Why Chapterhouse Studios hurt the hobby and why we should defend Games Workshop.

Hey all, Kevin here to write about a topic I, as well as many underground gamers, have been avoiding. I have had enough talks with gamers that think t, ashe same way, as well as a few game store owners, on the topic to come to my conclusions. First of all lets talk about something the online wargaming community loves to do, which is hate Games Workshop. Why might you ask? Face it or not people love Warhammer Fantasy and 40k. Games Workshop has increased prices and have been very paranoid about protecting their Intellectual Property. In turn by being very protective of their IP and constant price hikes tends to hurt us as gamers as it makes us harder to play a game we all love. We have tended to demonize Games Workshop at every turn by being a Corporation only looking out for its stockholders profits and not the gamers. Yet we have to be honest, although we may not want to admit it we need GW to be successful for if not our game would not exist. BoLS would diminish and die and Game stores would shut down (without thier number one money maker in the game anymore). The hobby would die without the company. We also need it to protect its IP because without protecting its line GW would be swamped by the second party . We have all become idealists and have let pragmatism go by the wayside. I know a world with $20 boxes of 10 marines and dozens of other companies making alternative models sounds great but it is unrealistic. Truth is for our game to expand we need GW to be successful in an extremely niche hobby. Games Workshop has been martyred day in and day out, even by myself, for every single financial decision it has made and a lot of us will still hammer them for every dollar price increase and every civil suit made. By why are we pointing a gun at our own source of continued fascination and enjoyment. What would you do if we never saw a new codex come out. What would Goatboy do if he ran out of models to put goat heads on? What would you do if every single GT shutdown as an old, out of date, hobby fizzled without new players and updates. Why are we shooting ourselves in the foot?

Awhile ago we were again outraged as Chapterhouse came under GW legal scrutiny for some IP infringement. We immediately called GW evil for attacking a 3rd party company we all loved for making some sweet conversion pieces. How dare Games Workshop! was shouted from the roof tops. Yet did we realize then that we were hurting ourselves. This put GW in a legal dead end. According to US copyright law you cannot copyright a phrase or name in a book as your own IP and could only copyright a specific unit in a codex by making a named model for the army. Now many 3rd party companies legally make alternative models for the GW range whether it is "futuristic imperial soldiers" or ""giant spacebug seed pods" it did not hurt the hobby as a whole. Chapterhouse went ahead and made models from the codex entries in the Space Wolf and Tyranid ranges very specifically being their thunderwolf calvary. By doing this they put GW at this legal trouble since if GW released, as an example, their own Thunderwolf Calvary model they could be sued by Chapterhouse for attacking Chapterhouses IP! By doing so a few results have come out of this problem, some good and bad. This quite literally screwed tyranid players looking for newer models. It also left the door open for any model to be made by any company for a codex entry that does not have a GW published model and then sue Games Workshop. This could financially cripple the company and end 40k and Fantasy as we know it. IT also resulted in Games Workshop releasing a model for every codex entry it can as soon as possible. This did, however, benefit the hobby as we saw almost the entire Dark Eldar range come out soon after the book hit the shelves. Although this might seem good we can safely say that Chapterhouse set a precedent that can hurt the hobby as a whole, and royally screw tyranid players, in general.

Now no matter what you say, or think, Chapterhouse was at wrong to us by releasing actual named models. Now I try to be a middle ground person between fights and look for the factual right thing to do. I believe in the free market, the pursuit of happiness and, the right for a man, woman, or company to achieve financial greatness. I am fiscally conservative and like to find reason and practical paths through problem solving and solutions. Yet most importantly I believe in the rights of a business,complete fairness to all parties as well as every persons destiny should be achieved through thier own actions and will to thrive and should not be decided by another person or establishment. Did Chapterhouse make this move on purpose? I would say no as I believe everyone will try  to have good faith intended in their actions but as we all know this might not be the case. I would hope a settlement comes out of this case and GW learns from the events listed. I would also hope, as our small hobby is very fragile in its existence, Chapterhouse would not sue GW for making its own Thunderwolf model and copyrighting it. I would hope Chapterhouse, if it can, would change the names of its line and refrain from cherry picking new codex options by making its own models before GW does. I know a lot of people will read this with prior thoughts have ill will against GW but I hope after reading this the fine folks of our hobby will think these things through logic and pragmatism. I also hope people will try to think things through the next time something like this happens. I also hope people will give a little more good will towards the source of our enjoyment Games Workshop itself as I believe they do not like some of the bad thoughts given to them over their actions for the betterment of their company. More on this later...