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Australian company may pursue legal action against Games Workshop

6K views 75 replies 25 participants last post by  Magpie_Oz 
#1 ·
What's happening with the Eldar release

Australian company, The Combat Company, are looking into taking legal action against GW over the supply of Eldar miniatures to indie stores.

I have no idea how the legalities of all this work so I'll leave it at that.


Discuss.
 
#15 ·
Doubtful. Independents give them money and GW has less stock just sitting around. Plus independents (depending on their level of involvement with GW) have to carry certain amounts of stock of particular items thus GW always has money from them coming in.

This is a more complex issue of the amount of supply versus demand. Demand is WAY overpowering supply right now so GW is rushing to try and get more things made but can't always keep up because other things still need to be produced. That 2 week period where GW was playing catch up for Tau? Likely hurt the amount of Eldar we have available now.

Hell that company was ordering $10,000 worth of merchandise. That's a pretty big order for a pre-release. I can understand why GW had to say "hey, we don't think we can fill all of this right away."

I honestly don't think GW is intentionally screwing over this independent, or really any independent. I think we're seeing more ripples than we could expect from the Tau release hitting us now. With this tight release schedule I don't see an immediate fix for this though as every attempt to make up for the problem now will only hurt a later release.

Maybe if we're really seeing an Apoc release in July we'll get that chance to catch up, but I don't really know for sure. This is a definite wait and see how it all plays out.
 
#4 ·
From what I can gather looking at a couple of sources Australia has specific laws that protect independent companies from monopolies, whether this will actually include GW or not remains to be seen.

I can understand people and companies getting pissed off with the Tau release and now Eldar being understocked, there are cries of "Conspiracy!" flying round already as indies are losing out to GW bricks and mortar and online store for new releases.
 
#6 ·
I hardly consider it a conspiracy if that many people are ordering direct from GW and the webstore that GW has to do this to meet their demands first. All GW said was they don't know if they could completely fill the order. This was before pre-orders went up so it sounds like someone is flipping their shit of GW trying to give a courtesy heads up.

I am willing to bet GW did increase the runs on Eldar as much as they reasonably could without hurting their other prep work after the Tau supply issue came up, but aren't sure if they have enough to go around. I mean the company is talking about GW saying they might not be able to completely fill at $10K order completely right away. I don't know, but that sounds reasonable considering GW's production limitations.
 
#7 · (Edited)
What I think the issue is, and this is purely speculation, is that indies are supplied with a product by GW, they have contracts and or licences to sell a product and be supplied with that product. GW are not supplying them and, intentionally or not, they are damaging those companies as a result.

If GW decided that they didn't want to supply indies any more they could probably do so with no legal issues, it would be a PR nightmare for them but they could legally do it. IF, on the other hand, GW simply 'accidentally' don't produce enough stock to supply these stores they can play the game of being 'surprised' by the success of the range while screwing the indies out of business.

I hardly consider it a conspiracy if that many people are ordering direct from GW and the webstore that GW has to do this to meet their demands first.
You're more than likely right, I don't know for certain and definitely don'y have all the facts to say one way or the other, I'm just pointing out what is being said and speculating on it.
 
#8 ·
Its not about monopoly its about anti-competitive practices, being the manufactor and distributor as well as a retailer can land gw in the shit if they dont supply indies in a timely fashion, problem is proving it and making gw do something about it without loosing the right to stock GW products.



 
#9 ·
Well. The Australian company won't be keeping any customer loyalty with their actions. They are prepared to stop selling and endorsing GW products, which in turn forces the gamers they supply to deal with GW stores or online. So, they lose money and GW wins.

They could simply tell their patrons that due to GW delays, their product will be delayed. Even those ordering direct from GW will be delayed. The trick is to have customer loyalty.

When Tau were delayed, the 4 Tau players that I know of at my LGS didn't turn to the nearby GW store or the website. They waited to make their purchase. In the case of some models, they waited almost a month. But all that late arriving product has sold to loyal customers who waited.

I, for one, am hoping for an Eldar delay. It gives me time to save more money for the things I want.
 
#10 ·
I think you missed a bit

You have the right to buy GW from wherever you want. We will continue to sell their products and take every single dollar we can out of their direct sales channels.
They do intend to keep selling GW stuff, they just won't be endorsing or supporting tournaments or GW events.
 
#11 ·
Im sorry but nothing has changed here.... Yes the demand for certain armies has increased over the past few releases but we are becoming a more technologically advanced society... most people do most shopping online now more then ever. GW has NEVER made sure the independent retailer was satisfied before their own stores and their web store. This will never change.

Honestly I don't see a lawsuit here... GW has found a loop hole that basically allows them to make sure the customers that order from them directly or go into their stores are attended to first before others. Unless there is some contract with these independents I cant see this lawsuit going to far before the independents pull out because they don't have the financial backing to actually pay for all the court costs.
 
#12 ·
I feel like it would be quite the shit show for all the Xenos races to have shipping delays but the Space Marine boxes to come out on time. I guess time will tell. There's plenty of products that my store wants to be able to sell but aren't available for wholesale in Canada yet due to production needs in Americuh where they are made. Our customers are saddened that we do not have what they want, but ultimately they keep coming back knowing that the day we're able to get it in they will have it. They can go online and purchase anything they want, but people will still wait to buy it from their local store. If we went and bitched about it we'd only shoot ourselves in the foot as our customers don't need to hear companies defamed and the company likely wouldn't want to deal with us.
 
#13 ·
Honestly, I don't see why GW don't just pull the plug on independents (aside from the huge number of actual reasons like keeping the hobby alive in areas with no GW). It's the way they seem to have been going. If they want to only sell their product in their stores and on their site, just do it.
 
#14 ·
Think you nailed it with the 'continuing to sell their product in areas without a GW store'. Its probably pretty much the only reason they still support independents.

Afterall, a lot of people still like seeing a product for real in a store before buying it, or simply don't want to have to wait in or can't wait in for a delivery, so having a physical store they can go to is a bonus.

Despite GW being the only games company in the world that runs and maintains its own bricks and mortar stores, they can't afford to have them everywhere. So having other stores sell stuff for them is a bonus....

In all reality though... while GW may be screwing independents, really all they're doing is looking after their own customers first, rather then looking after someone elses.
 
#18 ·
Was it $10,000 Ozzie money? If so that order was roughly the American equal to two Land Raiders .... how could they not fill that order?

OT: I understand that they have to fill stock up in THEIR stores, but after the debacle that was the Tau release, they should have been better prepared. This is not rocket science and it is not like these people are just getting into the market.

Come to think of it, if this release is 'Sold Out' as well, a perfect justification for a rather large price increase, larger than what would be normal. I seriously dislike corporate greed ... it is so fucking annoying.
 
#20 · (Edited)
OT: I understand that they have to fill stock up in THEIR stores, but after the debacle that was the Tau release, they should have been better prepared. This is not rocket science and it is not like these people are just getting into the market.
There is a whole lot more to all this than "This how much we reckon the (insert new release name here) will sell so this is how much we will make"

The money that GW outlays for each of these new releases must be quite a sum. If we look at the Reaper Bones Kickstarter that raised $3Mill for a "new release" of older minatures we see that has been going on for over 12 months and the product has still not been supplied to all, 17000 backers

So that gives us a hint that the 6th ed releases have probably been in the pipeline for at least 12 months and probably a whole lot longer and my guess is GW is supplying a hell of a lot more than 17,000 buyers.

The production lead time is a great deal more than the pre-release order period.

Since October last year we've had CSM, WofC, The Hobbit, DA, Daemons, Tau , High Elves and Eldar.

So if we say that GW is putting 4 mill (a guess might be less might be more) on the line for each new release that means they have a liability of around 30 mill just for the releases to date, with more to come.

The reason why previous releases have been slow in coming is they have waited for each outlay to be recouped before moving onto the next one, not so with the current release schedule so they have no option but to limit the manufacturing run of each release.

My guess is that the volume of stock released with each update matches the expenditures so that, in time, the release is "paid for". That will take a few months to achieve tho and in that time the next releases are on the way.

The economics are pretty simple. Lots of stock of a few releases or less stock of a lot more releases.

So at the moment we are enjoying bitching about a lack of stock as opposed to last year when we bitched about slow updates.
 
#22 · (Edited)
Being important to your hobby doesn't make it important to mine. You are correct i have no idea who TCC is , that's the point. The day they open a shop in my town that may change, until then the only effect they have on me is to lessen the viability of my local shop with their pricing.

If the hobby goes online only it will disappear in a few years. The 'out dated' B&M is what keeps the out dated hobby going.

They obviously have no real commitment to the hobby if GW saying they cannot guarantee the order makes them.drop the support so quickly. All they are upset about is having to share the booming popularity of the new releases.
 
#23 ·
I'm going to preface what I am about to say by mentioning that the only purchase I have ever made from this store was a bottle of glue and some dice when I rocked up to a tournament horrendously unprepared. The only vested interest I have in these guys is tournament support.

Being important to your hobby doesn't make it important to mine. You are correct i have no idea who .TCC is , that's the point. The day they open a shop in my town that may change, until then the only effect they have on me is to lessen the viability of my local shop with their pricing.
Thing is, it's not just important to my hobby, it's important to a hell of a lot of other peoples as well. We're talking about a store that pretty much single handedly supports the Sydney tournament scene with prize support, and yet these guys somehow do not support the hobby because they are a big mean online store than hands out discounts?

But hey, apparently fucking over the online store that supports pretty much all the major tournaments for the most populous city in the goddamn country is totally justified when they have a negative effect on your personal LGS which is easily mitigated by the regulars in your LGS simply agreeing to not buy online.

If the hobby goes online only it will disappear in a few years. The 'out dated' B&M is what keeps the out dated hobby going.
Bullshit.

B&M is a horrendously outdated model for a company like GW. They need to choose whether they want to be a supplier or retailer; otherwise they're competing with many of their own customers (ie independent B&M retailers as well as online stores.)

By your logic, every other game should require their own stores, which is nonsense. Warmachine, Infinity, Malifaux, Dust and Dystopian Wars are all going strong in our area off the back of independent retailers (especially the 1st two, they're booming like crazy), and GW could be doing the same by simply closing their own inefficient retail division and leaving it to LGSs.

They obviously have no real commitment to the hobby if GW saying they cannot guarantee the order makes them.drop the support so quickly. All they are upset about is having to share the booming popularity of the new releases.
They have had real commitment to the hobby, and continue to have real commitment to the hobby. Don't confuse loyalty to GW with commitment to the hobby.

They can support the hobby without supporting GW games. This just means that they take all the time, money and effort they have been putting into supporting GW systems and instead dump it into Warmachine and Infinity.

They're not upset about having to "share the booming popularity of upcoming releases", they're upset at GW deliberately trying to minimise their market share after they have spent so much time supporting and furthering GW games.

By the way, this doesn't just affect online stores. This move is going to affect all independent retailers, regardless of their physical presence. It's an obvious ploy by GW to force people to buy through their own retail and direct sales channels rather than their LGSs (which may or may not offer a discount) or online (which generally will offer a discount).
 
#26 ·
It is a lot of stuff, but these guys supply a lot of people.

Think of these guys as the Wayland of Australia- pretty much the go-to online store if you feel like buying within the country, but don't buy from an LGS.
 
#28 ·
Which is exactly the reason GW will be reigning them in, GW want the Aus/NZ customer base in there stores or FLGs, they dont want them buying overseas, they dont want them buying from a large over powerful single online store who takes the entire country's allocation of stock, GW want one large online store and that is GW, anyone else has to feed on the scraps GW allows them.

Also i dont think the combat company has a case, GW are simply sharing out there indie allocated stock fairly between the indies in that region, which if your a small indie you would be very pleased with, imagine your one of the 24 small indies down under and you were told for example that you were not getting any stock at all for the eldar release because the combat company had placed an order first and taken all the indie allocation.

The problem stems from such a short pre order time scale, its not giving GW enough time to produce stock, they are plucking a figure out of the air based on what they expect Eldar to sell (likely based on the last release) in any given region, they then produce that stock and ship it, the management will then allocate the stock to stores and to online and to indies and lets be fair they have cut it fairly 33% GW stores 33% GW online and 33% indies, then they have divided up the indie stock fairly by dividing the total amount of stock equally between all indies, now some might want less than the allocation and some will get thrown back into the pool which will no doubt go out to those who want more, but basically all GW are doing is saying to indies, go ahead take your pre order but remember we supply you ,you dont dictate to us, when word gets around that Indies cant suppy on release or even for upto or more than a month people who really want the stuff will either buy from GW or goto a GW store/FLGS which is what GW is trying to achieve anyway.

Also dont mistake supporting the community/hobby by an indie as anything more than marketing and ultimately making them money.
 
#36 ·
Lets put this in a different light.

I have a special brand of pet food, that I have retailed to the point that I have stores world wide selling nothing but this pet food. I also contract smaller 'pet food related' stores to have some of my pet food on the shelf in their stores.

I have a new and improved formula of pet food coming out.

I would not bat a eyelash making sure the stores I own and the online store I maintain had a solid supply of this new formula at release. After that I would divy out the rest of my current pre-release supply to those stores that I have contracted shelf space.

I would look like a complete fool if my new formula pet food was out of stock in my own personal chain of stores and the personal online site I have for it.

Why should one of these stores that I contracted to have my stuff on their shelf demand more stock because they happened to have pet races using the pet food. How does this change the fact I would look like a fool if at release my own stores and online store were out of stock.

It wouldn't change anything, I would tell them they could have the pet food order when I could fill it while maintaining my system.


That is currently what has happened here, and I agree with Mags that this company is just throwing a temper tantrum because they did not get their Umpa Lumpa now.
 
#40 ·
I'm with Magpie_Oz and scscofield on this one. Any company would be insane to supply other people before their own stores, and they didn't tell anyone to fuck off, they only said they wouldn't be able to fulfil that order.

If I put an order in with tesco for home delivery and they told me I couldn't have all the items on my order, I wouldn't spit my dummy and think they'd told me to fuck off, I'd think they couldn't send me all my stuff and be thankful they let me know.

Sad but true, they haven't done anything wrong. It might not be what TCC want, but it's not wrong.
 
#42 ·
Another stockist on WargamerAU mentioned how he was told by a rep that he would be getting his full Eldar order, and started taking pre-orders, only to be told later that they would only be getting 1/7th the amount they asked for. He did have two stores though, and was told that both accounts would recieve the same amount, only to then have the second store only provided with 1/3rd of that amount. Either by incompetence or malice, GW Aus is dicking it's clients (and their customers) around.

Meanwhile, TCC may very well have a case, as talked about earlier, by abusing their market position to the detriment of other businesses. Actually have anything come of it will be the thing, but there is a case there.
 
#41 ·
This goes to show you why at the end of the day GW has the reputation, it has especially in Australia. Being at the arse end of the world doesn't help our cause.

Also mentioned was on-line retailing, well GW Bricks and Mortar stores aren't going to get bigger anytime soon, so as they bring out more and more product comes out, many, many more items will be shifted to their On-Line Service, it will not be that long before GW has over 3,000 items on their on-line retail section.
 
#44 ·
Both sides of this debate are being equally thick and oblivious of each others arguments.

Why is everyone carrying on about the "they are not sharing the supply around fairly" piece? It is so far from the issue that it is not funny. Of course GW are going to supply their own stores first; that is Sales 101. Strip away all the bullshit from both sides and it is really simple, and is really what TCC are challenging...

GW are either:
1. Genuinely unable to supply the demand for their product
or
2. Able to meet the demand, but are purposely not producing enough product to meet that demand to artificially create a shortage, and by only guaranteeing supply to their stores they are creating an unfair advantage for their product.

If it is Door #2 then that is anti-competitive practice, and there would be a case. The "if" is in the proving.
 
#45 ·
Able to meet the demand, but are purposely not producing enough product to meet that demand to artificially create a shortage, and by only guaranteeing supply to their stores they are creating an unfair advantage for their product.

If it is Door #2 then that is anti-competitive practice, and there would be a case. The "if" is in the proving.
Why would they do that? Oh we can produce and sell $20mill of stock but lets just produce $10mill so we make less....... ?

The ACCC defines anti-competitive practices as :

• competitors agreeing to charge the same or similar prices,
or to restrict the territories within which they trade
• competitors agreeing to prevent another from acquiring
or receiving goods and services
• misusing substantial market power to eliminate or damage
a competitor or potential competitor
• misusing substantial market share by engaging in
predatory pricing
• refusing to supply—this may infringe the Act under some
circumstances such as if the purpose of the refusal is
considered to be to damage another business
(I'll say it again GW have not refused to supply anyone, they have simply said they cannot supply the volume requested. )
• stipulating minimum resale prices for goods supplied to
a retailer.

Nothing GW is doing falls into any of these.
 
#46 ·
I am starting to hope that Games Workshop goes under, crumbles under it's own weight. Lies dead for a year or two until some passionate soul gathers the funds to restart it WITHOUT making it a publically traded company that answers to the whim of dim and thankless share holders, and WITHOUT brick and mortar stores. Their current operation is an exercise in futility.
 
#48 ·
Just a random thought as I don't know enough about the OZ market to give any in depth answers but I wonder how TCC is doing profit wise from it's GW tournament scene?

I mean if they are making a loss and was looking for a way out without looking like the bad guys this has given them the opportunity

If they are making money then this is a stupid knee jerk reaction that they will soon reconsider once they realise how much they are losing
 
#59 ·
Since 6th started it has been back orders, limited supplies and delays for everything. This whole thing isn't something new to the Elder or even the Tau release. Don't blame them for being pissy but they no ground to stand on legally. Their tourny support or lack of support means jack shit to releases.
 
#61 ·
Personally I think they are making small releases and churning them out as fast as they can. If they update all of 40k to 6th in the next year it will give them a baseline of what sells for the next few years. This has nothing to do with playing monopoly games with their products. Doing that would be like chopping their hand off then using it to masterbate.
 
#62 ·
That certainly seems to be the way it is going. It would be great to see all armies on the same edition !
 
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