Gleemax

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Gleemax
Information
Origin Earth
Status Unknown

Gleemax is the name of a fictional alien brain in a jar that allegedly runs Magic: The Gathering R&D. The character originated in a sarcastic Usenet message in 1996, and developed into a running in-joke for several years thereafter. Mark Rosewater has referenced Gleemax in numerous articles and blog posts, and included the card Gleemax in Unhinged.

In the 2000s, Wizards briefly attempted to launch gleemax.com as a gaming-focused social media website. The website was poorly received and had numerous technical problems, and shut down in 2008, just one year after its creation.

History

The earliest reference to Gleemax is from a 1996 Usenet post, which criticized R&D and asked whether "there [is] a brain behind it." Jeff Franzmann responded that such a brain did exist, "kept in a large jar of formeldahyde [sic] in one of the unused sections of the WotC office complex", and that new members of R&D were presented to the brain and assimilated into a hive mind.[1]

Mark Rosewater included Gleemax in many of his articles published in The Duelist. The existence and influence of Gleemax was asserted, with minimal context or explanation, in several of Rosewater's Making Magic articles.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Gleemax was the subject of the Ask Wizards question on November 7, 2003.[8] In 2004, Rosewater wrote a piece of short fiction titled Time Heals All Wounds, which suggested that Gleemax resided in "The Forbidden Room" in a secret basement underneath Wizards' offices.[9] Rarely, Gleemax was acknowledged as a joke.[10][11]

Rosewater designed a legendary artifact for Gleemax for Unglued 2. The design was taken from a card, cut from Tempest, named "Helm of Volrath".[12] Unglued 2 was cancelled before release. The original design for Gleemax and Helm of Volrath was eventually printed in Mirrodin, as Mindslaver. Gleemax was printed with an unrelated design the following year, in Unhinged. The foil version of the card has the message "YOU MUST OBEY" repeated on the foil layer across the artwork.[11] Asked whether the card could be reprinted outside of Acorn environments, Rosewater explained that while he believes that the rules text would work, the extremely high mana cost would cause design problems, due to the existence of cards that scale with mana value.[13][14] A single-card strategy column for the card was posted on DailyMTG shortly before Unhinged's release and describes combos that would exploit that quality.[15]

Gleemax.com

Gleemax was trademarked for a gaming-focused social media site, announced by Wizards in June 2007. The site launched in an initial phase at GenCon in August of that year.[16] The promotional event at GenCon included kiosks for visitors to visit the website, and a human-height model of the Gleemax character, rigged with a speaker and voiced by a human operator.[17] An "Ultimate Gamer Test" was available during the first two weeks after the site's announcement, and passing that test qualified early adopters for consideration for a seat on a five-person Advisory Board to guide the site's development.[18] The website hosted online games, including one named Uncivilized: The Goblin Game, developed in part by Richard Garfield.[19][20]

Gleemax.com also featured a blog by Randy Buehler, then Vice President of Digital Gaming at Wizards.[21] In interviews surrounding the announcement of the site, Buehler said that Wizards perceived the hobby gaming market as stable, but aging, and sought to connect to teenagers who otherwise had little reason to leave their computers.[19][22] The website was expected to earn money through ads, and possibly subscriptions and fees for some online games. Local game stores would have been able to create profiles and list events without paying a fee.[22] Those events would automatically populate the calendars of users in the same geographical area.[19] A "Wizards of the Coast Seal of Approval" was proposed for highlighting strategy games, and the website would not be exclusive to Wizards products. Buehler described Gleemax as "a home for gamers brought to you by Wizards of the Coast, but not controlled by Wizards of the Coast".[19]

To promote the site, a Gleemax bot distributed free promo copies of Gleemox on Magic Online.[23] Another promotional campaign involved stress balls in the form of human brains mailed to various parties, including Star City Games and members of the Role Playing Game Association.[24] These were printed with the same text as Gleemox's flavor text, which reads, in reverse, "GLEEMAX AT WIZARDS DOT COM".[25] Despite the rules text that states that Gleemox is banned, the card is playable in Magic Online's "No Holds Barred" Vintage Cube event.[26][27]

The development of Gleemax.com required hiring new employees with digital experience. Mark Globus and Graeme Hopkins, both finalists from the first Great Designer Search, joined Wizards as a result of that hiring push.[6] Paul Sottosanti and Gregory Marques were also hired to work on the Gleemax website.[28]

Closure

On July 28, 2008, Buehler announced that Gleemax would close within the next two months. He stated that his vision for the site had been too ambitious, and that the correct strategy for Wizards would be to focus on their own games, rather than growing a new website for a brand-agnostic community.[29][30] From October 2008 until 2014, the domain redirected to wizards.com. The trademarks for the name were abandoned.[31]

Even before the website was announced, it had been discovered by the community. One party described it as "confusing", "garish", "unappealing", and "an instant turn-off".[32] The Escapist expressed skepticism about the site's prospects, and said that "a social networking site for nerds, a group not exactly known for being social" seemed risky.[22] A later retrospective cited several failures, including a troublesome login system, lack of consistent updates, broken basic functionality, and layout choices that impeded discussion.[33] In 2024, the hosts of The Resleevables recalled the Gleemax website as "deeply embarrassing", and named it as a contender for the weirdest Magic-adjacent thing that Wizards had ever done.[34]

In-game references

Represented in:
Associated cards:

References

  1. ↑ WOTC R&D is there a brain behind it? (en). Google Groups. Archived from the original on 2025-12-21.
  2. ↑ Back Issues (en). MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  3. ↑ Design 103 (en). MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  4. ↑ On The Stack (en). MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  5. ↑ Fun-Off, Part 1 (en). MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  6. ↑ a b Proliferate Crazy Nights (en). MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  7. ↑ Designing for Izzet (en). MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  8. ↑ Mark Rosewater (November 7, 2003). "Ask Wizards". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2021-04-29.
  9. ↑ Mark Rosewater (March 1, 2004). "Time Heals All Wounds". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  10. ↑ Split Decisions (en). MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  11. ↑ a b Mark Rosewater (August 21, 2017). "Get It? Unhinged Edition, Part 2". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  12. ↑ Mark Rosewater (September 15, 2003). "A Mind Is A Wonderful Thing To Waste". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  13. ↑ Blogatog (en). Tumblr. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  14. ↑ Blogatog (en). Tumblr. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  15. ↑ Adrian Sullivan (November 17, 2004). "Gleemax". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2020-09-23.
  16. ↑ Press Releases. ww2.wizards.com. Archived from the original on 2007-06-18.
  17. ↑ Gamer Zer0 at Gen Con: Meeting Gleemax (en). YouTube.
  18. ↑ Welcome to the Ultimate Gamer Test. gleemax.com. Archived from the original on 2007-06-25.
  19. ↑ a b c d Gleemax: WotC's New Online Initiative (en). icv2.com. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  20. ↑ Un-Boxing, Part 2 (en). MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  21. ↑ BlogPost (en). www.gleemax.com. Archived from the original on 2008-08-28.
  22. ↑ a b c Gleemax: Wizards of the Coast's Gamer MySpace (en-US). The Escapist (2025-12-22). Archived from the original on 2025-07-02.
  23. ↑ Gleemox (en). Scryfall Magic: The Gathering Search. Archived from the original on 2025-11-24.
  24. ↑ D'étranges colis envoyés par Wizards of the Coast [MAJ 26 à 20h30] (fr). JeuxOnLine. Archived from the original on 2024-12-10.
  25. ↑ Magic: The Gathering - What Is Gleemox? (en). TheGamer (2025-01-16). Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  26. ↑ Set the Power to Maximum! (en). Magic: The Gathering Online (2024-11-22). Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  27. ↑ No Holds Barred Vintage Cube 2025 (en). Magic: The Gathering Online (2025-12-03). Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  28. ↑ Eighteen Years (en). MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  29. ↑ Press Releases. ww2.wizards.com. Archived from the original on 2008-09-30.
  30. ↑ Randy's Blog. www.gleemax.com. Archived from the original on 2007-06-30.
  31. ↑ Trademark Status & Document Retrieval (en). tsdr.uspto.gov. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  32. ↑ Gleemax: MySpace for Gamers? (en). Gnome Stew (2007-06-13). Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  33. ↑ Katie Wickens (2025-03-24). "Fans react to Sigil shutdown with a callback to Gleemax: the Myspace for gamers that never came to be (en)". GamesRadar+. Archived from the original on 2025-12-22.
  34. ↑ Remember Gleemax? | Unsleeved Podcast #36 | Magic: The Gathering Podcast MTG (en). YouTube.
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