I'm guessing someone here has, at once time or another, contacted GW about optioning the rights to Epic 40K for one reason or another.

Can those people let me know (feel free to PM me if you're not comfortable writing publicly) what channels they used to engage with GW (eg a letter to Person X, a phone call to Person X, etc), and how they fared?

Specifically, I'm looking for a contact inside GW who has in the past been amenable for championing such an engagement, but I'll take whatever advice people can offer on the subject.

I understand THQ holds the rights to produce Warhammer 40K games, but it's not clear whether or not that covers Epic as well. If anyone knows the answer to that, again, please let me know.

Thanks in advance for any and all responses.

Hi,

Feel free to PM me for details.

- Ben

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

First, long time no see guys - even if the three of you weren't here when I last haunted the place (when dinosaurs walked the Earth, TacCmd was still EpiComms and Specialist Games had their own official forums).
I do believe I can give a bit of an info here, having been one of the people on the wrong end of the Space Hulk fangame debacle in 2008. Apologies if I get a bit worked up over this but... well, that has been something of a personal matter for me too not long ago.

Far as Games Workshop's legal department's knowledge is concerned THQ's license covers, as the legalese goes, the entire Warhammer 40.000 IP. That means it does include sub-IPs such as Epic, Space Hulk, Inquisitor etc. In entirety. Further, this license is exclusive - in other words, GW may not license any other party to produce any video games based on the Warhammer 40.000 universe as long as THQ's license lasts.

THQ is either unable or unwilling to sub-license it to fans - or at least it has been when Teardown attempted to contact them regarding it, despite that our proposal at the time was basically an offer of giving them the entire finished product (with all the source code etc) for free, no strings attached.

It is quite possible the former is the case here, or at least that's the impression we got from another e-mail we received when we contacted GW, specifically one Erik Mogensen, whose position at the time was Manager, Licensing and Acquired Rights, Games Workshop Limited. His response regarding the license included the following statement:Substitute "Space Hulk" for "Epic" and that's pretty much what you can expect in response to your enquiries.

The best solution would be to create a brand-free engine with similar mechanics and create your own unique IP to go with it. GW can copyright rules text, but it cannot copyright the actual mechanics that the text is merely a representation of.

Yes, if they see anything that appears within a mile of similarity they will try to harrass you. Careful control over your response, though, won't give them a leg to stand on.

(rant warning)
They tried to pull that with us in regards to Alien Assault - aka "the game that was this || close to being released as Space Hulk".
We gave them a very polite, very detailed answer that just so happened to deconstruct their every argument down into nothing but the b/s it was, such as their statement that we were in violation of their trademarks for referring to the troops in our game as "Marines" (to which we responded they might own "Space Marines" but the Orbital Marine Corps are ours, thankyouverymuch) and kindly suggesting that they stop hunting vaguely perceived trademark and copyright violations where there are none and focus on more practical things such as countering digital piracy of their publications and dealing with actual blatant violations of their IP/trademarks like, oh, the "Chaos Insignia" used in relation to a number of Michael Moorcock's literary works and their spin-off media (don't correct me on that last item, I know exactly what I'm saying, if you don't get it then it's your own fault).

I think this may fall under the phrase, "Beating a dead horse ..." But I could be wrong ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

What a shame. The business opportunities for GW are there and they could still control the direction of their game background. Sadly like most companies as they grow they lose sight of the customer/fan base and treat a lot of opportunities as threats. I started buying from GW with White Dwarf #4 so its been a long time affair !!

Thanks, the_fifth_horseman. That's very useful intel. Much appreciated.

Don't s'pose you have any contact details for the relevant team at THQ, like a phone number or email address?

Very cool regarding Moorcock there, by the way—wonder why that's never been picked up as an issue?

Of course, this being the 21st century and the internet being the internet, I highly doubt that an Epic game distributed for free via a website without any named creators could really be suppressed... This all depends on what you're actually trying to do, of course