Counterfeit Games

[MadWombat]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Interesting.

I don't believe reporting "one guy" as a personal anecdote is at all the same sort of scale that is being claimed though.

There is a lot of it going on. Various channels I monitored as a store owner and still keep an eye on have a steady stream of recasters (and a slowly growing group of 3d Printer users) duplicating GW products, historical miniatures, and other miniature games. It has impacted some smaller production houses and is a headache for store owners who want to balance participation and other sales with keeping illicit material that benefits no one in the industry.

Counterfeits are also a problem in CCGs, with a range from crude forgeries to fairly solid printing machines. A customer had collected examples from Magic to use as an educational tool, and it was scary how good some were. It is a reason that WotC (and others) started adding hologram markers to cards.

The board game element is a bit newer, but with games getting so expensive it is seen as the new frontier for malefactors.

[Mack_JB]

Copying white metal miniatures is dead simple, and anyone set up to make miniatures themselves can copy existing ones (sort of). It is often not financially feasible to do so for making them for yourself, but a shady character looking for ways to make money, will do it.

Model railroading had one notorious fellow in the 1970's, Paige Enterprises, copying the stuff made by SS Ltd. Everyone knew it, and the way he was finally stopped was for tax evasion. There's a hobby dealer in Maine who still regularly copies English made resin kits, right down to the box ...

It's one reason why I chose a low melt alloy for my own production parts, anyone looking to vulcanize off my castings ends up with a puddle of metal in their cured mold.

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by MadWombat

There is a lot of it going on. Various channels I monitored as a store owner and still keep an eye on have a steady stream of recasters (and a slowly growing group of 3d Printer users) duplicating GW products, historical miniatures, and other miniature games. It has impacted some smaller production houses and is a headache for store owners who want to balance participation and other sales with keeping illicit material that benefits no one in the industry.

Counterfeits are also a problem in CCGs, with a range from crude forgeries to fairly solid printing machines. A customer had collected examples from Magic to use as an educational tool, and it was scary how good some were. It is a reason that WotC (and others) started adding hologram markers to cards.

The board game element is a bit newer, but with games getting so expensive it is seen as the new frontier for malefactors.

Well counterfeit money has existed for a long time too. So we are hardly talking about anything new here.



The online bulk channel for fulfilment seems like the new phenomenon though rather than anything else.

It makes it more difficult to trace back than user XXX9999 sold me garbage I will report them and they will get banned.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Interesting.

I don't believe reporting "one guy" as a personal anecdote is at all the same sort of scale that is being claimed though.

A couple years back, a european court hit a games company with a creators rights infraction for a paraphrased rulebook and new art.

Many Russian versions of games are unlicensed. Most chinese produced chinese versions are pirated, often directly from the PDFs sent for printing.

The D&D 4E PDFs leaked to the net the day before release day were the printer's PDFs at high resolution; either someone did a man-in-the-middle, or an employee leaked it. Either at Wizards, or at the printer they used.

BGG has a whole list of unauthorized editions. https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/3...rized-editions