And I quote:
"By way of illustration, but not limitation, North American Retailers are not permitted to sell GAMES WORKSHOP products on any website, web-portal, third-party web-portal or other Internet-based platform of any kind. This prohibition includes any form of online shopping cart that would enable a Consumer to order or purchase GAMES WORKSHOP products on-line."
The referenced document goes on to give reasons, which boil down to 'we make more money this way'. If you go on and find GW's investor pages, you will find their one line business plan:
We make the best fantasy miniatures in the world and sell them globally at a profit and we intend to do this forever.If you're GW, it's kind of hard to argue against that, but you do start to wonder how many times they can piss off the people who aren't part of the Games Workshop Hobby before it'll all come crashing down. Sure, the Space Marine farce doesn't affect 40K and Fantasy players, nor does the whole 'we're just going to hang on to the Warhammer Historical properties and not countenance any offers to buy them' idiocy, because, after all, wargames is not the Games Workshop Hobby, so up yours.
This current one doesn't affect their core market - the people who buy stuff in GW stores - and I would assume that their belief is that the loss of those folks for whom the above is the last straw will be outweighed by those who just move to buying off a bricks and mortar store.
The key reason for this post, however: Wayland Games have asked that folks publicise their recent offer/statement on the subject, which I'm very happy to do.
