Gleemax Speaks
A guiding email from the Grand Poobah led me to what seemed like quite the obscure tabletop gaming fanatic site, with a giant green glowing brain that wanted “pixels” of its users with… random things (nutcracker shaped like an animal, in front of a sign with a spelling error, with a bowl of nuts, with a book printed in the 18th century, with a person showing at least 3 tattoos, etc.)
But a deeper look and a little snooping revealed a forum and an about page, cluing me into what this site could really turn out to be. Wizards of the Coast decided to make something close to the ultimate hobby store online, in the communal sense. Essentially a gamer’s Myspace, only better because you won’t get random porno bots (hopefully) and it isn’t so much about being social, as it is about helping you get what you need. It would be a great source for D&Ders to find more members in their area, or find local Magic the Gathering tournaments. There’s also the factor for the socially shy that find it easier to search and locate on the internet, rather than asking around and approaching strangers in the hobby store.
We want to give all gamers their own personal pages with tons of features that make it convenient to talk about games, find people to play games with, and get more out of the games they choose to play. We’re not just talking about Wizards of the Coast games either. We see this project as an investment in growing the entire strategy gamer culture. There will be features aimed at existing Wizards customers (ways to show off your D&D character, your warband, or your deck, etc.) and there will be plenty of tools that fans of other games can use as well. We also want to give retail stores their own pages where they can promote their store, talk about store events and organized play programs — events that will then automatically appear on the calendars of local players who care about those games. Our goals are to make sure the tabletop gamer has everything he or she could possibly need from a website and also to turn our attention to the online strategy gamers who want the same sorts of game play but prefer to play on a digital platform.
If it were just that it could flop, but they have other content that might help, such as articles about gaming strategies, sneak peaks, and conversations between their gamers and us. If they can pull it all off right, they could make this into something that’ll be out of this world, as well as useful beyond most websites I’ve been to myself, but we’ll have to wait and see. Casey also brought up the thought that if they could get a messenger add on, such as an IRC channel, they could make it more than convenient for people to meet each other and connect to do what they all are there for: gaming.