I owe the National Newspapers of Ireland €1000. Allegedly.

My gold. Mine

I've enjoyed the Christmas break and hopefully you have too. Having lined up an article about the other game systems I'm playing at the moment and how much I hate my xbox, I was completely blown away by something I read online. A friend passed this to me on Facebook and I had to laugh. Eventually.

A solicitor firm in Dublin (McGarr's) have pieced together a brilliant story about how the media (or meedja as they're known in certain parts) have tried to come up with alternative routes of generating money, which ended up with them issuing a demand to a women's domestic violence charity for them to cough up for linking to a newspaper's website a story about their fundraising efforts that had appeared in the print version of said newspaper. I'm not joking: see the link here and feel free to criticise, review or ask questions in the comments below.

So I figured that I'd do my bit and see if I could get them to issue me with a warning. Apparently 26 links to various websites of members of the National Newspapers of Ireland means they'll charge me €1350. Which is £1094 or $1767 at the time of writing thanks to xe.com (I hope they don't charge too). This got me thinking about things that more traditional forms of businesses are doing to keep their profits coming in: see Ruport Murdoch's losing battle with Google (and Chrome and Firefox's Murdoch-block app) and I thought of GW, seeing as they are the biggest of the Titans when it comes to miniature wargaming and some of the many things that they've been doing in, or not doing, in order to keep their shareholders happy.

The BBC article on 40k

Henry Sellers: He made the BBC!

I read this on Face earlier today and it reminded me of the Greek article that the Antipope posted up (here) where the author blighted all 40k gamers and claimed they were anti-social wierdos. Ok, there are a lot of anti-social wierdos in the hobby but they're not the blood-drinking, petrol-bombing skinheads that worry about Muslamic Ray Guns like they were portrayed by the journalist that probably sought to blame someone for the financial crisis that wrecked her country because they weren't the type to protest and show solidarity.

Instead, you get a fairly even-hand article that highlights both the popularity and the madness of the hobby, with both fans and critics being asked their opinions such as the former staffer's complaint that you need £200/€230 to play a decent-sized game a very valid one. It was interesting to see this though:

How many other British companies, for example, could report a 40% rise in their latest half-year pre-tax profits?