WotC Gale Force 9 Sues WotC [Updated]

In the second lawsuit against WotC in recent weeks (Dragonlance authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman sued the company for breach of contract and other things about a month ago), Gale Force 9 is suing the company for breach of contract and implied duty of good faith.

Gale Force 9 produces miniatures, cards, DM screens, and other D&D accessories. They’re asking for damages of nearly a million dollars, as well as an injunction to prevent WotC from terminating the licensing contract.

From the suit, it looks like WotC wanted to end a licensing agreement a year early. When GF9 didn't agree to that, WotC indicated that they would refuse to approve any new licensed products from GF9. It looks like the same sort of approach they took with Weis and Hickman, which also resulted in a lawsuit. The dispute appears to relate to some product translations in non-US markets. More information as I hear it!

UPDATE. GF9's CEO, Jean-Paul Brisigotti, spoke to ICv2 and said: "After twelve years of working with Wizards, we find ourselves in a difficult place having to utilize the legal system to try and resolve an issue we have spent the last six months trying to amicably handle between us without any success. We still hope this can be settled between us but the timeline for a legal resolution has meant we have been forced to go down this path at this time."

 

[Hussar]

I think we're having some serious translation errors with the notion of a "nice" meal.

Rent in NZ (presuming a city) was less than 200 bucks a MONTH in 1996? Holy CRAP that's cheap. Good grief, that's practically free. That's ludicrously cheap.

Again, three drinks plus dinner for two in Canada? With tip? Minimum 50 CAD in a decent place like a TGIFridays or something like that. We're talking purely middle class establishment here. And, frankly, if you have desert and coffee, you might as well add another twenty bucks on top of that.

As far as "playing with blown up juice boxes", well, that's no different than playing with the free pdf no? That's the bare minimum of play. When claiming "I paid less for baking supplies" this year, it would be helpful to actually state what you have to pay for something like Tasha's, just so we actually know what you're talking about.

 

[Zardnaar]

Isn't that just economics though?
Gaming is a luxury/non essesntial item - so the people selling it (WOTC and stores) price it as they see appropriate to maximise their revenue based on margin and volume, maximise return on investmnet, and achieve desired market coverage/penetration.
D&D is a luxury - nobody has a right to be able to simply expect to be able afford it.
Luxuries cost money, coming from discretionary spend from the money you have left over after essesntials are covered.
If buying D&D means not paying the rent or skipping food for a day/days/weeks then you really can't afford it.
That is sad, but it is also reality.
It also doesn't make pirating copies acceptable.
I can't afford a yacht - this doesn't mean it's OK for me to just put on an eyepatch, get a parrot, and then go and steal a nice shiny boat from the nearest marina

I'm not saying steal it or you're wrong for buying it.

Just some people push the "it's actually cheap" line. It's kinda not.

Ive bought around 30 hardcover books but yeah a lot of people have PDFs, I'm sure at least half didn't pay for them.

Some have done both because they don't have a flgs nearby so they aquire the PDF and buy the books they like.

So that's still driving sales. I don't but adventures until I read people's comments on ENworld. Skipped most of the recent ones except for GoS, ToA and RotF.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think we're having some serious translation errors with the notion of a "nice" meal.

Rent in NZ (presuming a city) was less than 200 bucks a MONTH in 1996? Holy CRAP that's cheap. Good grief, that's practically free. That's ludicrously cheap.

Again, three drinks plus dinner for two in Canada? With tip? Minimum 50 CAD in a decent place like a TGIFridays or something like that. We're talking purely middle class establishment here. And, frankly, if you have desert and coffee, you might as well add another twenty bucks on top of that.

As far as "playing with blown up juice boxes", well, that's no different than playing with the free pdf no? That's the bare minimum of play. When claiming "I paid less for baking supplies" this year, it would be helpful to actually state what you have to pay for something like Tasha's, just so we actually know what you're talking about.

I can't remember the conversion rate was but it was something like $100 usd a month in 1999, my place was nice right in the student area and it was $60 ($40 usd) a week. Cheap and nasty $40 through to around 2002 as my wife rented a dump.

That was the same price in 1999 as a boxed set.

I coated my books in plastic and the price tags are still on some of them. I would go visit and have$150 in my pocket and head for the gamestore.

 

[Zardnaar]

Christmas present 1995.

$44.95

The back of the book $24.95 usd . Idk what the conversion rate was. Student allowance was $150 NZD a week in 1996.

Rent for a 3 bedroom house where we lived was $90 NZD/Week. In 1996 my friends room in the city 5 minutes walk to the CBD was $40 NZD.

3 bedroom nice house corporate type was $150 a week.

D&D's cheaper now but rents gone bonkers. I shouted one of my players a meal last night (student, he was embarrassed).

 

[Hussar]

HOLY MOLEY your rent was ludicrously cheap. Like I said, I had a very cheap, basic, 2 bedroom apartment in London, Ontario in the early 90's and it was over 600 CAD (pretty close to NZ Dollars IIRC) per month. Damn, that's cheap. I should have moved to NZ.

BTW, what is Student Allowance?

 

[Zardnaar]

HOLY MOLEY your rent was ludicrously cheap. Like I said, I had a very cheap, basic, 2 bedroom apartment in London, Ontario in the early 90's and it was over 600 CAD (pretty close to NZ Dollars IIRC) per month. Damn, that's cheap. I should have moved to NZ.

BTW, what is Student Allowance?

Kinda like a benefit the government gives you at tertiary institution. So basically if you were poor you took a student loan to go to tertiary institution. Government still paid for most of it (70-80%).

Basically they gave you $150 a week if you were at University. A room in a student flat was $40-60 generally ( really nice ones more like $70 or $80).

A litre of vodka/whiskey/rum could be had for $10.

 

[MoonSong]

Where do you live, and what did you pay? Genuinely interested, and frankly amazed!

In the heart of the moon LOL! (Sorry you activated my trap. More seriously, you know the one poor country in continental North America, the one that some mistakenly place in Central America)

I paid $38 for Tasha's, but only because I'm a smart shopper and dodged the $70-140 price tag that most had to deal with because Amazon didn't stock it. For reference, the minimum wage is $6 a day, one dollar gets you a litter of milk or a pound of flour, or two kilograms of suggar, or a dozen eggs.

 

[MoonSong]

I can relate to that. As a power engineer, I work the shifts. 2 days, 2 nights and four off duty days. 12h shifts but we are often required to work on overtime as as not everyone has the necessary knowledge and qualifications to man the boilers and the turbines. At least, I know that I can get home when the shifts over...

Try doing some childcare on the side. Nothing kills your free time like that.

 

[Zardnaar]

In the heart of the moon LOL! (Sorry you activated my trap. More seriously, you know the one poor country in continental North America, the one that some mistakenly place in Central America)

I paid $38 for Tasha's, but only because I'm a smart shopper and dodged the $70-140 price tag that most had to deal with because Amazon didn't stock it. For reference, the minimum wage is $6 a day, one dollar gets you a litter of milk or a pound of flour, or two kilograms of suggar, or a dozen eggs.

My first job paid $22 a day ($15 usd) aged 13. By 15 was buying on clothes and essentially independent age 16. No minimum wage for under 18 or 16 iirc.

 

[Helldritch]

Try doing some childcare on the side. Nothing kills your free time like that.

Been there, done that. My daughter is now 24.