By: Michael Fahey

Since the very beginning of the company back in 1990, Wizards of the Coast has always been about community involvement. From letting players of Magic: The Gathering craft how card strategies and deck building evolved, to listening to players suggestions for expanding their various game mechanics, to letting players design their own cards via the Wizards website, WotC has always seen the players as one of the most important parts of their business.

Take Randy Buehler, for instance. A student who stumbled upon the professional Magic tournament scene, he was eventually hired by Wizards and is now the Vice President of Digital Gaming. I recently had a chance to speak to Randy regarding the next evolution of the Wizards of the Coast community a online store unveiled by the company today called Gleemax.

Introducing Gleemax

Gleemax is, at its core, the ultimate hobby store online.

Wizards has always done the majority of its business through a core network of hobby stores and the communities those stores create. When my friends and I got into gaming, we walked into a hobby store and found a world of awesome games, a guy behind the counter who knew everything about them, and a bunch of people just like us who wanted to play.

I've known the feeling myself. Having my own local store, where I can not only count on finding the latest in strategy and card gaming available, but people to play and discuss those games with. Gleemax aims to bring that same sense of community into the online world, creating a community that is for all intents and purposes the single largest hobby store ever created, combining games, community-generated content and Wizards own content into *the* online destination for strategy gaming.

Right now the tabletop and strategy gamers are scattered across many websites and they can have a hard time finding each other or finding information about good games to play. Gleemax fixes this problem.

It's All About The Everybody

The key to the entire Gleemax experience is community. Any site can sell you games or toss out some relevant news, but Gleemax aims to create a web destination that not only caters to the gaming community globally, but locally as well.

At the center of it all is the personal user page. Every gamer who signs up to the website will get to create and customize his or her page to their heart's content. Want to show off your D&D character? Your most successful Magic deck build? The tools will be in place to do al this and more.

Wizards of the Coast also wants local stores to sign up, promote themselves, and organize events through an online calendar that will automatically populate local players' pages with upcoming events.

The focus of the Gleemax project isn't on promoting Wizards' games, but on bolstering the strategic gaming segment across the board and reaping the benefits of a much healthier market. Because of this sweeping strategy, gamers will be able to find opponents or information on any number of popular games - not just the WotC ones.

Personally I think the community aspect is an excellent idea. As a strategy gamer who fell out of touch with the scene due to time restraints and problems finding people to play with, I'd love to be able to hop onto my home page and find a D&D group looking for more or a chance to dust off my large collection of Spellfire cards.

Yeah, I bought Spellfire cards.

The Games We Play

A home for gamers would be nothing without games, and Gleemax is looking to corner the market on strategy games. While details are still sketchy, Randy did drop some tantalizing tidbits that are sure to give the strategy and board game player pleasant little shivers.

At the forefront is an Indie Strategy Games Portal that will be populated with games that have been given the 'Wizards Seal-Of-Approval'...sort of like an employee's picks shelf at your local gaming store.

Then there'll be a Board Games Portal that will feature both new and classic board games available for online play, including titles from Avalon Hill, the creators of the Civilization game that inspired Sid Meier's PC classic.

All that on top of the ever popular Magic Online and a new title called Uncivilized: The Goblin Game, which is a turn-based web-based game that is played much like play-by-mail games of the past. Meant for gamers without much time on their hands, it sounds like a perfectly lovely way to waste time when you're supposed to be, say, writing a feature story.

Management Content

While the focus is on all games, the Wizards folks are still maintaining a heavy presence on Gleemax. On top of the same sort of news and reviews found at Wizards.com, users will be able to read blogs from Wizards' inside players, gaining insight into the game design process as well as opening a strong dialog between the game makers and the fans who play them. A "natural extension of things that Wizards has stood for since the early 90's."

One Board To Rule Them All

Furthering the notion that Gleemax isn't just for WotC games, Wizards is forming an Advisory board to help shape the future of Gleemax. Not only are they bringing together top thinkers and leaders from the tabletop and digital gaming industry, they're also looking to recruit regular gamers onto the panel, which will meet several times a year to discuss the direction Gleemax is taking.

The gamers themselves will be chosen via contests coming soon to the Gleemax website, starting with an open casting call next week.

And In The End...

If there is one thing I took away from our conversation, it's that Randy Buehler is passionate about the potential of Gleemax.

We think Gleemax is the right thing to do for Wizards of the Coast, the right thing to do for the tabletop hobby gaming industry, and the right thing to do for a sizable group of digital gamers who are being ignored by the mainstream computer gaming industry. We want to build a home that all three groups can feel comfortable in and I think it will change the face of the hobby gaming industry forever. If we pull this off, then Gleemax will become the center of the online strategy and roleplaying gaming universe.

Big words, but coming from a company that created the collectible card game market and owns the rights to Dungeons & Dragons they are words worth listening to.

Contact information for this author is not available.