Christian Petersen, CEO of Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. saw our article on Games Workshop stopping Internet sales of its products by independent e-commerce companies (see 'Games Workshop Shuts Off Internet Retailing') and saw it as an event with potentially huge implications for the game business:

IMHO, the GW decision regarding the Internet retailing (as read this morning) is truly and epic and historical one.  I had heard rumors about this during the last few days, but this is *really* an unprecedented move.

The implications for retail -- and for publishing, not to speak of the Internet as a whole, this is a *biggie*

Using the guise of IP to control web-content is wickedly clever.  There are firm regulations for manipulating your sales channel, and a too overt move in this direction is basically illegal.  Using IP as leverage is an unbelievable 'Aha' moment, speaking for myself -- a somewhat educated observer of business.

This may have repercussions across the board almost instantaneously.  I would expect WizKids, WOTC, and a slew of other to follow quickly behind.