Welcome to Gaia! :: "WoW is not a real success" - cites Gaia CEO Craig Sherman.

Good attention and Bad attention is all GOOD if you are just trying to get people to sign up.
I think thats all he was trying to do.

Secondly, because its largely different there is no reason why WoW players shouldn't feel mad.

Everyone is acting like because he used those stupid numbers to say WoW isn't a success is a direct attack on them as a person, for playing WoW.

I would say Gaia isn't largely successful myself..since I hardly ever meet anyone who knows what I am talking about..but that doesn't mean I am trying to attack Gaia.

Bob, thanks for PMing me. I hadn't seen this thread before. And you guys should totally feel free to PM me and write about me and gaia. (but keep in mind I can only respond to a fraction of the pms i get sad

Let me respond to three things:

1) Specific WOW quote.

This is not what I said (as far as I remember) or meant.

What I meant was that free to play mmos and advanced casual mmo's have the potential to expand the market of mmos to a much wider audience than current MMOs. WOW is an extraordinarily well-made game and it cost a ton of money to make. And it is really an amazing experience. And it's bigger than every other paid MMO on the planet today. And, even so, despite all that, there are less than 10mm people playing it.

Why? Mostly because of upfront barriers: must purchase in-retail or get a huge download; must pay a monthly subscription fee. This new category - variously called free-to-play mmos, browser-based or lite-download mmos, advanced-casual mmos, or medium-core mmos - removes many of those barriers. My belief is that in the next 3-7 years, this new category (some of the most notable so far are kartrider in korea and maplestory world-wide) will start to proliferate and grow the market to much more users.

That's what I meant. For the record: I think WOW is an amazing success. Of course! I actually am so impressed with what they built that the first month I joined gaia I got someone i know to introduce me to one of the lead producers on wow and Lanzer and I went to LA and met him to get advice for gaia and just hear his thoughts on why they were so successful. (also, for the record, we didn't go meet him because we're trying to make gaia into wow! We actually meet with a lot of people in gaming companies and cool-websites just to get advice and their perspectives).

2) Gaia's age-target.
When you hear me quoted somewhere as saying 'gaia is for teens' what I'm trying to get across is that it is Not for kids or tweens. I'm trying to make the point that gaia is for older people. Usually i say that gaia's core user base is 13-24 and say that there are at least 1/2 a million gaians who are older than that. Again, my point is that gaia is for older people than you (the audience i'm speaking to) think. This is the best way to get it across in a few seconds or less.

3) More General about my public statements.
The places I speak about gaia and get quoted are almost always at events with bankers and industry analysts and journalists. These are events where almost no one knows what gaia or virtual worlds or forum communities or even MMOs are. Often times i get questions like: 'is gaia like clubpenguin?' or 'Gaia is Second Life for kids, right?' or 'are you like myspace?' or 'are you like a free world of warcraft?' Most of these people have read articles about these sites but have never actually used them. Or they've gone to the home page and that's it.

These people are actually really smart and well-meaning, but they don't know much about gaia or this space in general and so I try to explain in ways that they get it. Also, I often am on a panel and get only a few seconds to say something so I've got to figure out a form of short-hand, some super-pithy way of describing gaia so that they get it and remember.

My job is partly to talk to this outside world - to help with fundraising, to help with recruiting, etc. - so that everyone else here at gaia doesn't have to worry about that stuff.

In Sum:
Lots of times the quote you get or the article you read is only half the story. Ask me or others at gaia for clarification if what you hear sounds wierd.

Thanks.

And because CEO Fin posted, is why we have a great community. heart

*feels warm and fuzzy*

Wow, what a fucking t**t. It's like, wow, who the f**k do you think you are? Saying that WoW isn't a success is just such a stupid thing to say, and it reflects bad for us, too, because it makes us sound like egotistic cunts.

I really hope he takes that back.

Everyone knows about WoW. The same can most certainly not be said for Gaia. neutral

A lot of WoW is also played by adults too. You can't just take into account the teens who play WoW, you have to view the whole spectrum.

They're making $150,000,000 a month just off of the people who pay to play WoW, and as someone who loves both Gaia and WoW (*gasp*) I don't know why he had to say what he did. I feel that there should be an equal run between the two. Besides, Blizzard is more than just WoW, they also have Starcraft, Diablo and other such games they make money off of.

Blizzard and Gaia are not alike, so it's kind stupid to say WoW is not a success when both Gaia and Blizzard earn their money through different means. As far as I am concerned, WoW is a success. If they can pay all their servers and bandwidth etc, then it's fine.

EDIT: I saw CEO Craig's post. I'll just stick to my original.

lol Yeah, you got me, I'm just here to act hardcore and curse. Clearly.

Anyways, I completely missed that he posted. rolleyes Get over it, really.

Anyways, to add to what someone said earliar, I think it's lame that he would even compare Gaia to WoW. It's not even the same thing. That's like comparing Livejournal and iTunes. xD Gaia is a forum, not an MMO. And I'm really fucking thankfull for that, honestly.

Thank you for clarifying your position on this, and the WoW quote.

The age and demographic talk has been a point of contention for a lot of older users. I know it may seem silly, but a lot of us joined Gaia as adults, have made monetary contributions to the site because we love it, and would hate to think we're being totally overlooked in favor of the much more fickle and elusive teenage marketplace.

Also, while I would argue that these so-called "Free-to-play" MMOs are very rarely actually free when it comes right down to it, I suppose this is neither the time nor place for that discussion. wink