Gaia is Dying, I know there's other threads.

[OddBird]

Zepheros

OddBird

Zepheros

OddBird

Zepheros

OddBird

eh, active users decreased sharply a few years back, but they're staying pretty steady

a few months ago i saw 7,000 online, today it is 20,000 - for users online at one time that's a pretty solid population

Considering 50,000 used to be an average with 90,000+ for a daily peak, I would very much disagree. The market speaks for itself as well. 80k active listings? That's pitiful. It used to be twice that 4+ years ago.

I don't follow this site much anymore, but numbers really do speak for themself. Gaia's biggest problem was injecting the market with so much cash crap. It oversaturated the market and never let up from there. Rarity and value of older items has barely budged in the last 5+ years.

You should follow it a bit more so you can see that during that peak time Gaia had not yet cracked down on bots. emotion_yatta

Source? Links? Proof? I find it hard to believe bots accounted for all of that activity.

Nobody said "all" of that activity, but it accounted for a large portion of it.
Here's a different topic where a user mentions the purge. (She's wrong about the user count not going over 25k in the past few months, but that's beside the point.) If you're asking me to actually go find staff postings about it, that's far too much effort to prove a point to someone in a thread who self-admittedly hasn't been around to have a basis for their belief that there weren't that many bots.

All, large or none, it does not give a solid estimate on just how "many" were bots back in the days. Your word and that topic do not hold any more weight than mine does. The simple fact is the site is much slower than it was back then and plenty of users acknowledge that now, in that thread you linked and everywhere on the site. When you need to re-sell extremely old and rare items that were otherwise nearly impossible to get... lol. Also the ads, holy hell the ads. Cash-cowing up the wazoo. Market has been dropping dropping dropping for the last year. Hello Gaia depression! I really don't need to go on. It isn't news to anyone. Just those in denial.

> told you, too much effort to go find staff postings
> of course older items are hard to get, populations cycle on a website. New players come and old players leave. Whether the site was shrinking or not, this would still be the case.
> The market dropping simply means Gaia's attempt to stop gold inflation is working
> You would be surprised how much weight my opinion holds, but you weren't here to see why wink

[Your Neglected Sex Toy]

OddBird

> The market dropping simply means Gaia's attempt to stop gold inflation is working

Market deflation happens every single year during summertime. Nothing unusual.

[OddBird]

Your Neglected Sex Toy

OddBird

> The market dropping simply means Gaia's attempt to stop gold inflation is working

Market deflation happens every single year during summertime. Nothing unusual.

Was in response to

Quote:

Market has been dropping dropping dropping for the last year.

Which is a span of time covering four seasons, not one

[usaginano]

Winter Hue

Paranoia.

► That is all I see too.

Get it together Gaians. No matter what happens, life goes on.
Stop worrying or coming up with conspiracy theories and enjoy what you have.

[usaginano]

► Also, I'll just leave this here because why not?..
"We are dying from the day we are born."

[Zepheros]

OddBird

> told you, too much effort to go find staff postings
> of course older items are hard to get, populations cycle on a website. New players come and old players leave. Whether the site was shrinking or not, this would still be the case.
> The market dropping simply means Gaia's attempt to stop gold inflation is working
> You would be surprised how much weight my opinion holds, but you weren't here to see why wink

I think you missed the point of why I said "re-selling older items" (aka Gaia).

Traditionally the older a rare item gets the more expensive it will get over time. That has certainly not been the case for years now. But hey, I'm not really complaining about that. It's not like I've invested in anything for a long time now.

Opinions are like buttholes, everyone has them. But on a serious note, discussing this is irrelevant because nothing will amount from it, ever. Time will tell the real story.

[OddBird]

Zepheros

OddBird

> told you, too much effort to go find staff postings
> of course older items are hard to get, populations cycle on a website. New players come and old players leave. Whether the site was shrinking or not, this would still be the case.
> The market dropping simply means Gaia's attempt to stop gold inflation is working
> You would be surprised how much weight my opinion holds, but you weren't here to see why wink

Traditionally the older a rare item gets the more expensive it will get over time. That has certainly not been the case for years now. But hey, I'm not really complaining about that. It's not like I've invested in anything for a long time now.

I feel like you're referring to MCs - and that's because a growing population saw the price increase trend and there was a larger supply available, much larger than the demand was and has grown. If I'm wrong, and you meant a different kind of item, please correct me.

If you mean other rare items, though, they have continued to go up in price over time. A prime example of this is traditional EIs.

[Espeonel]

If I got Gaia cash for everyone who made a thread like this, I would be a Verge club member by now.

[Imhistory501]

Kvatheo

You're right, Rom. Gaia is dying. The question will be whether some awesome web developers can come together in the next few years and find a way to get their act together and create a site that's better than Gaia but targets the same audience.

What kind of audience are you referring to?

btw this is my first post on Gaia, I'm sorry to find a thread like this at the top of the community discussion part of this forum.

It's summertime folks, most forums always slow down in the summer. Peep's are fixing their houses, vacationing, spending time outdoors as they should, etc.

Gaia was rated number one at this site I stumbled onto when looking for a Forum to join and this is why I joined. http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-biggest-internet-communities.php?wpst=1


Have fun all!

[Zseigh]

To answer your questions instead of feed pure speculation, OP...


So, what are you going to do, 2/3-ish years from now when Gaia closes down?
Assumptions are dangerous. I don't think it's fair to assume Gaia will be closing down in 2-3 years no matter what "evidence" about the company you've seemed to have pull up. 2-3 years from now I'll most likely be visiting the same sites I currently do.

When do you think Gaia started to die? I believe Gaia has been dying since 2011. All good things come to an end, eventually. I will most likely be here until the end.

As always, tell my why I'm wrong.

It's your opinion. You're not wrong, but you're not right, either. No one really knows if Gaia will be around a few years from now. Only time or the CEO can tell that.

[Burr Durr]

Gotta love it when the GCD goes full on drama queen over the supposed death of Gaia. Funfact: people in the GCD have been saying that Gaia's dead/dying since 2005, and yet somehow the site has continued chugging along, has a larger staff than ever, and is basically a better business than it was back in the day.
Really, if there's been any change it's been the shift from forum-based activity to game-based activity. Which, let's be real here, is better for everybody involved. Games are more fun than reading the same five posts from different users, complaining about how everything doesn't cater to them. Wait, I actually have an image for this.

Circa 2007. The more things change the more they stay the same, eh?

[Beast Henshin]

I'd hope so! $250 for, albeit pretty looking, one pose wings is loony.

[momo-ai13]

I really hope not, Gaia is like my home.
Another site I used to frequent is closing down September 30th, 2013.
I'm a bit bummed and shocked.

[Queen Charlemaigne]

Gaia is not going to die. I am really thankful to those people who spend huge huge amount of real life money to keep this site up, and besides this is the only pixel site that I like, compared to other sites which has 150+ people being active. neutral .

[Jincks]

I have gone away and come back to Gaia many times since I started in late 2003. I've seen a lot of changes, but the most shocking have come with the cash shop. My opinion is that Gaia has grown a bit big for its britches. Gaia used to get by with just donations and a few little ads back when there were no games and it was just a forum and avatar dress up site. Now Gaia has expanded into so many other facets that it needs to make much more money to be able to provide service for all of these additional features. It makes sense, though, because it had to evolve with the web and with competitive sites. I don't know if Gaia is dying, but I have a feeling that it may be changing forms, for better or worse. I miss the way things were when I first joined, but I don't think I'll stop popping on now and again to see how its evolved.

On a more troubling note, however, I did receive an email from Gaia that asking me to fill out a survey. The survey had me rate a handful of website names for an "avatar-based social site." Um...Gaia is an avatar-based social site, so I'm not sure what they are planning. I hope it wont be a Facebook ripoff with dressable avatars. cat_talk2hand