GreedyGaia
 

Ok I wanted to talk about this but I didn't want to post it on Gaia Online. Ever since I join that site things were doing ok until Greed showed up a few months back and took over the site. They started out with releaseing everday Cash shop bundles to increasing items in the Market Place that it would take months or years to get that item you have been questing for. So for those out there who have an account on there what are you thoughs of the new improve site? Is Gaia gone to far? Talk about it and let your voice be heard.

I've been on Gaia for ten years, and I think it has gotten absolutely ridiculous! There are items on my wishlist that are in the fifteen million plus range now that when I first added them they were only a couple hundred thousand. I understand that over time, the rarer items go up in price, but that's just insane to me. Not to mention it seems like there are new Cash shop items (yes more than one) on a daily basis. It's nothing but a bunch of cash whores now. They've created new items that you have to pay cash for (or spend a shitton of gold in the market place) and for people like me who aren't very active and don't have the cash to spare wind up annoyed with the whole site and migrate on to better places (like Tris XD).

Daily? Wow. That seems a bit excessive.

Agree greed on the part of Gaia's owners but why? What could be the motivation? Is it that they need extra capital to finance their other, newer, project(s) (or to buy something, some other company)?

As an off-and-on member and staff member of Gaia since 2004, I've seen it grow and change from the small, wonderful community that I first joined to the bloated cash cow it is now. The reason it's getting so out of hand, from what little I hear about it nowadays, is because the original creators (i.e. Lanzer, L0cke, VO, and Ling) are not at the helm anymore.

The new CEOs that have taken it over see it as merely a business, not a labor of love. From the moment Lanzer was moved to a figurehead, I knew that the commercialism was going to be ramped up tenfold. The wishes of corporate often don't make sense and bend with whichever way the wind blows, which is why fishing was left to die (from what I hear), OMG was abandoned, and countless other features either are dying or are without funding. The bottom line, which comes from GCash purchases, is all they care about at the end of the day.

Is it ridiculous? Absolutely. Would I go back in a heartbeat if Gaia were to be reformed and go 'back to its roots'? Absolutely. Will it ever actually get better? Probably not. The chances of getting someone in charge who cares just as much, if not more, about the community as the bottom line is infinitesimal. That, to me, is the saddest part of the whole situation; Gaia was my start to avatar communities, and it's so sad to see it become less of a community and more of a shop.

Thank goodness I found, Trisphee. Community is and has always been the number one priority here.

I left at the beginning of this year and have heard nothing about Gaia sense, never looked back. It was easy to get over Gaia because I spent nothing but the entire last year complaining in the Community Discussion Forums and completely analyzed and specially explained what would happen to Gaia if they continued what they were doing, and it happened.
I've been slowly leaving the online network sites entirely lately, they are losing their touch and there hasn't been any original idea for a long time now. :/
It's just sad seeing a whole community of people all hate the CEO and want him gone, but Gaia does nothing about it. It feels like adolescences; your divorced parent is seeing a horrible man/woman who treats everyone like crap, but your parent thinks they need that person for some reason when in reality that boyfriend/girlfriend is destroying them.

I personally have never been on Gaia, but I have heard many bad things about it. Mainly the fact that it is quite expensive and ridiculous. I notice that these people have been complaining but they don't really leave the site. There wouldn't be much of a difference but I'm sure if a chunk of their users stop getting on and people stop getting on maybe they would change? I'm not entirely sure. But I am glad to have steer clear of that site. Probably would have been a complete waste. Since it was going downhill when i first discovered it.

The people who would stop logging in would probably be people who were spending very little to nothing in the cash shop. As long as people continue to pay, very little will ever change.

Yeah that's what I'm saying if everyone who paid for the site stopped maybe things will change. But as long as people pay for it nothing will change. And those are the people who are complaining. The people I know personally I feel like if you don't have a right to complain about something if you're contributing to the problem.

It really is a catch-22 there, though. The users who donate currently 1) have enough funds that it isn't an issue, 2) like the feeling of using their money to 'get ahead' of other users, 3) are struggling to use newer items to leverage money for older items, or 4) have just done it for years and it's a habit now.

Only one of those situations finds donating a problem, but habits are hard to break. Those who have donated for a while are probably older users who have sunk so much money into Gaia that they can't imagine leaving and starting over - they stay, not because they want to, but because they cannot leave their inventories and start over.

Oh man it's like a rock and a hard place. Geez...

...and that is why I am not hopeful that Gaia can ever find a way to right itself in the eyes of its community. I miss Gaia dearly and what I learned there I carry to every avatar site I join. It's just a company out for profit above all else now, according to what I've seen and heard lately, but maybe that'll change if something big happens or their current strategy stops working for them.

Heh you mean like who ever is in charge that made it this way leave or is replaced?

I honestly doubt one person leaving will solve anything. It is often that the person is blamed long before the method ever gets questioned. Like I said before, the only real way for any change to happen to Gaia is if their current 'sell everything for real money' plan stops producing the results they want. Until then, they will continue to push the line as far as they can - as long as people still donate, who cares if they complain?

Then what's the point of complaining then? If this is all set in stone complaining about it doesn't work. Only action works. Well we'll see what happens right? As long as it stay current in news I'm sure we'll heard something happen.

The problem is, like I said before, many of the people who complain still actively contribute to the problem at hand. They may say "these items are way too expensive!", but then buy them anyways because if they don't, they cannot keep up with the new cash shop-driven economy.

Yes, I do believe that if a massive amount of people quit donating, that might prompt a change. Many people, however, feel content with just complaining and letting their voice add to the cacophony of negative feedback.

Isn't there a survey thing or suggestions that they have? You know where someone could tell them that what they're doing is stupid?

Telling them, "hey, this is dumb," doesn't matter: People are still paying up for things like $20 skin color items. So, why would they change?

Corporate decisions are all about short term gains, you know.

Isn't one enough though? Why do you need to buy a new skin color item every time? That doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I don't understand because I've never used Gaia.

Oh, you keep the item, but it's one per color, and it's specifically for a tiny cat avatar. I happened to visit Gaia again recently and spotted that. The cat thing on its own is...strange. The prices for everything to do with it are mind boggling.

What's the price breakdown for it?

Remember that a lot of Gaia's cash offerings are based on exploiting completionists and those who like to gamble. Even if a few people complain and refuse to buy something, one person could buy enough to make up for that.

Wow that's insane. This is pretty sad though. What this site has become especially since my friends have told me how nice it was beforehand.

It'll eventually overstep its bounds and something will happen to change the status quo. Maybe once that happens, it might try to go back to its roots.

I hope so. People did say good things about it before all this nonsense happened.

Oh, Gaia was a wonderful place until 2007, at least as far as I remember. It was a vibrant community where users and staff communicated with each other and there was less of a shop-motivated feel. If Gaia were still like that... then I probably would have never left and I wouldn't be on Trisphee.

I still have waves of nostalgia to this day. I wish I had a time machine.

Lol if only. But then as you said you wouldn't be here and we wouldnt't be having this conversation. >w<

I'm thankful that even if it's not what I would have wanted years ago, I was able to start over on a smaller site and become a greater part of it. I do appreciate Trisphee and all it has done these past years. :3

And I'm sure some of Trisphee wouldn't be what it is without you. as well. ^w^

Well, thank you for the compliment, but I'm sure Trisphee could get along just fine without me. xD

Every contribution from everyone is important. You've done things that are important and if you weren't here they probably wouldn't haven't have happened. Just saying. And no problem. >wO

I thought about this too but they (Gaia Owners, CEO) must be doing this because they think it is good for themselves. That CEO they have in there now is one who turns companies around. He is not a long-term CEO kinda guy. Either they have some plan or they just figures that every year there is a new crop of 13 year olds willing to use mom's credit card, or they have their own credit card and they can become instantly rich on Gaia. What could be more fun. And it goes on and on and on.

Idk, I am staff there now, still. I am a Forum Assistant. I was a mod there from 2005-2010. I stay and watch and I still do my job there because I have nostalgia for the place and because what is going on is mind-boggling to me but also amusing and a few other conflicting feelings.

I was thinking about going back a while ago, Uma, but I doubt they would have taken me. I've heard they're very distrustful of mods coming back after some serious drama. If I did go back, it would have to be more than a Forum Assistant position.

I sure hope that they notice that this environment is toxic and bad in the long term. They are a unique site and I'd hate to see them taken down by shortsightedness. I really want the old Gaia to succeed. *nods*

What happened that they don't trust Mods?

I don't know - like I said, I heard rumors from some of my friends that were on staff longer than I was that there was some big drama and now they're very strict about older mods coming back.

If I might chip in just two cents....
I would gladly support Gaia if it went back to the way it was. Flynn's Booty and a lot of the other cash-cow stuff just... drives the price of things - even GOLD items - up way, way too much. I don't have enough gold to compete, so I have to drop out of 'the race' and stick with the items I have.

I remember when I was free enough to just GIVE stuff away. ... Now, I'm hoarding my items like a miser. Not because I WANT to, but because I NEED to. If there is another boom in gold-prices, I need to have some set aside for myself, and I can't if I have no old items to sell.

I have all sorts of older donation items, early EI items, and other rare things... along with 300k. When I log onto Gaia, I'm still considered poor by today's standards. Sure, I could sell some older items, but once you sell those now, you're out of the race. Like you said, I'm holding onto my items in case I ever want to go back because there's no way for me to get even 1/10th of what I have obtained over the years. It's really quite a shame.

Were we mods at the same time Sei? There were a lot of moderators so maybe we never interacted. I thought about going back to modding there but it was a lot of work. *sweat* Also I am a mod elsewhere now so kinda busy.

Sure would have been nice if they did not have such a profit margin attitude. *sigh* Well, one can hope that they will invest it back into Gaia to make it a better place but I don't see that happening.

We probably were. Were you a helper first, or were you modded outright?

According to my profile: I was invited to be a Dedicated Moderator on January 26th, 2005, and became a Global Moderator in October of 2005. From then on I also did other things on staff that weren't moderation-based. I was also a Forum Assistant from 2009 - 2010.

I used to be mostly Q&F -> Q&A/SF and Barton Town (and subforums).

Oh wow that's a lot of things you did within those years. :o