Morgen zusammen,
gestern hat die deutsche FoW Community einen offenen Brief an Battlefront verfasst. Dieser spricht die gesetzlichen Probleme mit den übertriebenen Masse an 3. Reich Symbole an, geht auf das unsensible Cover des neuen Art of War Buches ein und spricht die hohen Preise in Europa an.
Wer sich nicht am Brief beteiligen möchte, er ist sowohl in unserem Forum als auch im offiziellen Forum zu finden (General Discussion - Open Letter from the German FoW Community).
Hier dann auch der Brief, damit ihr nicht rumsuchen müsst:
Dear John-Paul,
Dear Battlefront Staff,
my name is Sven and I'm writing you this open letter from the german community in my function as administrator for the website flamesofwar.de.
The german community website is now more than 3 years old, has over 500 Members and is still growing. The player base is mainly evenly spread over germany (few hotspots like Hannover, Cologne, Berlin and the Ruhrgebiet), we have regular tournaments and a regular player meeting every year. We support Flames of War and Battlefront, where we can and enjoy playing it here.
But a long debate in our forum has come to the conclusion that the german players want to express their concerns about the future of flames of war in Germany and Austria.
Our concerns are about 2 main discussion points:
a) way too much usage of symbols and phrases from the 3. Reich in the books and gaming aids
b) high prices in continental europe
For point a) , I have to explain a few things for players and people, who are not from germany and don't know the existing laws here.
German laws forbid the possession of certain symbols and insignia from the 3. Reich. Showing in public of this symbols is forbidden too and you can get a fine for doing so. The § you should look at is §86 + §86a StGB. There are exceptions in this law, mainly for historical education, arts and militaria, but this exception can't be used to exclude tabletop or modelling hobbies from this law.
So it is possible, that the police comes in the LGS (or some other public room where the game is played), sees certain open books (like Cobra or Afrika) or the DAK dices and gives the players and owner of the room fines. In very bad circumstances, you can be sued for selling and showing products with symbols of the 3. Reich in public. We had this situation already in germany and we fear, that when the game grows bigger here, that this situations will be a regular sighting.
Many sellers of FoW products, may they be onlineshops or LGS, are now censoring the books with black stickers or black paint, where they see problematic symbols. Few sellers even don't sell certain products because of this fines and possible sues.
So you see, we in Germany have real problems with the extensive use and showing of symbols from the 3. Reich in the last books. I provide you a link to a .pdf from the police in Hessen with some (not all!) forbidden symbols in germany:
http://www.polizei.hessen.de/internetzentral/binarywriterservlet?imgUid=04610b55-5440-48f3-362d-61611142c388&uBasVariant=ed83d448-9a76-4e11-8a5b-28e46ce02000
Looking at the new Art of War Book, we are even more concerned...
We could defend the game as a “tactical, historical Tabletop Game without political statements” but now, we can't anymore. We don't know why you used the phrases “Gestapo Announcement” and “Fascist Fashion” but for us, this is a real bad move of advertising a product. You choosed to advertise a book for a game with one of the brutal and human.despising organisations of the 3. Reich. The german community is more than horrified and wants to protest against this unbearable advertising!
The choosing of the Gestapo on the cover of a gamingbook is unsensibel and a heavy mockery of the victims of the 3. Reich. We lived with the SS Hype last year, seeing, that you just wanted to push the sales of certain products more and more on the US market. This was difficult enough for us in germany, because in the fluff texts in the books, this murders of the regime were the “Uber” warriors in the Wehrmacht, which is just a lie and not written from a neutral point of view.
But using the Gestapo as another selling argument for your products is more than unbearable and disgusting!
We don't know, which player type you want to attract with this aggressive advertisement and the using of unreflected phrases and “myths”, but we won't go this way any further without protesting. The gaming books in the past weren't written in this style and didn't show on every page swastikas or SS Markings, they were more neutral, emphasising, that Battlefront won't do a political statement . They were gaming books and gaming aids, nothing more.
So, what changed your mind towards this more aggressive and propagandistic way of advertising?
Are new players, even if they are from the wrong political spectrum, really worth this morale price?
Speaking of prices, I'm coming now to point b) of the letter.
We know that for players it's always easy to complain about high prices for models and books. But in the Eurozone we have the highest prices in the world.
Today, we pay 20% more than a UK player and 10% more than a US player for the same product. It is really cheaper to buy your products in the UK or US and paying the shipping costs than going to our local seller and buying there. Many UK Onlineshops now don't even take any shipping costs any more, when you buy for a certain amount.
So the high prices here in continental Europe make supporting the LGS really a tough decision. And the LGS are selling today less and less FoW products than a year ago. We want to support our LGS, buying in an onlineshop is not the same as buying (and having a chat) in the LGS, but the prices dictate more and more, where to buy.
And, as a matter of fact, new players think twice about starting with FoW, when they have to pay 9,50€ for a small resin tank. We all know about production costs and business plans, but why do we have to pay this high prices, when worldwide the prices are more moderate in comparison?
So, these are the two big points, which bother the german community. We are hoping to get a serious answer from you and wish you a good week.
The German Flames of War Players
gestern hat die deutsche FoW Community einen offenen Brief an Battlefront verfasst. Dieser spricht die gesetzlichen Probleme mit den übertriebenen Masse an 3. Reich Symbole an, geht auf das unsensible Cover des neuen Art of War Buches ein und spricht die hohen Preise in Europa an.
Wer sich nicht am Brief beteiligen möchte, er ist sowohl in unserem Forum als auch im offiziellen Forum zu finden (General Discussion - Open Letter from the German FoW Community).
Hier dann auch der Brief, damit ihr nicht rumsuchen müsst:
Dear John-Paul,
Dear Battlefront Staff,
my name is Sven and I'm writing you this open letter from the german community in my function as administrator for the website flamesofwar.de.
The german community website is now more than 3 years old, has over 500 Members and is still growing. The player base is mainly evenly spread over germany (few hotspots like Hannover, Cologne, Berlin and the Ruhrgebiet), we have regular tournaments and a regular player meeting every year. We support Flames of War and Battlefront, where we can and enjoy playing it here.
But a long debate in our forum has come to the conclusion that the german players want to express their concerns about the future of flames of war in Germany and Austria.
Our concerns are about 2 main discussion points:
a) way too much usage of symbols and phrases from the 3. Reich in the books and gaming aids
b) high prices in continental europe
For point a) , I have to explain a few things for players and people, who are not from germany and don't know the existing laws here.
German laws forbid the possession of certain symbols and insignia from the 3. Reich. Showing in public of this symbols is forbidden too and you can get a fine for doing so. The § you should look at is §86 + §86a StGB. There are exceptions in this law, mainly for historical education, arts and militaria, but this exception can't be used to exclude tabletop or modelling hobbies from this law.
So it is possible, that the police comes in the LGS (or some other public room where the game is played), sees certain open books (like Cobra or Afrika) or the DAK dices and gives the players and owner of the room fines. In very bad circumstances, you can be sued for selling and showing products with symbols of the 3. Reich in public. We had this situation already in germany and we fear, that when the game grows bigger here, that this situations will be a regular sighting.
Many sellers of FoW products, may they be onlineshops or LGS, are now censoring the books with black stickers or black paint, where they see problematic symbols. Few sellers even don't sell certain products because of this fines and possible sues.
So you see, we in Germany have real problems with the extensive use and showing of symbols from the 3. Reich in the last books. I provide you a link to a .pdf from the police in Hessen with some (not all!) forbidden symbols in germany:
http://www.polizei.hessen.de/internetzentral/binarywriterservlet?imgUid=04610b55-5440-48f3-362d-61611142c388&uBasVariant=ed83d448-9a76-4e11-8a5b-28e46ce02000
Looking at the new Art of War Book, we are even more concerned...
We could defend the game as a “tactical, historical Tabletop Game without political statements” but now, we can't anymore. We don't know why you used the phrases “Gestapo Announcement” and “Fascist Fashion” but for us, this is a real bad move of advertising a product. You choosed to advertise a book for a game with one of the brutal and human.despising organisations of the 3. Reich. The german community is more than horrified and wants to protest against this unbearable advertising!
The choosing of the Gestapo on the cover of a gamingbook is unsensibel and a heavy mockery of the victims of the 3. Reich. We lived with the SS Hype last year, seeing, that you just wanted to push the sales of certain products more and more on the US market. This was difficult enough for us in germany, because in the fluff texts in the books, this murders of the regime were the “Uber” warriors in the Wehrmacht, which is just a lie and not written from a neutral point of view.
But using the Gestapo as another selling argument for your products is more than unbearable and disgusting!
We don't know, which player type you want to attract with this aggressive advertisement and the using of unreflected phrases and “myths”, but we won't go this way any further without protesting. The gaming books in the past weren't written in this style and didn't show on every page swastikas or SS Markings, they were more neutral, emphasising, that Battlefront won't do a political statement . They were gaming books and gaming aids, nothing more.
So, what changed your mind towards this more aggressive and propagandistic way of advertising?
Are new players, even if they are from the wrong political spectrum, really worth this morale price?
Speaking of prices, I'm coming now to point b) of the letter.
We know that for players it's always easy to complain about high prices for models and books. But in the Eurozone we have the highest prices in the world.
Today, we pay 20% more than a UK player and 10% more than a US player for the same product. It is really cheaper to buy your products in the UK or US and paying the shipping costs than going to our local seller and buying there. Many UK Onlineshops now don't even take any shipping costs any more, when you buy for a certain amount.
So the high prices here in continental Europe make supporting the LGS really a tough decision. And the LGS are selling today less and less FoW products than a year ago. We want to support our LGS, buying in an onlineshop is not the same as buying (and having a chat) in the LGS, but the prices dictate more and more, where to buy.
And, as a matter of fact, new players think twice about starting with FoW, when they have to pay 9,50€ for a small resin tank. We all know about production costs and business plans, but why do we have to pay this high prices, when worldwide the prices are more moderate in comparison?
So, these are the two big points, which bother the german community. We are hoping to get a serious answer from you and wish you a good week.
The German Flames of War Players
