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Thirteenth Prophet

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lovely sweet dream
I love how they say Gaia is a "growing site", but the amount of users joining has decreased. The only thing growing is features that don't even end up complete.






pretty much


Ruthless Fairy

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0c o
Siriah
Do you even know what a highest donator contest is? The only way for the current cash situation to be comparable would be if Gaia had said "the person who buys the most Cash in [some time period] will receive a free halo", but that aside, they were disallowed specifically due to it being super easy to name a mule as the winner, so as to not have to give out the prize. They don't have anything to do with the rich having an easier time coming out on top; the only way to win is not to play.

Yes, I'm well aware. Gaia has had a contest like this before. The Red Devil Mini Wings raffle gave users extra tickets for each dollar spent in the cash shop.
Oh yeah, that thing, I think I still have raffle tickets gathering dust in my inventory because I never clean it razz It was a regular lottery rather than a highest donator contest because spending the most money didn't guarantee you the red devil mini wings, it just increased your chances because you'd have the most tickets. Important distinction.
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" Target acquired. "



              »»» Part of it was random lottery. But Gaia DID reward the highest spender(s) with a pair, as well as offering a few pairs to random people who had the raffle tickets.



" Shutting down. "
I don't remember them doing that and I also didn't find anything about that while looking up old announcements. The original contest was pretty clear about how mini wings would be given away and there were a few extra mini wings raffled away for some other things, too, but that seems to be it.

(Sorry for the slight derail here, 0c o, I know you said you didn't mean Gaia actually did a real highest donator contest so I guess it doesn't matter anyway)

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Marclyn
idk why gaia still needs money, they have enough of it from their sponsors/advertisers


Do you have proof of this? What makes you so confident that this is the case? You must have an inside scoop on their finances to be so sure.
well... if you must know, that's how most websites get their DOE, so im assuming that's gaia's case. geezus. so defensive! LOL

Snarky Vampire

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Marclyn
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Marclyn
idk why gaia still needs money, they have enough of it from their sponsors/advertisers


Do you have proof of this? What makes you so confident that this is the case? You must have an inside scoop on their finances to be so sure.
well... if you must know, that's how most websites get their DOE, so im assuming that's gaia's case. geezus. so defensive! LOL


That isn't being defensive. That's somebody asking you to provide proof to supplement your claims, because they find what you're telling them hard to believe.

I myself find it hard to believe that Gaia would be able to coast along on just advertising and sponsor payments, for the reasons azphyxxxiate seems to believe I'm "parroting". If they can, then where is the extra money you seem to think they don't really need going?

I'd like you to prove your claims, without dodging the question. Give me and Rabid something tangible for evidence, since you seem to know so much about how websites make money.

Bashful Sweetheart

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0c o
Is it all a contest, Gaia? Are we really playing the games that you, yourself find unlawful?

With all this said, what prevents users (other than bans and disabled trading passes) from going elsewhere to purchase their Gaia Gold? Gaia is a virtual community; however, there are many people both in reality and online who would rather take alternative routes to purchasing their Gaia Cash or Gaia gold. You are convincing users to go elsewhere for their gold/cash. You are convincing users to look for alternatives (cheaper alternatives) off-site. Keep this in mind.

Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I the only one who thinks that receiving/buying Gaia Cash no longer feels like a merited donation? Certainly, I can't be.



You're not the only one. A friend of mine felt so, and in fact it directly almost ruined our friendship! He bought gold and sent me an item, and guess what? It got MY trading pass revoked! Frankly I don;t think I'll ever get my trading pass back because someone I had been friends with for 14 years who I TRUSTED sent me an item bought with hacked gold, and frankly we can never be sure if whatever admin answering help tickets has a lit tampon fuse or not. Now all it caused me is grief and anxiety attacks and a rocky friendship. Whee. Despite what a mod told me I seriously doubt with my luck I'll get reinstated. I've never been lucky. I valued my account too much to do something like that and bought my own damn cash and converted it. So I'm really not eager to spend any more money on Gaia. Irony, I could probably afford Club Verge. F this place. I'm about done with Gaia. At least he promised to make it up to me after I had the mother of all anxiety attacks and am on a three day severe depressive bender so far. IF I get my account restored without prejudice it means major GC cards...

Sorry for dumping, this has pissed me off for days and I hope anyone reading this contemplating buying gold does NOT especially if they care about their account because Gaia WILL catch you and ban you and whoever you gift, and your inventory and your giftee's inventory will rot forever in the form of a full ban or a trading pass ban.

Time-traveling Senshi

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Marclyn
idk why gaia still needs money, they have enough of it from their sponsors/advertisers


The servers cost an asston. The ads and sponsors alone wouldn't cut it. It's alright for gaia to make a profit, it's a business. I just don't like the frequency of cash shop s**t.
i'm positive sponsors are enough. i honestly think gaia wants to be a bigger company so HUGE sponsors can pick them up. like MAC or PC. or god knows what, disney. its their ultimate goal.
but ya, they are pushing that sht on us. guh.. so annoying.


          And they're not. Gaia isn't getting the kind of sponsors they used to in years past. It used to be Gaia would have money thrown at them for them to plug a movie or some other such deal like a video game. Those companies have moved on from sites like Gaia and are sticking strictly to social media and tie ins with other high profile multi-million dollar companies. Gaia needs other measures to generate revenue.

          I honestly have to ask after seeing you claim more than once that sponsors are all Gaia needs and they can do away with all this Cash rigamarole, what do you honestly believe Gaia spends their money on? Do you believe all they do is pay employees and buy more Nerf ammo? Do you honestly not understand there's more to Gaia than just the people working there? Do you think they all work from their houses and all the data is kept on one server they rent out someplace? Or do you believe that they pay for something once and that's it there's no more need to pay for something other than the people who work there and they earn that with sponsors? I seriously can't believe you'd be that niave about how a business works that you'd think two or three sponsors are going to cover all the costs for the rest of the life of the site.

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Before we know it, they will be banning us cheapskates. xp

Lucky Hoarder

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lovely sweet dream
I love how they say Gaia is a "growing site", but the amount of users joining has decreased. The only thing growing is features that don't even end up complete.
Amen to that, zOMG!, Heralds of Chaos, the guilds, the list goes on.

They need ''funds'' for new projects that will most likely be tossed aside if they don't make money that fits in an Olympic pool in a few months. rolleyes

Snarky Vampire

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Marclyn
idk why gaia still needs money, they have enough of it from their sponsors/advertisers


The servers cost an asston. The ads and sponsors alone wouldn't cut it. It's alright for gaia to make a profit, it's a business. I just don't like the frequency of cash shop s**t.
i'm positive sponsors are enough. i honestly think gaia wants to be a bigger company so HUGE sponsors can pick them up. like MAC or PC. or god knows what, disney. its their ultimate goal.
but ya, they are pushing that sht on us. guh.. so annoying.


          And they're not. Gaia isn't getting the kind of sponsors they used to in years past. It used to be Gaia would have money thrown at them for them to plug a movie or some other such deal like a video game. Those companies have moved on from sites like Gaia and are sticking strictly to social media and tie ins with other high profile multi-million dollar companies. Gaia needs other measures to generate revenue.

          I honestly have to ask after seeing you claim more than once that sponsors are all Gaia needs and they can do away with all this Cash rigamarole, what do you honestly believe Gaia spends their money on? Do you believe all they do is pay employees and buy more Nerf ammo? Do you honestly not understand there's more to Gaia than just the people working there? Do you think they all work from their houses and all the data is kept on one server they rent out someplace? Or do you believe that they pay for something once and that's it there's no more need to pay for something other than the people who work there and they earn that with sponsors? I seriously can't believe you'd be that niave about how a business works that you'd think two or three sponsors are going to cover all the costs for the rest of the life of the site.



Now that you mention it, I haven't seen very many sponsor promotional tie-in quests like what they used to throw at us several times a year in months. I thought Gaia decided to move away from that on its own, but it makes sense that they're trying to move on from it because they have to: They aren't making enough revenue from ads and sponsorship tie-ins because the sources of that kind of revenue are drying up, so of course they might start pushing GC purchases a lot more.

Time-traveling Senshi

Agent Sawbones
Now that you mention it, I haven't seen very many sponsor promotional tie-in quests like what they used to throw at us several times a year in months. I thought Gaia decided to move away from that on its own, but it makes sense that they're trying to move on from it because they have to: They aren't making enough revenue from ads and sponsorship tie-ins because the sources of that kind of revenue are drying up, so of course they might start pushing GC purchases a lot more.


          When I came back from my hiatus in 2007 we'd get sponsor stuff left and right. It started with Mimsy and I think the last non pay Cash to get it deal that didn't give us some piddly amount of gold was back in March of this year and before that it was last year in July and those are for books by Simon and Schuster or Random House. We haven't had a movie sponsor us since The Woman in Black in 2012 and a non entertainment company since the Coke hangout in 2011 and our last video game sponsorship that same year. If we get a sponsor now it's for something we have to pay Cash to get because Gaia's just not making a lot of money on Sponsorships anymore. It's sad that they're forced to go this route.

Snarky Vampire

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Now that you mention it, I haven't seen very many sponsor promotional tie-in quests like what they used to throw at us several times a year in months. I thought Gaia decided to move away from that on its own, but it makes sense that they're trying to move on from it because they have to: They aren't making enough revenue from ads and sponsorship tie-ins because the sources of that kind of revenue are drying up, so of course they might start pushing GC purchases a lot more.


          When I came back from my hiatus in 2007 we'd get sponsor stuff left and right. It started with Mimsy and I think the last non pay Cash to get it deal that didn't give us some piddly amount of gold was back in March of this year and before that it was last year in July and those are for books by Simon and Schuster or Random House. We haven't had a movie sponsor us since The Woman in Black in 2012 and a non entertainment company since the Coke hangout in 2011 and our last video game sponsorship that same year. If we get a sponsor now it's for something we have to pay Cash to get because Gaia's just not making a lot of money on Sponsorships anymore. It's sad that they're forced to go this route.



And you know something else? They might actually be looking at bankruptcy. Oh, not any time within the foreseeable future, I'd imagine, but eventually, they might come up against a wall where pushing Cash isn't going to do it. It'll start cutting into whatever their profit margin is eventually, because, and Azphyxxiate can finally quote me as parroting them here, the money for running the site has to come from somewhere. Eventually, they'll have to declare bankruptcy not too long after that because their profits won't be enough to keep up with the site's total revenue needs forever. They actually might have to cut their losses and pull the plug at that time, which we'll get little to no warning of.

In short, Gaia just might be a slowly dying company.

A Prunny's King

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I don't think they're pushing anyone to buy cash off-site, at least I've never felt that way. Sure I was kind of shocked to hear that they're giving away gold for cash and that sucks but it's not like they're straight up selling gold.

Also, the word donation was stricken from the record for a reason. We are not donating to help the site, we are buying virtual goods with real money now.

Snarky Vampire

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xcrimsonlegendx
I don't think they're pushing anyone to buy cash off-site, at least I've never felt that way. Sure I was kind of shocked to hear that they're giving away gold for cash and that sucks but it's not like they're straight up selling gold.

Also, the word donation was stricken from the record for a reason. We are not donating to help the site, we are buying virtual goods with real money now.


If what I mentioned in the post above you is at all true, donating and buying virtual goods with real money are pretty much indistinguishable at this point. Arguably, they were already indistinguishable even in the days when MCs were called donation items, but now I'm just splitting hairs.

Time-traveling Senshi

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Now that you mention it, I haven't seen very many sponsor promotional tie-in quests like what they used to throw at us several times a year in months. I thought Gaia decided to move away from that on its own, but it makes sense that they're trying to move on from it because they have to: They aren't making enough revenue from ads and sponsorship tie-ins because the sources of that kind of revenue are drying up, so of course they might start pushing GC purchases a lot more.


          When I came back from my hiatus in 2007 we'd get sponsor stuff left and right. It started with Mimsy and I think the last non pay Cash to get it deal that didn't give us some piddly amount of gold was back in March of this year and before that it was last year in July and those are for books by Simon and Schuster or Random House. We haven't had a movie sponsor us since The Woman in Black in 2012 and a non entertainment company since the Coke hangout in 2011 and our last video game sponsorship that same year. If we get a sponsor now it's for something we have to pay Cash to get because Gaia's just not making a lot of money on Sponsorships anymore. It's sad that they're forced to go this route.



And you know something else? They might actually be looking at bankruptcy. Oh, not any time within the foreseeable future, I'd imagine, but eventually, they might come up against a wall where pushing Cash isn't going to do it. It'll start cutting into whatever their profit margin is eventually, because, and Azphyxxiate can finally quote me as parroting them here, the money for running the site has to come from somewhere. Eventually, they'll have to declare bankruptcy not too long after that because their profits won't be enough to keep up with the site's total revenue needs forever. They actually might have to cut their losses and pull the plug at that time, which we'll get little to no warning of.

In short, Gaia just might be a slowly dying company.


          That's where they have private investors to invest money in the company that they can use for operating costs. However, when you have investors you still have to show that you can turn a profit or else that level of funding will be pulled. That's why I do think they're trying all kinds of ways to show that profit right now. And bankruptcy, which I don't think Gaia is in right now, doesn't always mean the end of a company. In some instances it means the company has to really restructure their business and prove to creditors that they can start making a profit again. So unless Gaia comes out and says their company is in so much financial trouble they're stopping all updates until they can turn a profit again, I'm not going to take the gloom and doom as gospel and just unproven rumor.

Snarky Vampire

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Now that you mention it, I haven't seen very many sponsor promotional tie-in quests like what they used to throw at us several times a year in months. I thought Gaia decided to move away from that on its own, but it makes sense that they're trying to move on from it because they have to: They aren't making enough revenue from ads and sponsorship tie-ins because the sources of that kind of revenue are drying up, so of course they might start pushing GC purchases a lot more.


          When I came back from my hiatus in 2007 we'd get sponsor stuff left and right. It started with Mimsy and I think the last non pay Cash to get it deal that didn't give us some piddly amount of gold was back in March of this year and before that it was last year in July and those are for books by Simon and Schuster or Random House. We haven't had a movie sponsor us since The Woman in Black in 2012 and a non entertainment company since the Coke hangout in 2011 and our last video game sponsorship that same year. If we get a sponsor now it's for something we have to pay Cash to get because Gaia's just not making a lot of money on Sponsorships anymore. It's sad that they're forced to go this route.



And you know something else? They might actually be looking at bankruptcy. Oh, not any time within the foreseeable future, I'd imagine, but eventually, they might come up against a wall where pushing Cash isn't going to do it. It'll start cutting into whatever their profit margin is eventually, because, and Azphyxxiate can finally quote me as parroting them here, the money for running the site has to come from somewhere. Eventually, they'll have to declare bankruptcy not too long after that because their profits won't be enough to keep up with the site's total revenue needs forever. They actually might have to cut their losses and pull the plug at that time, which we'll get little to no warning of.

In short, Gaia just might be a slowly dying company.


          That's where they have private investors to invest money in the company that they can use for operating costs. However, when you have investors you still have to show that you can turn a profit or else that level of funding will be pulled. That's why I do think they're trying all kinds of ways to show that profit right now. And bankruptcy, which I don't think Gaia is in right now, doesn't always mean the end of a company. In some instances it means the company has to really restructure their business and prove to creditors that they can start making a profit again. So unless Gaia comes out and says their company is in so much financial trouble they're stopping all updates until they can turn a profit again, I'm not going to take the gloom and doom as gospel and just unproven rumor.



You're probably right. Honestly, wouldn't be the first time I've run around like a chicken with my head cut off, and I'll be man enough to admit that.

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