Plug Pulled On Gleemax

Coming as no big surprise to anyone who had frequented the site and been frustrated by the numerous bugs, Gleemax, Wizard of the Coasts' attempt at a social networking site for gamers, is closing down come September. I had high hopes for Gleemax... not because of the name (inside jokes rarely make good names), nor for the color scheme (green is my favorite color, and I still think it's hideous) - but because it was a decent idea.

Rather than put my own spin on the news, I'm going to refer folks to Randy's post on the site, where he makes the announcement (partially copied below):

Wizards of the Coast has made the decision to pull down its Gleemax social networking site in order to focus on other aspects of our digital initiatives, especially Magic Online and Dungeons & Dragons Insider. We continue to believe that fostering online community is an important part of taking care of our customers, but until we have our games up and running at a quality level we can be proud of, it will be the games themselves that receive the lion's share of our attention and resources.

Our plan is to shut down Gleemax completely sometime in September. (I can't give a more exact date because the timing depends on what's going on with other projects.) To those of you who have posted to Gleemax, I thank you for your contributions over the past year. It is community members like you that made this project worth trying, and it is your efforts and words that gave it heart. You should save your blogs by copying that text somewhere else. Meanwhile, I encourage you to head over to the Wizards forums. The Wizards online community continues to thrive, and there should be lots of fun stuff to talk about over the coming months, including our digital offerings.

[via Gleemax]