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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 4406782" data-attributes="member: 151">Heh. That's the problem, though...everybody I know loaded up on the minis when they were on discount.  We bought a lot of them when our local WotC store was closing and giving Buy one, Get one Free deals on virtually everything in the store.Nitpick away!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  That's what I get for not double-checking my spelling. =)I agree.  WotC's biggest mistakes appear to have been made when they ignore their vision get ahead of their practicality.  I don't, for example, consider Everway to be a failure, even though it DID fail in the marketplace.  It was a bold experiment and WotC recognized it as such.  Not every business venture succeeds, especially in a market of creative endeavors where one cannot always guess what the public will adopt or reject.But if you're going to go against an industry giant or market leader, you need a solid plan.  Magic was a surprise hit, but D&D 3 and D&D 4 were carefully planned out products.  Chainmail was a decent system, but a lot of their marketing plan came down to faulty assumptions and perhaps some hubris brought on by the 'how can we fail' mentality.Gleemax's biggest fault, in my eyes, was that it was the answer to a question no one had asked.  Or, more accurately, had already been asked and answered a dozen times already.  If you're going to compete head-to-head with LiveJournal, Facebook and MySpace (among others), as well as ENworld, boardgamegeek.com, Paizo.com, RPG.net and Wizards.com (among others)...well, you need to both get your message out and bring unique content that no one else can bring.  WotC probably had a vision to do that, but a vision doesn't develop code and deliver it in due time.  And I still...STILL...do not know what made Gleemax a compelling choice for me or my gamer friends.  If it was purely the virtue of being a single clearinghouse for my blog, unified forums and some news items...well, I'm sorry guys but that wasn't enough.The addition of online table games certainly wasn't enough, either.  You've got plenty of THOSE services out there, too.  Why would I go to Gleemax instead of gametableonline.com, daysofwonder.com, Yahoo!, AOL! or any of a ton of free or pay sites to deliver such games?  A few Garfield exclusives is nice, but not enough.And while I can understand if WotC hired somebody who wasn't up to the task, I can only be SO understanding.  BECAUSE IT HAPPENED TO THEM BEFORE.  'Fool me once, shame on you' and so forth.  WotC has a good website and online presence, so the idea of them moving into the web space SEEMS like a good idea and Gleemax SEEMED feasible.  But WotC appears to really lack in outsourcing management skills, and that's how we get here.I really WANT the DDI to succeed.   I think the tools in question would be a valuable resource, if implemented well.  But I fear at WotC's ability to actually deliver those tools...and now to deliver them before they become irrelevant to the game at hand.</blockquote>

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