught on the camera that links to Head Office, the incident had to be investigated (to show it wasn't the GW staff selling early). Now said independent stockists are on a warning and don't recieve new release stuff until after the release date. I wouldn't be surprised to find out a policy such as this has been rolled out to all trade partners as a more general part of the terms of their agreement.

[Captainparty]

You know, GW wouldn't lost out in money. The Indy however would....

then the Indy shouldn't have broken a contract to try and generate sales.

[Captainparty]

Although, thinking about it, breaking the street date on the boxed set by a few days would possibly bring in enough revenue to counteract losing out on release day for a little while