Games Workshop in another chilling legal action has gone after Wayland Games and Beasts of War the tabletop news site. GW couldn’t with all their legal threats get Beasts of War to stop showing GW products, couldn’t stop Beasts of War from commenting about rumors, and certainly couldn’t stop them from leaking blurring advance release images. So, instead GW legal found a way to hit Beasts of War where it would hurt them most, right in the wallet. A few years back Beasts of War was “essentially bought” by Wayland Games. It was a beautiful relationship, Wayland Games could use a good-looking news site to generate sales and Beasts of War would get much needed capital. So, what did GW do? Well they decide to use the contractual terms with Wayland Games to force Wayland to either stop selling GW products or cut Beasts of War loose.

Now, before we find out what happens let us wrestle in the weeds a bit.

Wayland Games is the largest online international wargaming retailer built on selling almost everything at a discount. GW on a small level do look the other way when it comes to discount retailers as long as they have a brick & mortar shop and abide by certain rules. In the case of Wayland Games, on a certain level are a competitor to GW. So, GW found a way to hurt not only Wayland, but also strike at a news site for “leaking” information; either choice Wayland and Beasts of War make was a delusional win for GW.

What did Beasts of War and Wayland decide? Here is the video…

As you can see Warren is visible shaken by the whole matter. As many have witness first hand, Warren cannot imagine why GW would attack a site whose only crime is promoting GW products. What this means for Beasts of War is probably a slow crawl to death, the site doesn’t generate enough traffic to justify its production values and servers. Wayland Games was the life blood Beasts of War desperately needed a few years back, and being on Geek & Sundry won’t be enough. Beyond the fate of Beasts of War, this goes to show the extent to which GW bullies and threatens any site that dares publishes any of their content.

For many GW’s goals must seem as unintelligible as Tzeentch’s mind, but it seems clear to me, controlling information drives revenue, because if the only website ends up being GW website, then better the margins. This is all about margins, GW can lose players as long as margins make up for it, is it sustainable, only Kirby’s dividend checks will determine that answer.  What it means for sites like Beasts of War and others ask yourself this?

Have you seen leaked images on Warseer or Faeit in a while?

Dakkadakka and Bell of Lost Souls removes them at the first sign of trouble.

It is almost seems like once a website gets a certain size GW takes notice.

The only way GW will change at this point is if they get bought out or the hierarchy is completely shuffled. It is obvious they don’t listen to the customer base as any attempt at communication is either terminated or ignored. Regardless of how you feel about Wayland Games or Beasts of War this is just another example of GW intent to clamp down on anyone not named Games Workshop.

If you want to follow this developing story I really suggest reading the post that accompanies video on Beasts of War.

http://www.beastsofwar.com/games-workshop/announcement/

it goes in great detail about all the legal encounters with GW.