[WH40K] Vassal 40K, Warhammer 40K Online

[Aaron]

Oh!

I'm going to check out the local hobby/craft shop for that acrylic paint.

[Tyyr]

Seriously, fuck the game shop paints. Craftstore acrylic paint is the same damn thing just without the ridiculous "For Geeks" mark up. I've got something close to 50 mechs painted in them and you can't tell the difference from the ridiculously overpriced game store paints. I buy all that stuff from the craftstore.

Another thing from last night. The price of one metal jump chaplain from GW: $15

Price of a monster metal assault mech for CBT: $9.95

The thing that is much easier about CBT is you can play a nice big game with 4 models. Though I wouldn't object to plastic models to make modding easier.

[Aaron]

I was fortunate enough to get my paints for a couple bucks each, the local guy is phasing out his stock of WHFB/WH40K. There's also a craft store two shops down, so I'm gonna go raid their bargin bin. No way am I paying 18$ for a can of undercoating.

[Tyyr]

You're paying $18 for primer? Good lord man. It's primer, nothing particularly special. Even at a hobby store you can get it cheaper than that and I know it sounds like heresy but for primer frigging Krylon sells for like $3 a can.

Seriously, a couple bucks for a thing of paint? I'm not kidding when I say you can get four to five times the paint for half the price. I can get a bottle for $2 and I have yet to run out of my base color for either my clan or IS mechs. Seriously, black and tan and they're still both at least half full.

[Aaron]

Oh I haven't paid for any primer, I'll go to Canadian Tire and get a can of auto primer before I pay 18$.

To the LOOTER Craft Storemobile!

[Tyyr]

"No way am I paying $18..." dur, reading comprehension failure.

[Aaron]

The hilarious thing is, I really only need white, black, grey and brown for my camo scheme.

[Tyyr]

Yeah, that's what I thought once too.

[Aaron]

Well the camo is for winter, so I could honestly just use a matte white colour, it's all the other crap.

[Mikey]

There's also the time factor. I just read in a blog that someone was putting together a 5200-point IG army. That's gotta be in quadruple figures in US dollars, plus unimagineable man-hours.

If GW were smart, they'd embrace things like VASSAL, fanfic, fanfilms, etc. Attract new blood and new markets, and they'd more than offset the losesof model revenue.

[Aaron]

Aye, they would. I did a rough estimate of what it would cost me to do a Krieg Regiment, right out of IA5; 30,000$+. Just for the infantry.

[Mikey]

That's about $15 or $20 US, right?

Just kidding. Did you actually say $30,000 Canadian? Surely you meant $3000?

[Tyyr]

I can get why GW went after Vassal40K. They aren't sitting on a rock solid IP to begin with. Lets face it, Orks, space marines, elves, bug hordes, etc. aren't exactly groundbreaking shit. They've got their own style on it all but in the end it's a lot of stuff that's not a long way from things considered public domain. As such GW has to aggressively defend their IP. You see part of IP rights is that you have to defend them. If you don't then they can become public domain. Kleenex, Band-Aid, etc have all fallen prey to this. In GW's own arena Tolkien's estate lost "Orc"s because they didn't defend it for quite a long time and as such many people had started to use it. The judge in their case decided that orcs was now public domain and that was the end of the Tolkien's estate claim to IP over orcs. Given how shaky GW's foundation is with what they've got they can't let even a small chink into the armor. They're one judge's ruling away from losing their IP.

They've also got a lucrative license agreement going on for their computer games. They might have verbiage in their license agreement that requires them to squash anything like Vassal40K. It could also just be them protecting a revenue stream. The license agreement is only worth something if it grants exclusive rights. Something like Vassal40K could infringe on what a potential licensee wants to do later on down the line and with a free program already in the market the licensee might chose not to purse it because of that.

Now ultimately I think GW's problem is that it's mantra has long been, "We're a minis company." They're obsessed with selling minis. They will stomp on any idea that could result in fewer mini sales even though it might increase total revenue for the company. It's a very odd stance. They need to take a holistic approach and look at their company as promoting WH40K in whatever form it takes. For instance realize that the rulebook and codex drives mini-sales and the slow pace of updating codices can slow sales of certain mini lines, eg Necron, Dark Eldar, Inquisition, etc. Their books and background are every bit as important as the minis. For instance there are a lot of people who don't give a shit about the game but love the setting. In the video games aspect Vassal is a great example. Why not go to Relic and show them Vassal40K? Have them make an official version, even bring in the guy who made the module originally, and make a version to sell commercially? Because it might hurt mini-sales. Never mind that they'd likely sell a copy of it to every WH40K player and a ton of fluff lovers as well.

GW needs to pull its head out of its ass in general.

[Mikey]

Exactly. Open up this sort of thing (for example,) and you'd bring in a whole new market of computer gamers who wouldn't touch a TT mini game with a 10-foot pole. Once you've got them interested, well OK - you won't sell them models, but you wouldn't have anyway; but now you have a new market for Black Library as well, plus Relic mods; game guides/codices/rulebooks; fluff product (did you know that they sell Tanith First-and-Only shirts, cap pins, dog tags, etc.?)

[Aaron]

That's about $15 or $20 US, right?

Just kidding. Did you actually say $30,000 Canadian? Surely you meant $3000?

Unless I massively fucked up the math.