I have a question about IP laws.

If a company becomes defunct what happens to the intellectual property that company created? Does their IP become defunct or an open property? For example what I mean is if GW closed down (not that I think that would happen anytime soon) would their miniatures/rules be able to be legally copied and sold by other manufacturers?

In general the assets of the company will be sold off to pay outstanding debt. The amount going to various creditors in various amounts. In the case of GW scenario, someone would acquire them hook line and sinker for the manufacturing assets I expect, getting the IP "for free".

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In many ways it is irrelevant - as JZ says, a company with any kind of useful IP would have that IP acquired when it is wound up. And if not, it doesn't really matter whether the IP ceases to exist or not, because there is no company left to enforce it.

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Jimmy's right, except about what assets are valuable in GW. I think their IP is a lot more valuable than that.

Well, then again maybe not that much. If you really mean exact copies, maybe there is something enforceable. The fluff seems much less valuable than what many thought now that we have the Chapter House ruling.

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I wouldn't be surprised if the ip has more value in the computer games world now than the tabletop world - judging by the number of companies now making "grim dark" minis in the wake of chapterhouse.

GW is actually not a really big company at all. It's the proverbial big fish in a tiny pond. The IP has extremely limited general consumer recognition limited predominately to wargammers which is a niche market. Where it is not, it's in a few video games that most consumers don't really tie to GW as a company any more than seeing Rebellion on the AVP video game splash screen, for instance. It's just a name they vaguely recognize. Considering how bad they've blown their relationships with several big time studios they've really missed out on a huge opportunity to market themselves and their IP and make piles of cash in the process.

For an entertainment company their IP is such a generic and derivative combination of standard SciFi tropes, albeit an entertaining one, it's not worth anything to them. You can make movies and comic books/graphic novels/etc without needing to license any of their IP in the first place from GW (and probably make more money) so why even buy it in a fire sale unless it was dirt cheap? The CHS verdict just drove that point home even further.

Their most valuable assets are the expertise and equipment in hard plastics production. It's not a common set of skills and services that is currently a market with demand far outstripping supply.

The IP itself if worth anything to another company outside of wargamming/vidego games would be someone like Hasbro for the boardgames and to make "toys". They'd probably keep licenses to existing companies for RPGs and in flight games and license out miniatures to someone that wanted to bother (they certainly wouldn't)

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

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Maybe trouble-maker should sub-contract to gw ! :-D

^HA!^

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Well the IP is clearly worth money, since it made £3.5m in 2012 and £1.0m in 2013*. That compares to £15.6m (2012) and £20.2m (2013) profit from miniature sales. GW isn't really that big a company, but if licensing it can make 18% of their profits without involving any manufacturing of miniatures, it's clearly valuable

I really recommend reading GW's investor reports, they are very interesting when it comes to how GW runs its business, its perspective on IP & enforcement, pricing etc. e.g. this is the last annual report from 2013:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-c ... e-page.pdf

*The decrease due to the transition in the video games market to mobile, but contractual tie-ins limited the ability to adapt - the 1mil is largely from fantasy flight, which obviously has nothing to do with miniature production. There are now quite a few iOS games either released recently or in development.

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Yeah I read those too. Declining licensing revenue and shrinking player base does not make for a healthy valuable IP. I did NOT say it was a worthless IP, just that it's not worth much on its own to big players in a buy out in comparison to the production machinery. To put it in perspective, Parker Brothers makes more money a year from selling the game Sorry! than they made in licensing the IP to video game companies.

Take FFG out of the picture and it's actually pretty sad leveraging their IP which could be very valuable if they weren't douche waffles when it comes to it.

Yes the percentage of games for particular platforms is changing but the video game market as a whole is expanding across the board. Shrinking revenue in that environment is far from a good sign and devalues their IP further.

Let me give another IP licensing example:
Microsoft made more last year alone licensing Halo figures than GW has ever made in licenses PERIOD.

Regardless this is quickly devolving off topic so enough on this. Cheers!

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-Help me make Whitescars not suck!

Well having answered the OP question I think we're not doing too bad with tangents

I hadn't really given much thought about how GW could license for more, I've just always considered them a niche brand with niche fiction - so in that context I didn't think they were doing a bad job, having had some decent games on major platforms. Shame there've been no major films though. But yeah, now you mention it, actually most of that fiction is not terribly distinct, though I reckon the 40K universe has enough to make some cool movies. I suppose to really make a lot from it you have to go mass market, and if you were a company capable of funding and publishing a major video game or movie franchise, I'm not sure why you would license GW's IP rather than make up your own? Unlike, say, Transformers, It's not recognisable to enough people to make it worth giving away a percentage (a big movie/game would end up more well known in its own right than the miniatures), so the fictional setting has to be compelling enough of its own accord I guess? Curious to know what you'd do if you were in charge

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If I was in charge? Buy a island in the South Pacific with naked Polynesian ladies and retire.

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

-I HAVE NO POINT
-Penal Legion-Fan list
-Help me make Whitescars not suck!

OK, I have a tangential question.

I've been working on a game for fun, which is a satire of some games we all play, especially 40k. At the moment I'm calling it "40 Warhammers"

How litigious is that? The game itself has little in common with 40k. I'm thinking I need to change the name further to something like "40 Krieghammers" or 40 hammers for warmaking" or "40 storehammers" or .

I would like 40 to be in the name, due to the mechanics in the game.

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40 KriegHammer would still probably get you sued since Games Workshop also sell in Germany and a literal transnational there could lead to customer confuson.

Kreigin' XL would be good though

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