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I think some nuance is needed here. I have a lot of thoughts.

It has come to light (or at least, there have been claims made on Twitter and Reddit) that Games Workshop is paying its employees very low wages. This conversation started with a man named James M Hewitt (@lagoon83) who claims that he worked for Games Workshop as recently as four years ago, and that he was paid no more than £21,000.

Now, a lot has been said about this, and some people say things better than I do. I’d like to highlight this video from Guy at Midwinter Minis who makes good points.

The question now for me is: didn’t I, on this very blog only three weeks ago, make the statement that “Games Workshop’s products are just really good, and the company isn’t unethical”? In light of that, what do I think about the new revelations about Games Workshop?

Well, I think several things, but none of them are conclusive, partially because some of the claims are unverified, partially because this is all such new information that it is hard to process, and partially because we simply don’t know all of the answers to everything.

But my thoughts, which are kind of a jumble, are these:

1) According to the Games Workshop’s most recent annual report, Kevin Rountree, the CEO, had his salary increase from £525,000 to £675,000. Honestly, speaking as an American who deals with American big companies, I am surprised that the CEO’s pay is so low. YES, it is unjustifiably higher than a rules writer–someone who does the actual production of games like Necromunda and Adeptus Titanicus and Blood Bowl–making 21,000 measly pounds.

According to the same report (in which Games Workshop made a record £353 million in revenue and £150 million in profit before taxes) it is listed that the employees could each receive £1000 in profit sharing, and £4000 in bonuses.

I–I’ll remind you I have my MBA–fully understand that companies have an obligation to their shareholders, and that they also can’t spend all of their profit in employees’ salaries. At the same time, there seems to be PLENTY OF MONEY TO GO AROUND.

2) The reason, it has been argued, that Games Workshop can pay its staff so little money because there are thousands of people who would love to have those jobs–they are literally begging to get those jobs. So Games Workshop doesn’t have to pay them much to get them to work.

To this, I have to say: bullcrap.

When I was getting my MBA in marketing (graduating in 2009) there were no two bigger companies for marketing students to get hired at than Walmart and Amazon. These were the huge targets, the companies that every was dying to be working for.

I was interviewed for one of these jobs. I was flown to Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters of Walmart, and went through the most rigorous and unrelenting interview process that consisted of room after room of testing and quizzing and problem solving. And this was AFTER I had taken first place in my business school’s Walmart Creative Brief competition–my ticket to get to this interview phase.

Everyone wanted to work for Walmart, so Walmart could be exceptionally picky about who they hired. They could choose from absolutely anyone in any business school, and they’d have people pleading for a job.

And was this because of the salary? Maybe for some, but not for many. The reasons that everyone wanted to work for Walmart is because they knew that once you had Walmart Marketing on your resume, you could essentially write your own ticket to any other job you wanted. Walmart was, at the time, the biggest company on earth. Saying you worked for them was a feather in your cap that would remain with you all your life.

So, with so many people clamoring to get a job at Walmart, and Walmart knowing that they could pick anyone out of the crowd to come work for them, what did Walmart do?

They paid starting MBAs $100,000 plus a $25,000 bonus.

Now, Walmart has issues. They pay their store staff abysmally, so I’m not saying that they should be the pattern for Games Workshop to follow. But what I AM saying is that just because there are people lining up down the street to come work at your company, doesn’t mean that you can’t compensate them fairly.

3) Games Workshop charges a premium for their products, and in the past (and on this very blog) it has been assumed that we pay that extra amount because the miniatures are so very good–and we assume we’re paying not just for the expensive injection molds (which are expensive) but we’re also paying artists quite a bit for their expertise in making suck fantastic miniatures.

Now, the Twitter thread didn’t talk about the salaries of the sculptors, just the rules writers, but I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to think that if Games Workshop is low-balling their rules writers so much (rules are a critical part of what Games Workshop does, after all) then it only makes sense that the sculptors and artists are getting similar treatment.

Which raises the question: should we really be paying that premium for the models after all, if the money isn’t going to the artists but to, presumably the profit coffers (and therefore the shareholders and their dividends)?

4) But what about that statement at the beginning where I said that Games Workshop wasn’t doing anything unethical? Well, I still believe that–in relation to the issue I raised in that article (the selling of limited release boxes). I maintain that’s not unethical.

But is Games Workshop itself unethical in its pay practices? I honestly can’t say because I don’t know if the Twitter thread is a) true as of 4 years ago and b) true as of right now. But if it IS true as of four years ago and as of now, then it certainly smacks of, well, greedy corporate capitalism.

Because one man’s unethical is another man’s “free market”. I remember an ethics class I took in business school where a situation was presented and the professor asked the class whether the company in question was acting ethically. We debated the various philosophies and, eventually the entire class agreed that it was indeed UNethical. Except for one student. He held out. And when the professor needled him to explain himself, saying “Don’t you see anything wrong with this?” and the student replied “It’s nothing that sleeping on a big bed of money won’t fix.”

Because ethics, man. They’re not clear cut. I live in the USA where we’re extremely free market, chest-thumping capitalists. Great Britain has more social welfare programs, but they have a lot of the same attitudes.

I could absolutely make the argument, because I’ve been indoctrinated in laissez-faire capitalism, that what Games Workshop is doing is A-OKAY. But, I wouldn’t mean it. I don’t believe it.

Conclusion

So what can be said about Games Workshop and this low pay issue? I think–and again, this flies in the face of my other article–that it may indeed be time for customers to “vote with their hobby dollars”. Because I can tolerate limited releases that sell out in 10 minutes, and I can tolerate Cursed Cities that go unsupported, but I can’t tolerate the abuse of the working class laborer.

This website will continue to cover a lot of Warhammer stuff, because I believe that Warhammer still has great qualities: they’re good games with good rules and great miniatures. But I will also spread my net a little farther and we’ll probably see more articles about Warlord and Mantic and so many others.

Because, hey Games Workshop: you can do better.