Slashdot Mirror
Wizards of the Coast Declares Gleemax Site a Critical Failure
In a recent blog post, Wizards of the Coast Vice President of Digital Gaming Randy Buehler announced that they were killing their Gleemax social networking site. Originally designed to create a central hub where gamers could meet, discuss, and play games online, it has thus far been unable to deliver on the grandiose promises made at launch. "The mistake that I made, however, was in trying to push us too far too fast. I still think the vision for Gleemax is awesome: creating a place on the web where hobby gamers (or lifestyle gamers or thinking gamers, or whatever you want to call us) can gather to talk about games, play games, and find people to play games with. But I've come to realize that the vision was too ambitious. We've made progress down about ten different paths over the past eighteen months, but we haven't been able to reach the end of any of them yet."
I'm sorry. There's a reason you failed. You called it Gleemax.
Now, the internet is full of stupidly named stuff - a side-effect of trademark law, particularly in the American Corporate Reich, sorry "USA" - but gleemax is really dumb. Like having a disgusting headless dog with a leg bone jammed down its neck as your mascot dumb.
Feminine sanitary towel with gentle vibrating action? Real estate that comes with free MDMA ? Either way, gleemax is a terrible name.
Back then this COULD have taken off. But today, with a billion "social networking" sites (read: you make the content, I make the profit) around, hammering out yet another one is about as sensible as creating the better mousetrap or the better search engine. Yes, you could succeed. But the chances are so slim that you're better off trying something else. Why? Because EVERYONE does it. Everyone is out there creating the next better social networking page. With this bell or that whistle, but basically, in their core, they're just the same that myspace and its copycats have been for years.
How about trying something new instead of trying to recreate something that has been done so many times over that nobody cares anymore?
And no, I don't know what "something new" would be. If I did, I'd probably create it and become rich myself.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They did it backwards. Typically, you are supposed to underpromise and overdeliver.
This space unintentionally left blank.
They roll out Tiny Adventures for Facebook (which is still having some issues it seems) then drop their social site. I wonder if this is part of a plan to focus on "apps" or ways of connecting to the already established bases of MySpace/Facebook?
1) I'm sure more than a few D&D/P&P RPG fans are on those sites already.
2) More visibility. Running your own site dedicated to just RPGs will only attract a certain crowd.
Regarding #2, I'm slightly above "casual" P&P RPG follower, but I hadn't really even heard of their site until this /. posting.
No sig for you!!
The mistake that I made, however, was in trying to push us too far too fast
More likely the reverse was true. Not enough promotion (to the sort of people who would use it) or that they were turned off by what it offered, or how it was presented.
You can never have too much progress, unless of course you outrun the capabilities of your website providers or programmers.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
www.boardgamegeek.com
'nuff said.
After 2 years of being in 'alpha' status with nothing spent on advertising...
hmmm. Imagine that.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Before this, I'd never heard of Gleemax, and apparently, so hasn't Slashdot:
I find it quite weird that there doesn't seem to be a post about Gleemax in Slashdot's history: I wonder how many other sites they missed out on.
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
Having written, albeit small bits, in the gaming industry, we often talk about crunch, the real rules and meat that you can really grip onto and take and run with. I mean, the backstory is nice on some products, but the crunch is the stuff I can use as a player or gamemaster.
Gleemax never had much in crunch. It was all fluff and drove me crazy. It had a crappy name. (Seriously, the concept of maximum glee brings up either the image of a hyperactive 5-year-old or a massive of singing sweater vest people - either way, not attractive.)
It also seemed to try to be everything to everybody, which is a failure.
They SHOULD have tried a scaled back thing oriented towards a product line and then expanded slowly to guarantee enough content and interaction. The way it was, when I first checked it out, was that I couldn't do anything, and there was rarely enough new to see, so I stopped coming back.
And seriously, if I play an MMORPG, then I already HAVE a community. I don't need a second. I play a few single/multiplayer games (Civ IV, NWN2, etc.) and one MMORPG (EVE).
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
For those who weren't members of the site, when they started their "Gleemax" project they replaced large numbers of the board staff, whom most members got along with well and respected, with new staff that nobody knew. The moderation process was changed, making it stunningly ineffective, and problems were handled in absurdly poorly-thought-out ways.
Wizards of the Coast seems to be trying to do as much as possible to damage itself online. Magic Online v3 brought a new client that almost everyone hated, has compatibility problems galore and was still delayed for something like two years.
It's pathetic.
Before we hate on the WoW'ers too much, let's bear in mind that we dyed-in-the-wool Real Gamers have many more similarities with them than differences. Who would you rather hang with: a WoW'er, or an American Idol devotee? That said, WoW has had a deleterious effect on D&D. Screw Blizzard, and screw 4th edition. :-(
There seems to be a fairly sizable community there though so I don't know exactly what the problem is.
With that said, their website is very poorly designed. As a newb going to the site I was totally confused. Too much crap all over the screen and clicking on stuff sends me to various different websites, very confusing. There is an overuse of graphical content, little consistency and poor organization.
As a new person coming across the site I can't even figure out what the point or purpose of it is and I'm not going to spend a bunch of effort learning about some random site that looks like an pop-up banner ad.
Magic Online version 3 was a critical failure too. If you ever want an example of a project gone wrong, Magic Online version 3 is finest example of ineptitude you'll ever find. Honestly, it is a piece of crap. The only reason anyone still plays Magic Online is because they're addicted to Magic and will put up with the slow, buggy, ugly UI, as well as the lag, instability, crashes, and whatever else went wrong. Wizards of the Coast isn't supposed to be a software development house. That's what you get when you have useless pro-tour Magic players doing your development.
An online hub for gamers to meet already exists. It's called "World of Warcraft."
First of all, not all "Gamers" play WoW. And not all WoW players can be considered "Gamers". Besides, WoW has been a horrible influence on Wizards of the Coast. All they see is dollar signs when they look at WoW and so they go and try to make all of their products into WoW clones. Thus they are ruining games that used to be great like D&D.
Screw Blizzard, and screw 4th edition. :-(
I find it unfortunate that some people are very unhappy with 4E. From my limited D&D experiance, I'm actually finding 4th's combat system to be quite good and far better than anything in 3rd edition (including 3.5). And I've already done fare more creative roleplay things in 4th than I did in 3rd.
Though, on that matter, our 3rd Edition DM had plenty of vile for 4th edition (and 3rd edition for that matter, he was a core AD&D person), but found out that 4th edition was quite fun once he got actually played it and not just heard people saying things like "in 4th edition, hobbits don't have harry toes" kind of thing that just throws some people off the deep end.
It's too the point that I think most 4th edition haters simply haven't played the game for any reasonable amount of time. Surely it's not perfect, but I find the game mechanics to be very good and a great effort at just trying to make an entirely different style of game.
Perhaps it's also because I haven't sunk any money at buying 3rd edition books (and again when 3.5 was released) because I only started casually D&Ding a couple years ago and I've only been borrowing a friends book. Some of the resentment seems to come from people getting sick of spending lots of money on products.
Either way, I'm enjoying 4th edition immensely and would recommend anyone to at least try it out, roll up a character, see what they think. Maybe it's not for you, but don't knock it till you've tried it.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Wizards being owned by HAZBRO has had a more deleterious effect on D&D than WOW.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
I see what you're saying, but why couldn't this be any more true in D&D? The same mindless stuff could happen if you had a DM that granted it.
Sure it could happen. The difference is that in WoW, this playstyle is a norm. In D&D it would be a relatively isolated exception.
After all, it's not WoW's fault some level 70 powers a level 10 through a dungeon...
Isn't it? I call that poor game design that this is an 'effective way to play'.
There are all sorts of possible rational responses the game engine could take...
1) Why don't the lowbie gobbos flee (despawn) the moment a level 70 player descends upon them? (Why should they stick around for a slaughter?)
2) Why doesn't every lowbie gobbo in the entire dungeons dog pile the party the moment a level 70 player engages? Its the only chance they have of winning, after all, and they can at least wipe the lowbie players this way.
3) Why don't the level 10 gobbo's pray to their gods to send a squad of level 70+ defenders to protect them. If the players can bring high level protectors, why shouldn't the NPCs?
Or for more 'game' mechanics solutions....
1) Why is the 70th level allowed in the dungeon with the lowbie group?
2) Why doesn't the game detect that the players are being assisted and reduce the reward to be commensurate with the risk they are taking? (e.g. 0 risk = 0 reward)
3) Some games allow high level and low level players to group by adjusting their effective level for the duration of the group. The idea is to allow friends to group regardless of level without making it a case of party members being 'dead weight' or a case blatant 'power levelling' the moment there is a few levels of spread.
anymore some God coming down to help a D&D party out in a dungeon is.
Even a half decent GM would let you die, or maybe escape with your lives and with a payment or debt to said deity.
Only a complete twit would be "Ok, so Jebus shows up, slays everything in the dungeon in the blink of an eye. You win. Here is your loots and bonus xp for doing it so efficiently. Want to play this dungeon again? Jebus says he a few more minutes before his raid!! Alright... Ok... so Jebus slays everything in the dungeon in the blink of an eye...you win... here's some more xp..."
Sure it could happen in D&D. Like I said: The difference is that in WoW, this playstyle is a norm. In D&D it would be a relatively isolated exception. And most self-respecting D&D players would choose a new GM if it became the norm.
Gosh guys
with this amazing discussion i'm shocked that a social networking site for gamers just didn't work out.