Here's what Dragon and Dungeon gave their lives for

Posts: 2611 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:07 pm

Gleemax. No, I'm not making that up.

Yet another online gaming portal

ICv2 has probably the best early look at this abomination:

Main article here

Note the "editorial content" phrase in the opening paragraph. My guess is that this will eventually be the new pay-for-content home of the magazines.

Either way, it's a guarantee that WotC did not want any employees working on a new printed version of either magazine when the Paizo license ran out. I think it's a pretty safe guess that many of the folks who normally would have worked on a printed magazine have, instead, been re-routed to contribute to the Gleemax project.

Three final comments ...:

1. WotC will discover, probably sometime in 2008, that the world does not need another online gaming portal.

2. The D&D license could not be in the hands of a bigger group of corporate morons.

3. Green and brown? Seriously, does WotC not employ a single graphic artist with the power to say, "Um, guys? This site is totally fukkin ugly!"

... and one prediction

1. Gleemax will eventually be the home of D&D 4e ... because 4e will be driven almost exclusively by digital products.

Posts: 1736 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:11 pm

!!!!!

Posts: 1736 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:11 pm

whoops - duplicate created from the frenzied hammering of my keyboard...

Posts: 1736 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:11 pm

and again

Posts: 1736 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:11 pm

...well i was a bit shocked.

Posts: 1104 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:13 pm

Xaxaxe wrote:

3. Green and brown? Seriously, does WotC not employ a single graphic artist with the power to say, "Um, guys? This site is totally fukkin ugly!"

As a user of the subTrail colour scheme, I must protest this slandering of green and brown!

...

Actually, nevermind, I just clicked the link. Yeesh! It looks like a Planet <Insert FPS Game Here> site from the late 90s.

Posts: 1276 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:23 pm

Article linked wrote:

"Our read on the core hobby industry is that it's stable, but it's aging," WotC VP of Digital Games Randy Buehler told us. "We're slowing down in terms of recruiting that next generation of hobby gamers. Today's 15-year-olds have such a different experience than a 15-year-old did five years ago or 10 years ago, or when I was a 15-year-old. So today's 15-year-old is online and doesn't necessarily have any reason to leave his computer because there's so much to do there."

WotC feels that it has identified a psychographic profile of the hobby gamer that is different from videogame players, and Gleemax is designed to appeal to that psychographic and recruit new members to the hobby gaming community which in the past was populated almost exclusively through core hobby stores.

That says it all.

Posts: 2611 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:29 pm

"Psychographic."

There is no limit to the number of non-English words that marketing drones will invent.

Posts: 1736 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:34 pm

Here's an extract from the interview (from your link Xaxaxe). Looks like there is a lot more to come on D&D...

That's not going to get incorporated into this initiative at all?
That is not. We do have plans for D&D. I'm sure you noticed the license to the Dungeon magazine and the Dragon magazine reverted to us. We let people know that we have plans, but we're not ready to announce them yet. The story that we're ready to tell at this stage is the story about Gleemax. The story about D&D is for another day. The relationship with Atari is unaffected by any of these plans.

Will the online initiatives that are replacing the print magazines be part of Gleemax?
Not directly. We have a lot of really good ideas that I'm aware of, but we're not ready to talk about them yet. I can clarify a little bit about the relationship between Gleemax and D&D and Magic. In 6 months, 12 months, people will look at WotC as having three big brands, we've got Magic, D&D, and we've got Gleemax. Gleemax is its own separate brand; it's a product created by Wizards of the Coast. It's a little different in that this product supports the Magic player and the D&D player and it's full of a bunch of features and tools sets that support gamers of all shapes and sizes, but it is its own brand and its own product produced by Wizards of the Coast. That's the relationship. D&D will still have its own web presence, D&D will still do its own thing, but there will be a lot of cross references with Gleemax. We'll be trying to drive Gleemax customers over to the D&D Website, and we'll be trying to drive D&D players over to the Gleemax Website, but they're not the same thing--they are distinct initiatives.

Posts: 2611 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:41 pm

red_bus wrote:

I'm sure you noticed the license to the Dungeon magazine and the Dragon magazine reverted to us.

Really? Gee, I hadn't noticed.

Die, marketing stooge! Die! PDT_Armataz_01_07

Posts: 1179 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:49 pm

Well here's the problem.... Twisted Evil

From the second last paragraph in the article...

Quote:

a brain in a jar that has come down to earth and taken over WotC R&D

Posts: 1104 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:52 pm

Xaxaxe wrote:

Really? Gee, I hadn't noticed.

Die, marketing stooge! Die! PDT_Armataz_01_07

I'm detecting some bitterness here... Very Happy

Posts: 2081 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:00 pm

Looks stupid!!

Posts: 1276 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:03 pm

Palladium will have to sue them for copying trademark and product dressing. Wink

That brain thing looks like Krang from TMNT.

Posts: 1573 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:11 pm

Gleemax . . . sounds similar to the new quote in my Sig Line . . . Very ironic. Very Happy

Posts: 3999 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:20 pm

Obviously aimed at a different generation of gamers.

Gleemax does not appear to be aimed at selling tabletop RPG's so much as video games.

I am not normally a knee-jerk WOTC basher...but I do not have one positive thing to say about the website other than that the name would make a good toothpaste brand. This is what happens when people with MBA's get together to do a game product.

The idea might work...just not with guys like us.

Posts: 4449 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:24 pm

serleran wrote:

That says it all.

Yet even more evidence that I could have been a millionaire if I had only majored in marketing. I could have thought that drivel up while taking a dump, with time left over for drinks and steak with other marketing frauds.....

Mike B.

Posts: 1736 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:25 pm

FormCritic wrote:

Obviously aimed at a different generation of gamers.

It is hard to know even which games it is aimed at. I had a wee look at the forums - not sure what it is for at all. Question

Posts: 4449 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:28 pm

FormCritic wrote:

Obviously aimed at a different generation of gamers.

Gleemax does not appear to be aimed at selling tabletop RPG's so much as video games.

I am not normally a knee-jerk WOTC basher...but I do not have one positive thing to say about the website other than that the name would make a good toothpaste brand. This is what happens when people with MBA's get together to do a game product.

The idea might work...just not with guys like us.

In the time honored tradition of classics such as "Dayecock", "Tonyas Ass Whap Shop", and "Cougarretard", we have to rename the stupidly monickered "Gleemax".....

Initial suggestion: Greedmax

Mike B.

Posts: 2611 · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:28 pm

Sadly, nothing that Wizards has posted does anywhere near a good job of explaining what it's all about. You have to go to an outside source — in this case, ICv2 — to get a decent overview of what GleeJoke is all about.