Gleemax = Enworld

[Contrarian]

You mean, grab new players the way that the Wizards board already does?

The WOTC message boards are still largely an afterthought. They don't promote them to newbies. I can't even find a mention of them in the PHB -- just a www.wizards.com/dnd at the bottom of the title page, and an ad for D&D Rewards in the back that obliquely mentions "a community of D&D fans."

We shouldn't act like Gleemax is what-they-do-now-with-a-new-name. WOTC is taking "community" (whatever the hell that means on the Internet this week) more seriously now. This has the potential to change things.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Having opened this can of worms, let me insert my optimistic thoughts...

WotC has, thus far, been supportive of Enworld. Enworld merits a mention in D&D for Dummies. Enworld was the first place WotC went, even before their own message boards, to give out some kernels of info on the DI.

From a non-WotC perspective, the Ennies have as much clout and respectability factor for publishers as, if not more than, the Origins awards. (Someone please correct me if the Ennies aren't as tied to Enworld as I think.)

And, looking at Gleemax a little more thoroughly, it does seem as though the goal of the site is different than Enworld.

To Michael Morris specifically, I want to apologize for the doom and gloom of the initial post.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The "threat" of Gleemax isn't that it will steal existing users from Enworld or other boards. The threat is that it will grab newbies before they discover other boards. That has the potential to limit the long-term growth of those other boards. Which is doubly-bad when you've got a site that clearly needs more revenue than it's getting.

No predictions of doom here. Just a possibility to consider. The effects, if any, will be subtle (a decrease in new memberships), and they won't be noticeable for a year or two -- long enough for WOTC to market Gleemax to the next wave or two of incoming gamers.

Well, if Gleemax delivers what it promises, then there is a good chance that a decent number of EN World members will have their own pages on Gleemax. Many of those pages will probably link to EN World itself, to other EN World members and to EN Publishing (perhaps thereby helping the funding issues).

If it doesn't deliver, people will be looking for other information sources and might find EN World that way (that's how I found this place).

As for an "annual funding crisis," while they won't be having to request donations from people, they will instead have to answer to corporate and show their business plan is successful and returning on the investment. It is more likely to go through dramatic changes or even shut down with little notice than EN World probably is.

 

[TessarrianDM]

Quite frankly, I do not care what Wizard's does online anymore. They lost me completely as a customer when they announced the end of Dragon magazine. The only reasons I visited their current website were for rule interpretations through errata and the talkboard; that announcement led me here and I have not been back to their website since. I will continue to support my local gaming store, purchasing OGL d20 items and miniatures from other companies, but have decided to no longer purchase anything from them, including novels.

As a group, we use very little online material for our gaming. Only two of the ten players spend any time at all on game-related sites. The group is very stable, with the core of it having played together since 1982. The newest members are sons of two of the older members, and they have been part of it for five years. While we have enjoyed using new material, and changed editions as they came out, we have decided that 3.5 is our game. With over 20 sourcebooks on hand, we have plenty of material to use.

So, more power to them; I hope it works out for those of you who prefer that kind of content and format. We'll stick with our little homebrew campaign and watch the world pass us by...

 

[pedr]

Something that no-one has mentioned so far (as far as I've seen).

There doesn't seem to be a reason why ENWorld couldn't have a Gleemax page. ENWorld regulars could 'friend' ENWorld, ENWorld could be talked up as a place to discuss D&D, ENWorld members could run (ENWorld branded?) games in whatever virtual space they provide and so forth.

WotC's aim, it seems, is to provide a 'home for gamers' using the philosophy that attracting more people to any part of the hobby strenthens the hobby for everyone - WotC, small press RPG publishers, euro-board-game producers, and so on.

 

[DJCupboard]

The thing to keep in mind about competition between enworld and gleemax is that it sounds an awful lot like ENworld (and EN Publishing) is exactly the kind of thing that can take advantage of greemax free portals, so this could be agreat growth oportunity for us over here.

There is, of course, always the possibility that I am reading all of this wrong.

~Dave~

 

[rgard]

Enworld is my home page. I don't see changing this anytime soon.

And what were they thinking, "Gleemax"?

 

[Driddle]

There are a lot of quirky names out there that stick in my head for no good reason, regardless of how "silly" they might have seemed at the time -- Amazon.com and eBay, for example. Google, Yahoo, BoingBoing? (And in fencing, it's askFRED.)

The more that people joke about GleeMax here, the more it gets lodged in my brain.

 

[Schmoe]

I actually think Gleemax is a pretty inspired idea. One of the most difficult parts of role-playing is finding a group. This takes the networking tools of something like MySpace and focuses it on gamers. I think, in the long run, this will help to build a better gaming community.

As others have said, I also don't see this as the end of ENWorld. There's nothing that makes the two sites mutually exclusive. Do you think that MySpace users don't go to other forums? If anything, Gleemax may drive more traffic to ENWorld, as more people network and learn about the site.

 

[Jeremy757]

Buehler's statement keeps saying "strategy games". Does that mean D&D is going to be consider a strategy game now and not a role-playing game or are role-playing games like D&D not going to be included in Gleemax.