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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."
Wow, that site sounded like it'd be a lot of fun.
Trolling is a art,
An online hub for gamers to meet already exists. It's called "World of Warcraft."
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.
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Trying to establish a name as a place where idiots can blather mindlessly about irrelevant(though perhaps entertaining) subjects on the Internet?
That's not a crowded marketplace at all.
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!!
...who remembers a slashdot-like site named Planet Crap, where gamers, game webmasters, and game developers gathered, posted, discussed, flamed, and trolled?
I'd say 1999 called and wants its idea back!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Maybe it is a take on the drug name (Gleemonex) from the movie 'Brain Candy'?
Slogan: Gleemonex makes it feel like it's 72 degrees in your head...all the time.
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
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.
They had well entrenched websites already that did a lot of what they initially offered.
www.enworld.org though simple, has a plethora of reviews, forums, news, chat
www.paizo.com was able to get interest because they carried more than just wizards of the coasts products.
It's a tough market I would think. People that want to socialize in an alternate setting probably use something like second life. People that want to mindlessly kill stuff and gather equipment and power game probably play warcraft.
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.
Drop the snobbery. All that does is make you look bitter.
Do you really think your D&D character who you've been playing off and on for 30 years since BECMI is so much more legitimate than someone's Tier 6-geared character with thousands of hours of play time? Hint: it's not.
Disclaimer: I play WoW. I have 2 70s, neither of which are geared for raiding (yet...). I also run a weekly D&D game and I started a board game club at my college. So if you want to try and argue I'm not a gamer... Well, go right ahead. I don't need your validation.
Oh, and my penis is HUGE (in Japan).
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.
It was set up and running by a friend of mine, before gleemax even launched. It's the same kind of blog/wiki/forum for gamers, except for it's meant for all kinds of games, and it's actually a good useful site.
Forget games, for a minute.
Is it really possible, here in 2008, to "create a central hub for XYZ on the web where XYZ-ers can gather to talk about XYZ, do XYZ, and find people interested in XYZ" and have it actually work? Does it work to start from scratch and plan such an empire, or do you have to have the patience to let these kind of sites naturally evolve?
Is it even possible to have a "central hub" of _anything_ on the web? What's wrong with this thinking?
originality: FAIL
name: FAIL
marketing: FAIL
understanding of their demographic: FAIL
I don't know what they were thinking. If they had actually *asked* a gamer what they thought, perhaps this wouldn't have failed (because it never would have started).
Really. I mean, Gleemax? Maximum Glee? Or a Gleaming Ax? Who the hell are they aiming it at? Japanese girls, or violent barbarians?
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.