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Sarouan
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Posts posted by Sarouan
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35 minutes ago, stratigo said:
I... said as much in the OP
Not that clearly.
Always good to clarify things sometimes.
Besides, about that part :
17 hours ago, stratigo said:But don't consume in ignorance that the money you pay goes into the pockets of the people who make the games you love. It largely does not. Do not make the argument that supporting GW is supporting the designers. It largely is not. I am sick and tired of people apologizing on behalf of GW with the argument that we have to support the people working there. GW doesn't support the people working there.
...I'll just say that buying GW products doesn't mean you're naive about where most of the money goes. Yet, still part of the money goes to employees. They may not be paid as much as we would like to, but at least, they -are- paid. Still better than having nothing with no job if GW was to close its doors / reduce its personnal because it doesn't earn "enough" anymore.
Also, the reason I do order in my GW shop while I could buy elsewhere for cheaper is because I know it matters for the shop's manager stats and it helps him on long term. And I don't especially want him to lose his job, nor the shop getting closed because it makes not enough sales.
Which is why I never understood people advocating for GW's fall. Other than obviously losing all support for our favorite games and no more GW miniatures, it just means another company will fill the gap, and there is no reasons it would be "cleaner" in the current setting of our society. All it means for sure, though, is that a lot of people will lose their jobs and not all of them will find another that easily...or, at least, something that they really enjoy to do.
And that's also why I'm saying GW isn't core of the problem here. Focusing on it is getting wrong about the true target. Feels like far right parties blaming immigrants for job losses...it's just deflection of the rightful anger of the people on something that's not the roots, but is convenient to use as a scarecrow for others interests. It's simplifying the deep core of the problems and doesn't invite people to think more about it and how to find solutions - just give something to hate. I don't like that.
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13 minutes ago, stratigo said:
And there is more then enough money in the system to do that too.
So you do agree it's not just a GW problem.
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Yep, we can't change the world with this topic, but at least ? We can talk about it. That's already a good thing.
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13 minutes ago, Beastmaster said:
Not completely serious here. But whenever I heard people far „up the ladder“ talking about the passion for the actual work they do, it somehow sounded… hollow.
They mostly talk about how stressful their job are and how much pressure they can have with so many responsabilities. But some are really passionate about what they do. It's not an easy job as well when you truly care for your job and the well-being of your team while also fulfilling the (somewhat unrealistics) expectations from your department.
Honestly, I can sympathize with some of them that I knew and appreciate because of their own empathy towards their employees. And I know for sure I don't want to deal with that kind of job myself.
There is a saying about being lonely at the top. That is true as well...when you're way above others and with a big salary, there is an expectation you'll do more because of it. I know some of my managers did keep working way past their hours because they wanted to do their best even though they were paid the same in the end. And some did get burn out because of it...yet they were well paid so it can be hard to empathize, but I do know that their charge wasn't easy as a human person still.
Then, like I said, I work in a public company so there is still that notion of "public service" buried deep inside past the normal management right-wing propaganda.
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1 minute ago, Beastmaster said:
Maybe… maybe the people who made a management college degree and are now working in management are secretly jealous of those doing interesting and creative work. Maybe they are just bored out of their minds by endless sales numbers, sales numbers, sales numbers. So, at least they want to get paid better as a compensation.
It's more complicated than that.
I had managers who genuinely sympathize with workers and tried their best to help them (well...as much as their role allows it) and I had others who were really thinking they are God's voice and all peons under them just have to obey.
Managers are humans too. Well, mostly.
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It's also a culture problem : in a society where the individual is praised for his personnal success above the group, and where you think the man at top with a big salary is "proof" of that success...no wonder the humble guy at the lower end of the ladder with ****** salary is generally ignored / unnoticed.
The masses are always anonymous when you talk about them. Yet they're people, they have their own story too. They're not just background characters in a Hollywood movie.
We really need to change that perception, but sadly that's not something you can do in one move of a magic wand.
We do need more empathy in our current society.
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It's not just GW, it's everywhere. Mantic Games has exactly the same "problem". It's not a matter of "size" (small companies give the same answer, you know...it's not because they're small than the argument is better), but really how we see our relationship with work and salaries in our society and, well, the deep problem of capitalism with no control / limit to how much are paid each worker (including the top).
There shouldn't exist such huge discrepencies between salaries. There shouldn't be billionaires.
And it's also a culture problem...where you are considered as "not passionate in your work" when you begin to talk about salaries...or the mindset "work is its own reward", that leads to workaholicism. There is also some kind of taboo to talk about money in more than one family...
Good thing indeed we can talk about this more often. But it shouldn't be "just" about GW, you know.
GW is only a symptom...not the Cause of All Evil.
Nepotism is...very common in private companies. After all, when the top have all powers and worker unions are seriously fought / discouraged...why wouldn't there be nepotism ? Private companies don't work as democracy because they're private - they're more dictatorial by default because of it. It's when you have different power levels in check and they're forced to negotiate between them that you can have something more similar to a democracy...and yeah, where workers can be treated more fairly. I work in a public company : it's still not ideal, but at the very least, the top can't do just as they please. They have to negotiate with worker unions at every level and there is a constant power balance. In fact, corporations should be treated just like "mini countries" - and there should be some mechanisms like in democracy more often to at least offer more solutions / ways to treat all workers more fairly. Just because someone made the company /paid for it doesn't mean he should have a life and death power over it - once workers join it, they also contribute to its success after all and should have a more active role in its gestion. But that also is a taboo in our current society...just look at how few we talk about these workers getting together to invest in a company and manage it with them being the actual "top management"...
But it's deeper and more complicated than just believe "GW is Evil". Like, if you remove GW, the problem will disappear...spoiler alert : it won't. But I do understand it's easier to hate a target rather than actually thinking and trying to find real solutions to a broader problem.
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38 minutes ago, Kadeton said:
This thread was really depressing to read. There's so much misunderstanding about intellectual property, and it's genuinely sad to see how effectively misinformation and confusion has been propagated and weaponised by corporate interests in the broader IP conversation, as evidenced here in microcosm.
This thread was really depressing to read. There's so much misunderstanding about corporations, their real costs given their size and logistics and the false equivalency of putting them all in the same bag - and it's genuinely sad to see how effectively misinformation and confusion has been propagated and weaponised by extremists that want to build a narrative fitting their beliefs that "GW is evil" on the internet, as evidenced here in microcosm.
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4 hours ago, HollowHills said:
I love warhammer, but imagine how much better the hobby would be if it was run by enthusiastic creators only for the benefit of fans rather than to extract the biggest profit from them.
See, that's exactly the kind of bias you end up with when you have a "Black and White" vision.
A lot of people working at GW are enthusiastic and passionate, and care about fans. Yet there is also a side of their business that care about profit and making money. Just one of the two isn't enough to work in this world - you need a balance of the two.
Furthemore, corporations aren't mindless entities thinking on their own. They're made from a lot of people that make its existence possible - and they have also quite different views like all humans. So it's not just "one side" that characterize them : it's an addition of all these views at multiple levels. You may believe just the view of the leader is enough, but reality isn't that always simple. There are a lot of different dynamics behind a corporation...the same than in any community, in fact.
You can live in a ideal world where you can work with only one side, like a "blank page" where everything can start anew without the existing problems and our own history. But that will never work in reality.
See Mantic Games. They have also to take into account the business side and the part about making money, yet they're often seen as player-friendly with their games. And they also know that if people begin to make copies of their miniatures for cheaper, it will also hurt them on the long term.
Here, when I read some posts, I can't help but feeling their authors seem to believe that people behind the success GW can't be both passionate and caring about money. That the two are incompatible...so, if they're making money, they can't care for fans and be passionate / enthusiastic. And everything that should show you they do must be a lie / deception to make you believe they are.
And here is my problem : people saying that it's not fine because it's GW but it is if it's small independants. Like big GW is always Black but small independants are always White. Reality is there are small independants who are actually here to make money without caring first for the fans - just at a smaller scale. Like true recasters located in some eastern countries and taking advantage of low cost material / not having to pay a horde of employees to have prices you can never beat.
But no, since they are small independants and they do this to GW, it's fine and ok to support them. That's how some guys justify it.
Basis of Justice is to treat everyone equally under the law. If you take a law and use it to treat differently two sides, just because of their "size" or simply the side you're taking, then it's not justice. It's just taking a side. So yes, if copyright laws exist, GW has as many rights to use them to defend their IP as much as small independants to protect their own. If you don't believe in that...you will never be fair.
That's why I'm suspicious of people calling the moral ground and saying those who "defend GW" are the hypocrites / don't understand why they do. To me, they're just trying to look better but don't see their ways aren't especially making them better in the end.
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5 minutes ago, Beliman said:
That, doesn't mean that GW will sue everyone, that just means that if you are crossing that line, they will contact you to see how it can be solved without going to the court.
90% of this cases don't even end on to court, and negotation and/or investigation (if it's needed) can close the case before it's even started.
Like here :
Yet some people with a particular opinion on GW saw this as being "forced to work with GW".
The guy still stays independant and still keep producing his animations. Just not GW IP for money.
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All of this because GW updated their IP Guidelines section. Guidelines.
Most of the debate isn't about this anymore. It's about political beliefs and the distorted way some perceive GW because it fits their political narrative.
The problem lies with people here, not GW. When you see the world in Black and White, it can only goes that way.
A good example is here :
16 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:Their market cap is currently sitting around £3.6 billion. Market cap is generally accepted as a shorthand for company value in the absence of any other data. The value of a company certainly isn't measured by its annual revenue, which is the number you seem to be quoting.
GW might or might not "actually" be worth £3.6 billion, but it's certainly worth well over a billion pounds by any serious valuation.
So because there is a set found somewhere about the speculative "value" of a company is enough to categorize it as a "billion dollar company". Even though none of GW profits is close enough to a billion - meaning the actual money they have in surplus and could invest back in the company or its employees for the better.
In comparison to Activision, a video game company that makes predatory video games on children with lootboxes and true microtransactions, that makes indeed billions dollars in profit every year, that could be used to upgrade their lowest employees salary but instead is given massively to their top management like Bobby Kotick, infamously known as being one of the billionaires. Like, true billionaires - meaning he doesn't need any more, he already has way more than enough to live at least a thousand lives in luxury.
But no, both are billion dollar companies, you see. Both are "Black". They're the same, you see.
Facts don't matter when you have a political agenda. What only matters is how you spin them your way so that it becomes a consolidation of your beliefs. Guidelines aren't guidelines anymore - they're an imminent threat forewarning a plague of legal actions against the poor fans who make animation videos on GW IP. No question, no Grey...the world is simple in Black and White.
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I'm glad to have more clarifications about what they want to do with the Old World project, but to be honest, it still seems so early in the development that I don't see the point of building a hype this soon.
I'll see where I am when we really get closer to the release date - expecting a few more years, TBH. Then I'll see if it will be worth it to try it or if I'll be busy on another project anyway.
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Well the 3.0 rules are definitely not fun to read and they're quite a lot more than before, that's a given...
So I totally get the argument that it's kinda going against AoS' strongpoint when it was launched.
Ah, we still have Warcry, I guess.
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5 minutes ago, Reinholt said:
Essentially, GW can write anything they want but it doesn't prevent people from doing this stuff and in fact probably hurts GW's ability to enforce it (as you can point to transparently illegal motives in court citing their own website); GW doesn't make laws and doesn't have unilateral rights to restrict discussions.
That's why it's called Intellectual Property Guidelines on their website.
But the title of this topic says "The Heavy Hand of Games Workshop - IP Rights".
So the original poster already interprets it in a very specific way and takes a side, even though the guildelines don't especially say GW will go for everyone right away...
It's just there to say their stance on several topics and questions some people may be asking themselves.
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When I played my first game in 3.0, I made the mistake to want to inclure the great strategies and tactics in addition to a special scenario.
We were learning the new rules as well as playing after a long time because of the pandemics, and it wasn't the smartest move I did. We did end up forgetting a lot of things, unsurprisingly.
It's a fact that 3.0 has more things to remember than 2.0. Yet, it's still not the complexity level of current edition of 40k, but it's definitely a step towards it.
Just take your time and don't be afraid to gradually add things as you make games. A simple scenario with the winner being the side having more points on the table at the end of the battle is good, too. You don't need to add all the rules for equal games from the General Handbook (including the new formations / rules for Ghur Realm) right away. That's my advice.
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3 minutes ago, HollowHills said:
I suppose it's more the question of intent. Previously there was no mention of fan films, now there specifically is a section banning them. With wh+ that indicates a new level of intent on their part to prevent these.
Most people doing 40k animation videos do have a patreon. So there is a renumeration intent...and it's exactly what GW is targetting in their IP guidelines.
If people do it with no ad money / patreon, they won't be where the hammer hits. But as usual, a particular side of people not liking GW no matter what they do wants to use that as the "proof" GW wants to crush everything, including the fans not doing this for money.
Not anything really new, just an update to be clearer and include some recent stuff that will incluse their Warhammer TV+. Same old debate about IP and the need or not of its very existence.
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Leaving off-topic aside, we'll be trying a multiplayer game this weekend so I thought to use the rules of Triumph and Treason. Then I notice they don't say anything about how to gain command points for the priority roll. Annoying.
Game doesn't seem to work that good once you have more than two sides because everything is thought with that in mind. There are indeed more reactive tools for the player when it's not his turn, but add more turns to the round and it gets troublesome.
Will have to think about something that can be playable.
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2 minutes ago, Snorri Nelriksson said:
So he could return?
Nice confirmation of that.
Oh Grungni sure thinks so, or he wouldn't tell Grombrindal this to justify he needed someone else to reunite the duardins.
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1 minute ago, Neverchosen said:
Then we can get DOK/Malerion's forces, Sylvaneth/Kurnothi and Lumineth/IDK for a somewhat more traditional division of Dark, Wood, High Elves.
I'm honestly expecting the wanderers and dark elf simili-factions get removed from Cities of Sigmar when they will be replaced by the "new" Malerion's "not-druchii" followers and kurnothi "not-wood elves" with the reborn Athel-Loren.
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3 minutes ago, King Under the Mountain said:
Interesting that we will have the Avatar of Grungni and the Avatar of Grimnir running around.
In the WD story, Grungni says Grimnir isn't ready to come back yet.
Guess that means more Gotrek stories in AoS before the Grand Finale.
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2 hours ago, King Under the Mountain said:
Can you spoil it for us poor lads please?
Basically, Grombrindal is the plan. That's why Grungni forged him anew as he did teach Sigmar to make Stormcast Eternals. He's the one to reunite the duardins together, since Grungni knows a lot of its children will need time to get over about him leaving them for so long.
That's why I think Grombrindal was actually the one appearing in the Kharadron fleet. Grombrindal isn't Grungni, but the WD story says they're almost equals. So I wasn't that far by saying Grombrindal is an avatar of Grungni.
And I'm pretty sure it means Grombrindal will be the one having a miniature, not Grungni (he still believes he has to stay aside).
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15 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:
Oh my word using Rally on Horrors will be bonkers.
I am starting to get a bad feeling about this.
And we didn't see these famous "core battalion" rules yet.
But remember : it's the best rule set ever for AoS. 😁
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16 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:
I call this the Egg Attack Formation! (60mm x 35mm Cavalry bases)
You will be able to strike with 9 at a 1" range.That's really what I don't like with this new coherence rule : it makes the unit formation look even sillier.
I'll be honest, that's not a change I like to see. The rule works in 40k because melee works with bases, not inches. In AoS, it's totally not the same.
I really hope it's not a fatal flaw of the rule design team, here. In all cases, it certainly doesn't make the game simpler and more intuitive, IMHO.
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Mostly keep building my miniatures. It's not like I'm going to play anytime soon, after all, restrictions of the pandemic aren't lifted yet in my country.
The good side of it is that I don't feel in a hurry to get everything before the others. I know it doesn't matter anymore. ;)
Will certainly give time for the official reviews coming in and read what others have to say about it. It's not a bad thing either.
Always good to clarify things sometimes.
James Hewitt discusses his Salary when working with GW
in Age of Sigmar Discussions
Posted · Edited by Sarouan
Of course stories are important and James and Sophie's testimonies are interesting to keep in mind.
What I'm saying, though, is that behind the company, there are people - lots of people who still work nowadays at GW, unlike James and Sophie who managed to find another job (and James is very happy with his own company, wish him all the good in the world !). Advocating for actions against GW, like your posts constantly incite to do, has consequences for these people - who aren't in majority top management that will always be fine even if GW was about to fall.
James's last tweet is a good reminder of that as well. Current employees aren't apparently allowed to talk about it on social media, so better not try to harass them too much about it...
The point of my interventions here is : "don't get the wrong target". It's not GW who make their employees sign contracts, refuse payrises or fire them...it's very specific people behind these decisions, with a particular mindset (some who may not be working at GW anymore, they're not eternals either). James talking about GW's culture is important to keep in mind as well (I know this too, I knew the period of that famous "black / red book"...a good thing they don't use it anymore, indeed...but like I said, change takes a lot of time and remnants are still there, you can't erase them with a snap of fingers).
I guess you can see this as "GW defense by trying to dismiss what they did", but I never did dismiss these practices. In fact, I despise them, no matter who does that. The thing is...solution to me is more changing GW than trying to destroy it. Like having GW worker unions actually playing a role to represent their voice within GW, and not just all powerful managers. Having more work about the organization, restoring healthier relationships between departments, and so on... That's what I would rather focus on.