May 10, 2010
WarhammerAlliance.com, one of the larger fansites for the Warhammer Online series, has been sued for cybersquatting and unfair competition, but not by EA Mythic. The suit was filed by the creators of the Warhammer IP, Games Workshop, against the operators of the fansite, Curse, Inc.
This is not the first time that Games Workshop has gone after a fan site—they once went after retail game shops—but it does appear to be the first time where the lawsuit was over a commercial video game (Games Workshop primarily makes tabletop games and accessories).
The full complaint can be viewed here (PDF).
Comments
Re: Games Workshop Targets Warhammer Fansite
This was why I stopped buying GW stuff years ago, they were using cheaper and cheaper molds for the goods, even reverting to plastic models in some cases, charging more and more for the honour of less and less quality, and they hated their own customers.
Used to have a Dark Elf army, and a Chaos Dwarf army, but when I found out the real nature of GW, they ended up being recruited in as High Elves and Dwarves in a different companies rulebook :)
Re: Games Workshop Targets Warhammer Fansite
I was a bit of a Wood Elf fan, myself. I didn't have enough money at the time to fully invest in my army, though.
Re: Games Workshop Targets Warhammer Fansite
My brother had wood-elf and Orcs, we actually decided to get those particular armies because sending Orcs against Wood Elves was like entering an ass-kicking competition against a porcupine, you'd lose most of your Orcs before they were halfway across the board to a mass of Archers and Bolt-Throwers., what was left fell to War-Dancers and/or Treemen ;)
Thing is, I still love games like Dawn of War, Warhammer was a great game, but the reason for GW's big early-90's collapse, where loads of their shops closed etc, was greed, nothing else.
Re: Games Workshop Targets Warhammer Fansite
This should surprise no one - Games Workshop is notoriously sue-happy and they honestly seem to outright loathe their biggest fans. I say this as someone who just dropped probably $300 on a new Tau army and paints and stuff, so don't think I just hate the Warhams or anything. GW is just a pretty terrible company that seems to hate the Internet and the fans who give them the most free advertising.
Example: Games Workshop said that they would cut rules for special characters from future versions of Blood Bowl (the tabletop game, you videoheads!) if another company didn't stop producing miniatures that could arguably be used as standins for characters GW had never released models for. They didn't offer a C&D, they didn't try to license it out for mutual profit, they held their own rules for ransom. It's like their business decisions are made by a whiny twelve-year-old.
Re: Games Workshop Targets Warhammer Fansite
Looks like Warhammer Online is really in a spot in trouble if they've hit the point of suing their fans to recoup lost revenue.
Honestly, I can't think of another reason why they would sue over a site that they have actively promoted in the past and accuse them of cybersquatting (which is only legally binding on a DNS if it's not being used for anything.)
Re: Games Workshop Targets Warhammer Fansite
/sigh
The article explicitly said it wasn't EAMythic (the publishers and developers of WAR) that were suing. It's Games Workshop, the company that makes pewter figurines and publishes the rulesets for Warhammer the tabletop game, that's suing. Why? I don't know. What I do know is that Mythic is probably cursing under their breath right now. WAR isn't doing as well as they had originally hoped (though is still holding it's own), and they don't need their loyal fanbase being antagonized like this.