Sand Dancer Shaka
Adnama Lavode
Threads like this are kind of interesting to look at over time to see just how many people will make excuses for Gaia, saying in a variable amount of words that Gaia can do whatever it wants without any repercussions. (In theory, they can do what they want. In practice, if they do something stupid, they'll lose users/profit/whatever.) These people are somehow surprised that users would be outraged at a thing like Club Verge when tons have given legit reasons why it's a baaaad idea. The replies to these reasons have generally been "Don't like it, don't buy it", "It's not for you, you're poor" or "You're just jealous" and that is just so sad. And those people can't see why this shop/guild might possibly cause a rift between users and promote elitism?
emotion_facepalm
I wonder how much it will take for some of these people to say "Woah, Gaia. You're ********' up." Or even, how many people it will take saying "Woah, Gaia. You're ********' up." for Gaia to stop or fix it. Like, will they need to make it so people can buy old banned accounts or something for some flags to go up? It's like a lot of you are so apathetic that you just roll over and let Gaia screw the site up.
I wouldn't say that people are burying their heads in the sand. For me, CVerge doesn't bother me because it's just another shop I can't enter. Yes, the prices are high but (for me) it's like the marketplace - the buyers are really the ones who'll set the threshold for what is really "reasonable" (used loosely) to charge. I feel that if no-one buys those items then Gaia will lower the prices in CVerge, because like all things people will charge the limit - especially for these so called "premium" goods. It's not like Gaia can charge what ever it likes, as with most things on the site it's proactive release before reactive tweaks. I feel there's some truth in "don't like it, don't buy it" although
I wouldn't put it like that, I'd have said if no-one buys it, the price will drop- there's no point in selling something no-one is going to buy, it's a waste of artist resource.
As for whether it creates a rift in the usership, I think a rift will only happen if the majority of feedback is only taken from CV, which won't happen. I feel like.... a lot of users aren't waiting for them to release the non-monetary things before really drawing comparison. In my opinion it'd have been better for Gaia to have released both simultaneously, mostly because a lot of the anger and opinions I've seen is based on either "Why don't I get anything?" or "Why am I valued less?"
I think the split in usership will only happen if we let it as users, like we really need to ensure that feedback keeps going on outside of CV, and keeping threads and forums alive outside of CV.... The feelings of resentment towards pricing has only been compounded by not allowing users to get over the prices in the Summer sale, I think poor choices might have been made in terms of release schedule overall, and a lack of variety in prices in CVerge.
For me, I felt the CVerge shop should have been a shop that was "exclusive to enter" but not neccessarily that the items in there be "exclusive." As a user I think that $50 should've been the max price in there for ordinary items (while the SD custom could be priced at whatever).
I feel like the elitism thing is really only a thing for particular users, and they were around long before CVerge. Will it promote elitism? Hopefully not, as long as we continue to keep the site interesting outside of it.
I think I'll stop now... I think I'm repeating myself
sweatdrop (If anything sounded aggressive/accusatory, it's unintentional!!! I have a poor writing style most of the time.)
Verge is really just the most recent example of Gaia's poor execution of a new feature, if you can call it that. It's the newest and easiest thing to reference, but really, Gaia's been doing things like this for a while now. Not particularly with this much money involved until now, but things that seem shady/money grubbing, awkwardly released, half-assed, or just out-of-the-blue things that nobody wanted.
Examples: Releasing event items in a bundle for sale, which makes events pointless (They fixed it after people complained, but they shouldn't have even tried it. Poor decisions that have a lasting effect in users' minds.)
Not actually putting the things into Towns 2 that people petitioned for/asked for, like new bugs and flowers. Simple things to make it more interesting. Instead they made it bloated, somehow more laggy and without new flowers, bugs or features that were asked for.
This new slew of social games that nobody really plays much, because they only focused on functionality, flashiness and money making potential, not so much making it fun or fair to play. Heralds of Chaos for this. It seemed to come out of nowhere and was kind of boring. Still is, honestly and I don't see too many people playing it unless they want the achievements.
Then they have some good ideas but screw it up by bringing too much of a money element into it. An example of this is Rumble Kitten. Art was great, story was decent, theme; loved it. But there was no way to get some things in the game without spending a lot of money. You literally could not earn enough in the game by playing the game. By a lot, I mean more than $100 spent on a iPad/iPhone game. And half the time it was broken.
They make zOMG and pour a ton of resources into it, connect it directly to Gaia's storyline, shops and other things, then discontinue work on it. Partly because the Dev that worked on it left, but honestly, if the feature was seen as important like many users did, they would've found someone to update it and keep it running. It could have been so much more than it was, but instead we get updated Rally and Towns 2.
There's a slew of other games that were started and were closed shortly after, which makes me wonder if new games are even worth playing. They may be gone in a couple months. Examples: Summer Springs and Backyard Monsters. (Then Monster Galaxy came along, but how long will that be around? It seems to be currently bugged out or broken.)
The recent stuff with the A. Halo has caused people to question Gaia's ethics, saying one thing and doing another for the sake of money. Even in the most innocent context of "giving people what they want", the Halo re-release is a poorly executed way of re-introducing small amounts of the Halo into circulation.
Then, after people complain about Gaia pricing things too high, they release Verge. A club to exclude people based on their real world economic status (since you buy with real cash) and "reward" people who buy things with more things to buy at vastly higher prices. And then within a day or so, the prices on the horns are slashed in half at random, the people who potentially bought them at full price are screwed, then are hastily given a bonus (whatever it is, I haven't seen it) to make up for it as if to say "Hey, we screwed up again, here's a thing so you won't feel cheated." It's even the default store on the store page now and they don't shuffle anymore, so I'm a bit tired of it being shoved in my face. The "Don't like it, don't buy it" has some application to Verge too, as it does to anything, but the extra effects of the store's release may be more damaging than just a failed store attempt. Verge may end up being shuffled aside, but people will remember all of the above if they're still around on the site.
All of these things and more have contributed to the waning of morale of users on this site, not just Verge and it's exclusionary nature. Verge is just the most obvious and most telling feature to crop up so far. I think it's a direct reflection of Gaia's management and how disconnected they are from the users. They don't listen to us, and they don't listen to the Gaia employees that are connected with the users. And as a business, that is a very bad road to go down.
Also, you didn't come off as accusatory or whatever, so it's cool.
3nodding
Edit: Now this is a new interesting thing. Gaia is giving actual gifts people who start buying Gaia cash for the first time. Good ones that actually seem like rewards, though everyone else who has been spending cash all along either gets excluded from a guild/shop for not paying enough, or have paid enough to get into shop/guild so they can spend more.
They're just doing things tactlessly and a** backward now.
emotion_facepalm
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