Imagine Gaia was shutting down for good

[Toreishi]

Soreiyu

With how things have been going I feel like they really would close it down without warning. They will however have as much fun as possible milking and tormenting the community beforehand.

yes, this. no warning, no 'thanks for being so supportive all these years!', just a huge sale and a prompt 404 ******** you the very next day.

[Spacebabie76]

I think they would make an announcement. "Gaia will be closing but if you are 18 over then join, and bring your wallet, over to Tentacl." Something like that.

[Kovva]

well glad to see some concrete facts (well, as concrete as declining site visits are) to back up my feeling that this isn't gonna last long

MAN...all that work for this huge database of items and the avatars it goes with...what a waste.

if I were a company like this yeah i'd probably just shut down randomly lol screw u guyssss

Or i'd announce the end, stop all gcash purchases, and give everyone a week to use up what they have, and put every single item ever made into the CS or loyal's hahahaha

mass chaos for a week - it would be a lot of fun.

[xcrimsonlegendx]

I choose not to dwell on such things, I don't sit around on a sunny day thinking about how I'm going to die. I try to enjoy things in life while I can, thinking about "the end" of anything is a waste of time and only makes life less enjoyable. When Gaia finally does shut down I'll be very sad, I've loved it here, I've met life-long friends and girlfriends over the last eight years here. Gaia has been my home for a long time, I'm going to enjoy it as best I can until the day that I can no longer stay.

I'm an optimistic person, I can't stand gloomy talk and depressing thoughts.

[Arli]

Nah. I don't plan on dwelling on it. It isn't just about the website closing. I'd feel horrible for staff members who would lose their jobs if they don't go over to Tentacl.

I think, without warning, Gaia would shut down with a re-direct to Tentacl. That's just my opinion. When it happens, it happens. Nothing lasts forever. Not even us.

[August Star Of Heaven]

Maybe working in a field that death is an frequent occurrence made me jaded, but I'll echo the views of those who say 'everything under the heavens ends'.

I'll just move on then...it happened to me before in TinierMe, PW Philippines (IP block xp ), RO Philippines (IP block too).

Tentacl though is not an option in my place. It's censor blocked.

[terradi]

If Gaia died I'd personally just navigate over to Zantarni and one of the writing sites I hang out on. And try to drag as many of the people I know here to those places as possible. Mostly I just use Gaia for avatar dress-up (which Zantarni does) and writing chats and motivation (which writing sites do).

One of the companies I worked for went bankrupt abruptly with absolutely no warning to us (the teachers) or to the students and staff. I expect, if Gaia were to go it would do the exact same thing.

[Call me Ginge]

The website completely shutting down won't happen for years. But, in about a year or two you'll wish it would.

The economy on this website is entirely, entirely broken. It's at the stage where it just isn't worth the effort to repair. The gap between those who spend real money and those who earn money through games is astronomical.

They will milk the site for all its worth and begin to slowly phase their members of staff on to a new project. Features on the site will become stale with no one to update them.

Then like a glorious rapture, Gaia will offer some kind of transfer. Something like "move over to our new site, and transfer 10% of your gold!"

They'll keep a skeleton team for this website, but don't expect new content. They'll place their efforts into their new site. Leaving behind all those who spend $1000 on Golden Halos. Hey, I wouldn't even be surprised if they say "those who have a halo? bring it to our new site!"

Gaia is a business, and very clever financial decisions are being made. But don't think for a second that they'd put their userbase ahead of financial gain.

In short, Gaia will last a few more years (superficially) whilst it feeds it revenue into new projects. It's smart.

[Jumping Jehosaphat]

I think they would run some sort of super sale. Angelic Halos- $100. Then 2 weeks later announce they are closing the site. They would try to milk every last drop from Gaia's tit with ridiculously low prices on old items (so no work would have to go into new ones). Not so low that you would suspect anything though.


I would save a lot of money if they did shut down

[Lockany]

I had a feeling about this ever since I came back this year.

I can see why Gaia is struggling, so many people I know quit and never looked back.

I just don't understand why these businesses just let themselves die instead of trying to work with their users to keep them alive. I guess my former business professor was right, marketing department really do look at people like idiots; if they actually give us users more credit, things probably won't end so miserably.

Or maybe the staff just don't want to be here anymore.

[evan lysacek]

i would hope they would be transparent about it if gaia actually was about to go under.

who knows, maybe if they were upfront and honest about their money troubles (like wikipedia is right now, for instance), i might actually be compelled to support them. rolleyes
but right now, gaia administration is so cut off from the community that i doubt they'd mention it. i don't think anyone running gaia right now really cares about gaia the way many of us do.

[DeadWifes]

They would probably be doing close to what they are doing now, pushing and pushing to earn as much money as they could so they could walk away with at least some.

Can't say that is what they are doing now, but who knows, maybe?

[Purinii]

I have no doubt that Gaia will just release a massive sale and give us the 404 the very day after the sale ends.
Or they'd at least leave a little message prior to the end, if they still have a bit of tact left in them at that point in time.
To be honest, I actually want the site to end. Then I can put the time I would spend on Gaia into other more worthwhile activities like writing and gardening or whatever interests me in the future.

[TIME L0RD]

let us donate x amount [more than these items are worth] sure we would help out if they were honest if they're finding it hard to keep the site going. I like to think they would let us know if they were really finding it hard. They are a business at the end of the day i don't see it as them going under.

[Thorn the Lone Shewolf]

I am just curious which site everyone will be high tailing to. My fox friend told that the site maybe closing down and it's like sad .
I don't want to loose all the stuff I got over time. About January of 2012 is when I became active again (because one of my besties from high school made my account for me since I wanted more rp partners back then.). Though there was a gap of time last year I didn't have a pc or net to get on. So I was inactive... :/
But still it's like all the events I've gone through and all; so it feels like a pity.
In a weird way I feel like they owe us.
Though I guess that's just me...