A very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products

[DanJ]

I think the main reason so many gamers dislike GW is the company's hubris, they were in almost at the beginning of the fantasy revolution but decided for sound commercial reasons to ditch the wider market and concentrate on promoting the GW hobby to the exclusion of all other flavours.

This was hugely profitable for quite a long time, especially after obtaining the Lord of the Rings franchise. But as a gaming company they lost the plot, reducing their development department to what seemed like nil and cutting back to a couple of games systems then increasing costs to compensate for dropping sales.

GW now seem to be locked in a downward spiral which is quite shocking but not hugely surprising given the lack of investment in the core business of producing games.  I suspect it's the fault of the bean counters who've been running the company for many years now and who don't seem to understand the need for innovation and development in what is a fast moving market with a constant turn over of customers.

As for the IT story itself it seems plausible, it's pretty standard policy to walk IT staff off site when they're made redundant, to prevent 'accidents' happening to systems.  I'm also not surprised that a sysadmin was allowed to make such a decision, especially as it was a short term solution, he may well have told his boss, but as the IT manager was also removed and the system was working there was no obvious need to do anything, so it just went on until the bills started to arrive.

[toxicpixie]

Is it true? No idea. Is it amusing? I think so. Does it chime with my experience? Ooooh, yes!!      

This. Very much this. It isn't how any half sane company should operate, but is exactly how many companies I've seen do operate.

Granted there's likely something re:sacking the employee (already on final warning, did £_whatever the day before that they decided was gross misconduct and could make stick etc etc), but anyone is likely to experience a little buzz of schadenfraud at that last phone call...

I'm not a GW hater, just been bemused by their "strategy" over the last few decades. They've treated gamers & games as idiot cash machines and oddly enough it's wound on to bite them in the arse. I hope the recent changes in direction work, and give some control back to interesting creative types who can take the IP and run with it.