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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.