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

[Norel Lorre]

ROMVLVS

The sad thing is, I practically ******** started that propaganda you're mindlessly quoting without any further thought. 'Gaia's a business, at least it means we get better items'. I used to say that, when people would b***h about the cash shop items. I was one of the firsts, when the cash shop came out, to not lament it.

And now I'm telling you that Gaia is going under, because they aren't making money.

They've made the absolutely most ridiculous ways to monetize a site where users have been paying cash money, lots of cash money, for MS Painted dresses and swords.

Apparently they're no longer making enough money selling thousands upon thousands of random number generated MS paint turtle shaped cats, and have had to make money by other means.

You understand how that's not good for Gaia's future, right?
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@Hi-potion, Winter Hue, Ridley, existential, etc..

Friends, Gaians, Countrymen, lend me your ears;

You know me. You know how long I spent on this forum, and you know that I wouldn't make this post lightly.You know I'm not trying to stir up trouble. You know that I'm right, or at least that I think I am right.

I am not saying this is the end, that Gaia would close tomorrow, but that this is the beginning. This is the beginning of the end of Gaia. It may take a year, or longer, but Gaia, at least the Gaia we know, is dying.

Maybe they spent too much trying to make games on and to emulate Facebook, another dying social media site. I don't know. I don't know what caused it, but I guarantee you, Gaia is officially in trouble.

Gaia Interactive has investors.
If they were going down, there would be no layoffs.
Why? It is a policy of investment banks to stop loss of property companies before seizure. Layoffs, though they save money, are considered loss in this situation. During the seizure, any layoffs the bank sees fit will take place. This is usually... Well... Everyone.
The reason individual layoffs are viewed as loss actually has little to do with the company itself, but more to do with the public reflection on the intellectual property that will be seized.

What I'm saying is, don't be worried because there are layoffs. Be worried when they stop.

I'm no expert, but this has happened time and time again in the gaming market. And dying companies do NOT look like Gaia Interactive.

[Zealous Reign]

i dunno the debate of gaia dying/shutting down, has been a long running event for 10 years it seems to me emotion_eyebrow

[Sand Dancer Shaka]

Yorugami

There's just waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many items released (not that I'm complaining much)
for Gaians to be excited when one comes out anymore.
Too short a time in between released to get the suspense
up and definitely too little clues/actual hints/care in the release of these
items that get Gaians excited for more.

It's gone to the point where Gaians basically sit on their arses,
farm gold/Gcash and wait for the next bunch of items to rain on them.

No anticipation, no NPC interaction but just simple click = Item.
It's a habit now. Something that's hard to stop
*like checking your messages*, and just something to do to waste time.

I don't feel like it's too many items... I think the main problem is the lack of attractive items. I feel like when Gaia was most alive for me was around the time of Gee Boi/Love Charm I era. Back then everyone wanted at least one item from each RIG and at least one of the EI (at least it was that way to me). There just feels like a lack of must-have items for me. Personally, the last item I really wanted was from last year (Heart x Mind) and since then I haven't really wanted any items from the RIGs or REI/EIs sweatdrop

With Gaia being so item centric I feel their main downfall is that the items just don't appeal enough. This could even be overlooked if the stories of RIGs were more evolved, these days it feels like "click, and there's your item" what happened to the RIGs with stories?! Sure it'd be a pain for people who want to whoosh through, but they could easily just add a "skip to end" button sweatdrop THe lack of suspense and item build up is probably a cause too, as you mentioned.

I agree with your post in mentioning FB and Tumblr, etc though. I think that Gaia's gaming revenue has been taken by FB casual games. Why bother to log into Gaia for games when you can stay logged into FB and get free games instead?

I concur with the lack of community feeling as well, there just doesn't seem to be the connection between staff and users now. I mean sure, there were a lot of misunderstandings when staff used to speak to us, but it did feel like they were listening more to the community. These days it feels like a wall between users and staff except on the rare occasion such as Sisky's "FYI: Halo" thread. I also think that more interaction between things happening on the site and users would be better for energising people but I acknowledge that it'd be a lot of effort on the part of staff.




===================
However, I don't think that Gaia is necessarily "dying" or "dead" just yet. I think it's slowed down- a lot but can still be saved.

It's noteworthy to point out that Gaia's user base when activity was at it's highest was a anime fan based site, and the anime industry was beginning to take off. It was a new thing, it was a big deal, it was popular because it was niche. Now the anime/manga industry in the West has slowed down considerably in comparison with fewer titles licensed and released, it's a contracting but slowly stabilising industry and with it Gaia must do the same because it is still very much an anime feeling website at it's core.

[Dexigone]

Hello there!

GAIA FOREVER!!

Other than that, Corporations like Gaia Online get double taxed, plus they have to pay for the servers that so many users go on!

have a nice day

[Voat]

ROMVLVS

You know me. You know how long I spent on this forum, and you know that I wouldn't make this post lightly.You know I'm not trying to stir up trouble. You know that I'm right, or at least that I think I am right.

I am not saying this is the end, that Gaia would close tomorrow, but that this is the beginning. This is the beginning of the end of Gaia. It may take a year, or longer, but Gaia, at least the Gaia we know, is dying.

Maybe they spent too much trying to make games on and to emulate Facebook, another dying social media site. I don't know. I don't know what caused it, but I guarantee you, Gaia is officially in trouble.

I agree that you think you are right xd
No one can ever be right for sure though. And you're not the first person to ask 'is gaia going under?'...threads like this pop up every couple of months. it's fun speculation though biggrin

I think what you've overlooked since you've been gone though is that Gaia's numbers are improving. the low they hit has already come and gone. They hit a traffic low in early Jan-March but they've been climbing back up ever since. So I'd actually say that things have been getting better for Gaia especially if the layoffs helped with Gaia's budgeting, because even if Gaia Interactive is not doing well, Gaia Online will still be able to support itself. They wasted a lot of resources on failed FB games but since the new CEO is refocusing on Gaia it's a good sign that this website will get a lot of care. As long as people perceive that their dollars are being put to work improving GaiaOnline, people will continue to invest money in Gaia's pixel items. Maybe the company might shrink but Gaia has a sizeable population willing to spend money on the website and that alone is enough to keep this site running in some way.

People can start to worry when a competitor for Gaia comes out (avatar forum site with lots of potential, running on a freemium model) because until that happens Gaia will always be the niche place to go if you want to engage yourself in a pixel doll site with lots of social networking and RP'ing and randomness. I can't think of any avatar websites that come close to what Gaia does except IMVU but their forums suck.

xanga died because myspace did it better
myspace died because facebook did it better
digg died because reddit did it better
4chan became less relevant when tumblr took the spotlight
gaia probably won't die until someone else does it better and considering how it takes thousands of man hours to create an updated avatar system, Gaia probably has the upper hand

Gaia chose a really good area of the market where people who want to create competition will have a tough time catching up, unless they have millions of dollars from investors to hang off of during startup

if you look at other avatar sites the sprites/dolls/clothes aren't that great a quality because those sites can't hire the quality level of artists that Gaia can, nor can they pay as well as gaia can.

so gaia still has some pretty strong legs to keep itself up on even if things get rocky. at least they don't have to worry as much unless other larger forum sites out there start to implement their own avatar systems and get into the virtual reality persona thing.

then again, places like reddit mostly consist of men. it's usually women who like this avatar dressup stuff.

gaia does have an ecosystem of sorts though so it does have vulnerabilities beyond just outside competition. like, if the art community started to die i'm sure a ton of people would start jumping ship.

gaia and the deviantart community have a lot of connections and if Gaia got on that ship to support that connection it could really strengthen Gaia's place on the internet. so it's not like Gaia is out of options, if they are really hurting for business or ideas to improve.

[Ridley Starsmore]

ROMVLVS

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@Hi-potion, Winter Hue, Ridley, existential, etc..

Friends, Gaians, Countrymen, lend me your ears;

You know me. You know how long I spent on this forum, and you know that I wouldn't make this post lightly.You know I'm not trying to stir up trouble. You know that I'm right, or at least that I think I am right.

I am not saying this is the end, that Gaia would close tomorrow, but that this is the beginning. This is the beginning of the end of Gaia. It may take a year, or longer, but Gaia, at least the Gaia we know, is dying.

Maybe they spent too much trying to make games on and to emulate Facebook, another dying social media site. I don't know. I don't know what caused it, but I guarantee you, Gaia is officially in trouble.

I don't know about right, but I know you see the signs of wavering.

Gaia has an opportunity here to really make something special out of the site, if it can remain grounded in itself a bit, I think. The site over-extended itself trying to become a 'gaming' company, when that's not where it made it's bread and butter. And it's going to take them a while to recover. Most likely a couple years.

The biggest issue Gaia has to worry about right now is proper monetization of THIS site. 'Promote your post' was not the way to do it. Trying to make money off a service, that literally every major forum does for free? Nooooot a good way to bring in income. Selling the Halo was probably not a good call. I know they made a few grand off it, but it would have been better to have a ten halo giveaway to those that logged in on June 15th, or some other arbitrary bit. Selling event items in the cash shop? That was a terribly executed idea. Event themed? Sure. But putting free event items in the cash shop made it look like they didn't really care about the event. And holding a towns2 even was incredibly premature. It's just barely in it's beta stages, the feature just wasn't ready for the load. At all.

Focusing on Gaia isn't a bad thing, but what they are trying to fix isn't exactly what Gaians have been asking for. Updates to current games, updates to forums, Updates to inventory and avatar features tend to sit higher on Gaian priorities. Hopefully it gets through at some point, instead of the usual response of "We're looking into it."

Biggest issue I have seen as of late is finding upper management (Not talking ones like Sisky, she's very involved) that know what Gaia is about when they get involved with the site. It's hard to ...'care' about a community that they are not really involved in.

[Myrielle]

Can't really argue this. During Halogate, I was one of the ones throwing out concerns about shark jumpings and last ditch efforts.

[Phoenix Goliathane]

Et tu, Romulus?

I say that because you and I (and actually, anyone who's been on Gaia for any significant length of time) know very well that Gaia has been dying since its inception. (There were probably "Gaia is dying" posts back in 2003, and I believe that there were in 2004.)

In that sense, that's the biggest reason why I think you're wrong in your assessment of Gaia's imminent demise - MANY before you have predicted the death of Gaia (and everything else I've been a part of), and it's still around.

That said...this might be a more appropriate time than most. I don't think the halo release is a flag - although it's one of the most crass things I can remember Gaia doing (in my humble opinion). The bigger red flag was putting up event grants as a CS bundle. They HAD to know that they'd get pilloried by GCD and SF (which they did, which resulted in Sisky running out with her DT between her legs promising that they'd NEVER EVER EVER release event grants as CS items again they super promise).

Why do I consider that the bigger red flag? Because it was priced more accessibly. The halo sale was a symbolic affront, but really - relatively few Gaians have enough disposable income to throw a grand for a pixel art item that was drawn a decade ago. The halo was a cash grab for a subset of Gaians. The event item was a cash grab at ALL of us, and exploited the situation at hand (Siskataya admitted as much - since the event was wonky, that held up everyone from completing it as fast as they otherwise would, so they gave everyone a chance to...buy the event items!)

On your larger point about monetization: I'm probably restating your point, but unless you're Amazon, one of a company's primary objectives is to maximize profits. You're essentially raging against the entire premise of freemium (subsidized free service, and perks for those that shell out). I find that Gaia's freemium model is somewhat less intrusive - the largest functional difference is the large reduction in advertising (and the removal of banner ads on pages), but otherwise Gaia is equally usable without paying. (Your avatar won't be quite as pimped out, but you can still post and play games fairly easily.)

On the other hand, short-term profit should be one of MANY objectives. Gaia, as an entertainment company first and foremost (and as a service provider), has to keep their customers happy. And while that doesn't preclude experimenting with different revenue streams, they also have to be careful to not make their product customers feel like they've been exploited. (To put it delicately, I think a certain subset of the userbase regards ANY attempts at revenue generation as exploitation. The rest have varying levels of tolerance.) I think that their recent maneuvers have generally pushed the tolerance of quite a few people

In sum...I hate you for making me admit that you might have a point, even though I generally think these threads are horribly wrong and the OPs are Wrongy McWrongersons. Also, rambly as ******** teal deer response.

[Lizmay]

"Dying" could mean a lot of things:

Loss of users, loss of income, loss of reputation, loss of interest in the site, etc.

In my personal opinion, it could also mean a loss of Gaia's heart & soul, as in coldheartedly laying off a much-loved person who set such a wonderful example here, who was dedicated, well-spoken, trustworthy, kind, and a natural leader, not to mention brilliant and incredibly nice. Gaia desperately needs someone like that to infuse some life into this place.

[Overslept]

People were insisting Gaia was dying the day I created this particular account, they were saying it was dying when I dropped off a little over two years ago, and they are saying it now. Frankly I would be worried if people weren't saying it was dying, because that would mean it has stopped evolving, and that would mean it has stagnated, and that would mean it really was going to die. Everyone perceives the evolution as death because it means the death of the form of Gaia that that person grew to love. I don't know what it is but this site is like one big breeding pool for nostalgic attitudes, I have never met a single user who does not feel that their favorite time in gaias history is when they joined, and I'm no exception. I will swear up and down that Gaia peaked in 2004 and that was the best time I ever had here, though considering the limited item choices, server errors, and having to cycle server names in the beginning of the URL that must sound pretty absurd, but I will take that opinion to my grave. It's the bizarre nature of the site, deny it if you want you're just another man standing on a corner screaming about the apocalypse, there were many before and many will follow. It's just a different site, it's always a different site as with all sites, Facebook used to be a site I could tolerate and now it's not, you just have to decide for yourself when Gaia isn't a Gaia you want anymore.

[laughter7]

Ridley Starsmore

Biggest issue I have seen as of late is finding upper management (Not talking ones like Sisky, she's very involved) that know what Gaia is about when they get involved with the site. It's hard to ...'care' about a community that they are not really involved in.

what is your definition of the community? the vast majority of this site doesnt care about 99% of the stuff gcd does.

[Overslept]

ROMVLVS

Adephi

ROMVLVS

dreamsk

If you know there are other threads, that makes this thread essentially spam. Breaking the rules for putting more than one topic of the same subject in the forum.

Defnitely not. You should read the rules again. Before this forum was dead the GCD used to have multiple threads all the time. One month we had three RIG lists.

Adephi

I still don't believe Gaia is in any way dying.
They're a company, they have to do everything in their power to make money of they'll go under. I have no problem with that.
It's not like you have to use the cash features.
Also, websites change. They have to. I may not necessarily agree with all the changes, but I accept them. And I simply stay away from features I don't want, like Towns 2.

-.-" I have always wondered how people could read my entire posts and just miss everything.

I'm sorry, but you've missed the fundamental part of y post. It's not that they're making money, it's that they are absolutely desperate for money, like as if Lanzer is being held for Ransom.

They're a company, they have to do everything in their power to make money or they'll go under.

The sad thing is, I practically ******** started that propaganda you're mindlessly quoting without any further thought. 'Gaia's a business, at least it means we get better items'. I used to say that, when people would b***h about the cash shop items. I was one of the firsts, when the cash shop came out, to not lament it.

And now I'm telling you that Gaia is going under, because they aren't making money.

They've made the absolutely most ridiculous ways to monetize a site where users have been paying cash money, lots of cash money, for MS Painted dresses and swords.

Apparently they're no longer making enough money selling thousands upon thousands of random number generated MS paint turtle shaped cats, and have had to make money by other means.

You understand how that's not good for Gaia's future.

Or they simply don't hold those ms paint turtle cats with the same misplaced reverence that you do, until I hear audio of said desperation it's just how you perceive their actions. Selling items that users could get for free just by participating in the sites events sounds not only permissible, but irrelevant to the uninducted, I mean who cares? You could get them for free, and once you all proved it was you who cared, and apparently very deeply they took it back with their tails between their legs and a resounding "whooa there you guys need to relax", which you really do. As for the halo, it both was and still is a symbolic gesture on gaias part as thanks for a generous /donation/, it's your own fault for attaching so much value and meaning to it then being shocked back into reality. Your perceptions of these faux pas only indicate you've been here too long.

[Ridley Starsmore]

Backstrom

Ridley Starsmore

Biggest issue I have seen as of late is finding upper management (Not talking ones like Sisky, she's very involved) that know what Gaia is about when they get involved with the site. It's hard to ...'care' about a community that they are not really involved in.

what is your definition of the community? the vast majority of this site doesnt care about 99% of the stuff gcd does.

Gaia as a whole, not just the GCD.

The site has not really had a head that was as interactive with the users since Lanzer stepped back. The last two guys before the current were...odd. They had accounts, but I think that was an afterthought. And posted very little, if at all.

The new guy, we've never even seen a 'hello' from.

And you might be surprised.

There may be many voices to this forum, but you'd be surprised how many are watching.

[Zeeni]

Ridley Starsmore

The site has not really had a head that was as interactive with the users since Lanzer stepped back. The last two guys before the current were...odd. They had accounts, but I think that was an afterthought. And posted very little, if at all.

The new guy, we've never even seen a 'hello' from.

The current CEO knows "little to nothing" about what goes on here. For a small company like Gaia, I find that sad.

Narumi Misuhara

You and many other may not be aware of this, so i'll just throw this out there, but the CEO doesn't manage Gaia Online. He knows little to nothing about what goes on for Gaia other than if we are meeting targets. His job is not to run Gaia Online but the business Gaia Interactive.

[Ridley Starsmore]

Zeeni

Ridley Starsmore

The site has not really had a head that was as interactive with the users since Lanzer stepped back. The last two guys before the current were...odd. They had accounts, but I think that was an afterthought. And posted very little, if at all.

The new guy, we've never even seen a 'hello' from.

The current CEO knows "little to nothing" about what goes on here. For a small company like Gaia, I find that sad.

Narumi Misuhara

You and many other may not be aware of this, so i'll just throw this out there, but the CEO doesn't manage Gaia Online. He knows little to nothing about what goes on for Gaia other than if we are meeting targets. His job is not to run Gaia Online but the business Gaia Interactive.

That is just plain sad.

Honestly, What is Gaia interactive at this point BUT Gaia online? Every Game venture they have going has shut down, hasn't it?