Gleemax

[Dyson Logos]

The goal was a gamer's facebook. Unfortunately that requires a LOT of code work, which they never invested. Further, that code has to be there from near the beginning to encourage user investment, not "to be added" at a later time.

 

[Jack7]

and sounds more like the name of a designer drug

That made me laugh.

 

[Wepwawet]

Hell, I had an account at the Gleemax forums and I still wasn't sure why it/they existed or what purpose it/they was/were supposed to accomplish.

I know why I opened my account on Gleemax: to access all 4E preview material and, after 4E was released, the compendium and the online magazines.
Apart from that, I don't know what Gleemax was.
There were a forum and sometimes they did polls related to gaming...

Personally, I think it was crippled from the start by that silly name. It's based on some obscure Magic: The Gathering in-joke, and sounds more like the name of a designer drug than an all-purpose gaming website.

So that's where that name came from. I totally agree with you. I never understood why they'd give that name for a gaming website

 

[jdrakeh]

I know why I opened my account on Gleemax: to access all 4E preview material and, after 4E was released, the compendium and the online magazines.

Wow! I had no idea that I could have done that at Gleemax.

 

[zillah]

my dnd forum account was swallowed by it. one day I wanted to log on and poof, something stupid called gleemax was there. I was irritated. I go only for the forums, idk what else was even on there before...

 

[LightPhoenix]

I know why I opened my account on Gleemax: to access all 4E preview material and, after 4E was released, the compendium and the online magazines.
Apart from that, I don't know what Gleemax was.
There were a forum and sometimes they did polls related to gaming...

<snip>

So that's where that name came from. I totally agree with you. I never understood why they'd give that name for a gaming website

The reason they chose the name Gleemax was because it wasn't supposed to be just for D&D, but for M:tG and all other WotC products as well.

I doubt will ever know the full story of what happened behind the scenes. However, in addition to lack of focus and being overly ambitious, I suspect they made two critical mistakes.

First, they hired a company that had no actual development experience as a company - as Shemeska else mentioned, this was Radiant Machine's first project. I'm sure they made the lowest bid, and that's why they were chosen. From a business standpoint, that was not a good move.

Second, I strongly suspect that at the time of Gleemax, there wasn't anyone proficient in leading large web-based projects such as this. It was probably someone who was moved over from the website, which was fairly basic at the time. It wasn't until Gleemax failed and a new team was assembled that WotC/Hasbro got their online act together.

 

[carmachu]

It didnt help that one of the terms of agreement was any material you put up there- story, characters, adventures, became their property. Thats didnt sit well with consumers.

 

[Shemeska]

The reason they chose the name Gleemax was because it wasn't supposed to be just for D&D, but for M:tG and all other WotC products as well.

I doubt will ever know the full story of what happened behind the scenes. However, in addition to lack of focus and being overly ambitious, I suspect they made two critical mistakes.

First, they hired a company that had no actual development experience as a company - as Shemeska else mentioned, this was Radiant Machine's first project. I'm sure they made the lowest bid, and that's why they were chosen. From a business standpoint, that was not a good move.

That was my original feeling as well, that Radiant was the low bidder. However if the figures for Gleemax/DDI budget I've been told are accurate, even within an order of magnitude, I would probably be gibbering like a soon to die PC in a Call of Cthulhu game if I was told what any higher bidders would have asked for.

Honestly I suspect that there may not have been other bidders, but that's purely speculation on my part.

 

[Henry]

It didnt help that one of the terms of agreement was any material you put up there- story, characters, adventures, became their property. Thats didnt sit well with consumers.

Thing is, a lot of websites have similar wording to what they had - which wasn't EXACTLY "they owned what you posted" - The discussion threads on that are still around here somewhere. That particular part was IMO a tempest in a teacup. However, Shemeska had most of it right - no one knew what its form was really supposed to be, they had terrible quality controls on the project, and it just floundered like a boat with one oar forward and one oar backward... I think their goal was something like what ENWorld has going, with the forums, community play groups, blogging, picture pages, etc. but on a much larger scale.

 

[Hereticus]

Unclear directives, crappy programming (it kept going down) - frankly, it deserved to die.

My glee was never maximized.

I could never log in, even after numerous emails from their tech center and a phone conversation that lasted an hour.

It was a terrible concept that we gamers are better off without.