....and yet I STAY. (why do you stay?)

[Spoggly]

Hi GCD, this is my first thread here. I'm sure most of us have experienced friends quitting this site, especially the past few months. Gaia felt like a solid community of users, admins, and developers working hand in hand just a year ago. I've been around since 04 on my old account, 07 on this one, and seen the site flourish with fun events, creative items, and a wonderful selection of subforums for everyone.

I started out in Art Shops and Art Requests, made artist friends and a few patrons.. Many of them have quit already, disillusioned by Gaia.

For some time, I also felt at home in the Exchange, buying and selling items at reasonable prices. You could get really far with gold from commissions back then! Now I dread seeing the prices of items being traded, rising up to billions.

I frequented the Services forum, made friends with bumpers, sign makers, bug collectors, and fishers. I have fond memories of those times. I visited a few weeks back and the activity in that subforum is seriously slowing down compared to what I remember from before. It's no longer a viable way of making gold.

My last strongholds now are Word Games and the Chatterbox. There is still an influx of newcomers to those places and there's still a sense of community, I know a few people who RP (I've never tried it myself but it seems like a great community too) and it's what makes them stay. Still even some of my Gaian friend who RP have quit too.

Questing entire avis used to be feasible, now to even quest for just one item feels like a pipe dream. Gaia, listen to the cries of your people. I still love this site, and am sad that this degeneration into pay-to-play is happening. Today's Make it Pour announced payout of 3 bil scares me. I don't think it will stop, and more members will quit. Will I quit someday too?

Maybe not.. I still have many friends here. I love posting in WGs. I still play around with my avi. I even draw avi art occasionally. 3nodding

It is disheartening that the site seems to be changing for the worse with each new gold gen announcement, and yet I stay.
For how much longer, I don't know for sure.

yum_strawberry What makes you stay?
yum_strawberry What are your fond memories of this site?
yum_strawberry Do you find yourself drawn to other similar sites as a refugee?
yum_strawberry Have you experienced friends quitting this site? Why did they leave?
yum_strawberry Have you considered quitting? Why?

[Hotorobi]

Too much time and dedication to let gaia go

[hiss fit]

I started posting here when i was 15 and i am.. uh, not 15 anymore. I sold all sorts of graphics in the minishops, and i graduated up to selling avatar art. I hung out with a whole fun crew of artist friends (none of whom use the site anymore) and got to practice selling services for what felt like a real reward!

as a grown-up, i do all sorts of graphic work. i do lots of ui design, gui design, some professional illustration and more! and i make a living off it. the bananas thing is though, gaia was the very first website where I "sold" those talents. making banners for shops was arguably a crucial step in my development as a visual artist.

the community here has done a lot for me and i have a lot of good memories. logging back on to dress up my little avatar is a comforting act, and it is also pretty dang fun.

[Bowie-Spawan]

The friends who quit all left long before the inflation hit, they simply grew out of the site with increasing irl responsibilities.
I'm an irresponsible person, so I stayed around razz

I still enjoy futzing around with my avatar, talking with people in the GCD and with the new friends I make. New items aren't everything, even if I enjoy them and look forward to all new releases personally.

I've ventured into other avatar communities before and except for the now defunct tinierme, the styles of them simply don't appeal to me aesthetically. Gaia is still the most appealing to me in that regard.

I doubt I'll consciously quit, as I never do that with any site I register on.
I do tend to take hiatuses and sometimes I simply don't return from them.
So far I've always come back to Gaia though.

[Easley Lighthalzen]

IDK either Spog... Maybe the forums and avatars. And the friends that are left. Other than that... just the nostalgia. I'm not liking the direction Gaia's taking. esp after tentacl.com

[The Drunken Jester]

I stay because it's been nearly 10 years and I don't know what to do with myself anymore.

[rokkenrou]

Ive been here so long that I log in without really thinking about it

[BadDecisionz]

Gaia is something kind of addicting to me I don't know why really.
Maybe because I have been ere so long
My fondest memories are before all of the cash shoppe items. When inflation was as bad and things that were 500K seemed impossible to achieve.
I'm not really drawn to other sites I just go on hiatus and come back here.
A lot of my friends have quit the site when everything went up. They got discouraged as I get at times.
I have considered quitting since a previous account is not available to me atm and if I dont get it back....I will be very disapoointed because I have a lot of time and money invested in it and a lot of expensive items as well.
I am still waiting to hear about it.

[Esmurda]

There are quite a few reasons I'm still staying actually:

1. Too many years of dedication and lots of spent cash cards way before the corruption set in.
2. Still a few somewhat "fun" things out there like the forums, avatar system, Booty Grab, and zOMG! (even though the hyperinflation destroyed the last two...). Oddly enough, I have recently taken an interest in Word Games to fuel my imagination more.
3. After these many long years, still waiting and hoping for my non-existent dream items...
4. As a follow-up, I'm always curious to see what the new items are each day (even though it's GC 99% of the time...)

As far as other avatar sites go, my girlfriend (who still loves Gaia) has led me to TinierMe once, but that was it for me. In fact, we both had a good laugh when it shut down due to their poor business practices and there was nothing much to do on there anyway.

In conclusion, unless Gaia becomes a forced pay-to-play site, I'll continue to ride the storm free of charge ninja

[Kuyusi]

growlithe lv12

I started posted here when i was 15 and i am.. uh, not 15 anymore. I sold all sorts of graphics in the minishops, and i graduated up to selling avatar art. I hung out with a whole fun crew of artist friends (none of whom use the site anymore) and got to practice selling services for what felt like a real reward!

as a grown-up, i do all sorts of graphic work. i do lots of ui design, gui design, some professional illustration and more! and i make a living off it. the bananas thing is though, gaia was the very first website where I "sold" those talents. making banners for shops was arguably a crucial step in my development as a visual artist.

the community here has done a lot for me and i have a lot of good memories. logging back on to dress up my little avatar is a comforting act, and it is also pretty dang fun.

this is really creepy, because your story is very similar to mine.

I started here at 15 (25 now, oh god 10 years) doing avi art was a large part of my artistic development. Now I'm a professional, but making avatars with the items I have and talking to friends in my guild make gaia still fun for me.

The inflation and constant cash announcements are rough, but luckily I was here long enough that it doesn't affect me much; I have enough s**t that I can deal without buying new things. wink

[Hatsya]

Eh, to watch the ship sink, really.
I'm too curious to go before I'm forced to go.

*(I used to stay primarily for avatar making. But seeing as I have barely any buying power left, that's limited to my current inventory mostly and while I still like that, it's probably gonna get boring a few months in and will be ruled out as another reason for staying eventually.)

[gachadere]

I'm staying because I like avatar sites and Gaia is currently one of the only ones where I like the style of the avatars. The chibi bases, how well done the items are, etc. A lot of other sites have avatar bases that I don't like, or the style itself is unpolished, really. I like making avatars on here anyways, and also enjoy getting art sometimes I guess.

As said, I do like avatar sites and I go on another one ( though it's not really an avatar site I suppose. avatars are just a side feature that got kind of popular. ) and Gaia regularly. Tinierme shut down and I was kind of sad over that but in the end, whatever. The prices of gachas started to suck before they shut down anyways.

I don't have a lot of friends that are on this site alone so if I quit I won't be missing out on anything with them. I don't really ever quit though, and probably won't anytime soon, I guess.

[Hypnospace]

Hotorobi

Too much time and dedication to let gaia go

[Mimi Sparda]

I put alot of money into gaia to not let it go so easily.
The 2009 Halloween event was the most fun event.
There is no other site I can find that is as much fun for me.
My irl friends got me into gaia left for unknown reasons.
Ya here recently I have,cause of the constant gg coming out lliterally every day,it gets hard to obtain anything now,but I got everything I need for now.

[Arrowchan]

Why do I stay? To be perfectly honest, I don't. I tend to visit every few months but rarely for longer than a week or two. However the new economy has intrigued me enough that I have been sticking around for longer than usual. It's like everything has been shaken up. You can get a panda hat for the same cost as $1 of new items, or old RIG grand prize animals for what is essentially loose change nowadays. That's actually quite tempting to me. I'm taking the opportunity to stock up on things that I always wanted but never got around to getting. It's kind of fun.