Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 7686061" data-attributes="member: 3285">Wizards of the Coast's forums are yet another casualty of the tension between the owners of the Dungeons & Dragons brand and the fan community. The fans have always strongly influenced the evolution of the fantasy role-playing game, in some cases more than the brand itself was willing to admit. With the flattening of power structures created by the Internet, it raises the question: Who really owns D&D?<h3>Virtual Paper</h3>The first communities that sprung up around Dungeons & Dragons were a different kind of virtual -- magazines. Jon Peterson explains in <a href="http://amzn.to/1QcltRT" target="_blank">Playing at the World</a>:There were many other fanzines that contributed to the Dungeons & Dragons fan community, but <a href="http://www.conchord.org/xeno/aande.html" target="_blank">Alarums & Excursions</a> was perhaps the most influential:Eventually, TSR would launch its own official house organ, Dragon Magazine, and the influence of Alarums & Excursions would lessen.  But D&D's power has always been in the imagination of its players and dungeon masters, and they soon found new ways to connect with each other through Bulletin Board Systems (BBS).<h3>The GEnie Escapes the Bottle</h3>One of the more popular gaming BBS was the General Electric Network for Information Exchange (GEnie).  Launched in 1985, it was a text-based BBS that featured RoundTables (RTs) dedicated to a forum topic. GEnie featured some very influential RTs, including the <a href="http://cd.textfiles.com/geminiatari/FILES/GENIE/SERVL.TXT" target="_blank">TSR Online RoundTable</a>:GEnie is perhaps best known in geek circles as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEnie#Legacy" target="_blank">original online home for Babylon 5</a>, where J. Michael Straczynski announced it on the Science Fidction RoundTables.  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEnie#Notable_users" target="_blank">Many other geek icons were present in those days as well</a>, including Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing), Michael Okuda (Star Trek graphics designer), Richard Pini (publisher of ElfQuest), and Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation actor and TableTop host).Of course, GEnie was a pay-for-access service, which necessarily limited its membership.  Once the Internet became more accessible, fandom grew rapidly.<h3>Users Take Over</h3>Usenet changed the nature of BBS in 1979.  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet" target="_blank">Wikipedia explains the difference</a>:One of the more influential D&D-oriented newsgroups was Rec.games.frp.dnd, <a href="http://www.hahnlibrary.net/rpgs/faq/rgfdfaq2.html" target="_blank">launched in 1992</a>:Specifically, rec.games.frp.dnd was an <a href="http://www.hahnlibrary.net/rpgs/faq/rgfdfaq1.html" target="_blank">open discussion of Dungeons & Dragons</a> in the tradition of Alarums & Excursions:The newsgroup would serve as a popular means of discussing the role-playing game for some time, particularly when fan/company relations were at an all-time low between TSR and its D&D fan base. That all changed when Wizards (and its parent company Hasbro) took over.<h3>The Brains of the Operation?</h3>Peter Adkinson, then CEO of WOTC, knew that the Internet was an important channel way back in 1997 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21msg/rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules/FXUAN1884N4/bUtnFz1mX40J" target="_blank">when the company acquired TSR</a>:We discussed in a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2949-D-D-Does-Digital-Part-I-MUDs-MMORPGs#.Vj7YgWv_JX8" target="_blank">previous article</a> Hasbro's $50 million plans for its brands and the unique challenge that Dungeons & Dragons faced to get there, tying virutal tabletop play with 4th Edition and the possibility of an eventual MMORPG. Ryan Dancey <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?315975-WotC-DDI-4E-and-Hasbro-Some-History#ixzz3qtnQKIZ7" target="_blank">explained in detail</a>:It was in 2006 that a desperate plan was hatched to get D&D to the $50 million mark.  To get there, Wizards launched Gleemax in 2007. What the heck was Gleemax?  It was a floating brain, a faux Magic: The Gathering card, and <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/interviews/1218-Gleemax-Wizards-of-the-Coast-s-Gamer-MySpace" target="_blank">an in-joke</a>:Gleemax was to be a centralized destination online to get everything hobby and tabletop gamers <a href="http://investor.hasbro.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=586155" target="_blank">ever wanted or needed</a>:There were to be many firsts for Gleemax, including:Gleemax was meant to be a social collaboration with the Internet community as well:<a href="http://Gleemax.com" target="_blank">http://Gleemax.com</a> was to launch in various phases, each phase providing additional online community tools for players. Phase one offered hardcore gamers online community tools, gamer personal profiles, and editorial content. Then over the back half of the year and into early 2008, new features would be steadily added and new games would start coming online. It didn't work out that way, as Shannon Appelcline explains in <a href="http://amzn.to/1Nke1Ow" target="_blank">Designers & Dragons</a>: Gleemax's woes were compounded by the murder/suicide of its lead, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2963-D-D-Does-Digital-Part-II-Virtual-Tabletops#.Vj7Yw2v_JX8" target="_blank">as detailed in a previous article</a>. By July 30, 2008, the dream of a unified gaming site had come to an end. <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080730111123/http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Pages/Communities/BlogPost.aspx?blogpostid=96074&pagemode=2&blogid=2158" target="_blank"> Gleemax had failed</a>:Gleemax was shutdown completely in September. Then Vice President of Digital Gaming Randy Buehler summarized what went wrong:Some gamers understandably asked what would happen to the forums, and Buehler responded:They wouldn't stay that way.<h3>Not Quite a Wizard at the Web</h3>Wizards shifted gears from the ill-fated Gleemax to focus on D&D Insider (DDI), which included a suite of tabletop tools to assist gamers in playing Dungeons & Dragons. The ambitious plan for Gleemax outlined by Ruehler was yet to be realized, but DDI was a valiant attempt to get there.Announced in 2007 at Gen Con, D&D Insider was a five-part subscription-based electronic supplement. The five parts included digital versions of Dungeon and Dragon Magazines, the massive D&D Compendium that included a searchable database of every rule in Fourth Edition D&D, an online character builder, and a monster builder.  It also included a virual tabletop...<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2963-D-D-Does-Digital-Part-II-Virtual-Tabletops#.Vj82n2v_JX8" target="_blank">and we all know how well that turned out</a>.  Despite several bumps along the way, the parts that eventually launched worked -- maybe too well, <a href="http://amzn.to/1Nke1Ow" target="_blank">as Appelcline explains</a>:The Character Builder's success was also a problem:In 2010, WOTC made changes to DDI that in retrospect were a retreat from Buehler's vision of an fully-integrated platform.  First, the Character Builder was changed to online-only and then PDFs of the two magazines were dropped, made available only through individual web pages.  By the time Fifth Edition was announced, the DDI was done.  Trevor Kidd <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131027205604/http://community.wizards.com/forum/dd-insider/threads/3946201" target="_blank">delivered the news</a> on October 27, 2013:WOTC had finally given up on trying to reach the $50 million dream. Appelcline calls it a qualified success, <a href="http://amzn.to/1Nke1Ow" target="_blank">but not what Hasbro wanted</a>:In light of WOTC's  failure to reach its revenue goals set by the Hasbro acquisition, the company's gradual retreat from the digital space is not surprising.<h3>Retreat from Digital</h3>With the launch of Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons, it was clear that the comprehensive plan for dominating digital and making more money for Hasbro shareholders wasn't working.  Dancey explained the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?315975-WotC-DDI-4E-and-Hasbro-Some-History#ixzz3qtwjNcG3" target="_blank">consequences of the plan's failure on EN World</a>:It seems that's exactly what happened with Fifth Edition. Smiteworks's Fantasy Grounds continued the legacy that was DDI with a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2963-D-D-Does-Digital-Part-II-Virtual-Tabletops" target="_blank">robust suite of tools</a>. Dungeon and Dragon Magazine were cancelled. D&D Basic and DNDClassics on DriveThruRPG <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2980-D-D-Does-Digital-Part-III-PDFs" target="_blank">became the new PDF presence</a>. There was just one legacy component left from the Gleemax days, and those days were numbered. It was a good run, but eventually WOTC decided to <a href="http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/wizards-coast-community-forums-be-shut-down-2015-09-16" target="_blank">shut down their own communities</a> at the end of October 2015:As the company continued to shift its resources from trying to develop its own digital presence to leveraging other sites, Wizards of the Coast decided to closed down its forums:The shutdown actually occurred on November 5, but the result was the same: many D&D fans without a home. Fortunately, EN World is willing and ready to <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2966-Reminder-WotC-Forums-Close-Next-Week#.VjTQfWv_JX8#ixzz3q9jhfDHn" target="_blank">embrace the digital citizens at Wizards.</a><h3>The Wizards Diaspora</h3>As social media has become more pervasive, ownership of a brand has become less about a single web site and more about a cross-platform social presence. Geoff Northcott outlined the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100923105441/http://geoffnorthcott.com/blog/2009/06/visualizing-the-decline-of-the-destination-web-the-rise-of-the-social-web/" target="_blank">gradual shift away from destination brand sites</a>:His post charted the steady decline of traffic to Disney, Dell, and Nintendo web sites, among others. Northcott prophetically outlined WOTC's first attempt to syndicate and integrate content, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100923134407/http://geoffnorthcott.com/blog/2009/06/brand-presence-strategy-in-the-social-web-era/" target="_blank">but when that doesn't work...</a>:WOTC came to the same conclusion.  There are many other forums for fans to choose from beyond <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/forum.php" target="_blank">EN World</a>, including RPG.net (general RPGs including D&D), Dragonsfoot (earlier editions of D&D), Paizo (for all things Pathfinder), Giant in the Playground (all editions of D&D), Reddit (all editions of D&D), and so many other specialized forums that they're too numerous to list here.   That doesn't include the official Dungeons & Dragons presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. While the loss of Wizards' community forums will be hard for some, the fan community will continue to thrive (and has been thriving) without the company's help.Wizards may have struggled with getting digital right, but they were right about one thing: D&D has always belonged to us. Maybe the fans really are the best stewards for the brand.For more in the D&D Does Digital series, please see:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2949" target="_blank">Part I: MUDs & MMORPGs</a></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2963" target="_blank">Part II: Virtual Tabletops</a></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2980" target="_blank">Part III: PDFs</a></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2997" target="_blank">Part IV: Online Communities</a></li> </ul></blockquote>

Verification