Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Gleemax
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 4870515" data-attributes="member: 11697"><p>It was supposed to be a social networking site for gamers, and in the early hype of MySpace, apparently someone in management thought it was an awesome idea and then, Step 3: Profit!</p><p></p><p>Its sad story is bundled together with the still vaporware portions of the DDI (VTT, Visualizer, Dungeon Builder), since they were all originally being developed by the same design studio that WotC outsourced it all to: Radiant Machine. WotC tossed a metric ton of money at the project, with according to people I've spoken with, not exactly a firm idea of what they wanted, management that didn't provide the developers what they needed, and other developers that weren't up to the task. Fiasco. People could write pages about what went wrong. Most of the management responsible for it is no longer part of WotC as I understand it.</p><p></p><p>-Lots- of money down the drain later, Gleemax was dead in the water, and none of the DDI was ready for release. Hasbro was woken from slumber and turned an eye towards WotC, and it was not apparently pleased by how much had been spent and what had been produced. Heads rolled. Radiant was dropped (it no longer exists, and Gleemax/DDI was its first project), DDI was moved in-house, and a new team took over (with only one developer from the original group moved over) and in what's honestly a good measure of the in-house developers they created the character builder on rather short notice. Probably salvaged the entire project with that. Of course a lot of those folks who did some really nice work were also laid off, or hit by the Hasbro hiring freeze when contract-to-hire deals came to their limit. It was a mess, and arguably still has problems lingering from the original epic screw up.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Shemeska, post: 4870515, member: 11697"] It was supposed to be a social networking site for gamers, and in the early hype of MySpace, apparently someone in management thought it was an awesome idea and then, Step 3: Profit! Its sad story is bundled together with the still vaporware portions of the DDI (VTT, Visualizer, Dungeon Builder), since they were all originally being developed by the same design studio that WotC outsourced it all to: Radiant Machine. WotC tossed a metric ton of money at the project, with according to people I've spoken with, not exactly a firm idea of what they wanted, management that didn't provide the developers what they needed, and other developers that weren't up to the task. Fiasco. People could write pages about what went wrong. Most of the management responsible for it is no longer part of WotC as I understand it. -Lots- of money down the drain later, Gleemax was dead in the water, and none of the DDI was ready for release. Hasbro was woken from slumber and turned an eye towards WotC, and it was not apparently pleased by how much had been spent and what had been produced. Heads rolled. Radiant was dropped (it no longer exists, and Gleemax/DDI was its first project), DDI was moved in-house, and a new team took over (with only one developer from the original group moved over) and in what's honestly a good measure of the in-house developers they created the character builder on rather short notice. Probably salvaged the entire project with that. Of course a lot of those folks who did some really nice work were also laid off, or hit by the Hasbro hiring freeze when contract-to-hire deals came to their limit. It was a mess, and arguably still has problems lingering from the original epic screw up. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Gleemax
Top