Gaia look at us, do you really want to break our heart?

[Asagrim]

Assuming what Swarf is saying is true: I don't get why people are so surprised. Gaia's logic is, at best, incredibly warped. Gaia is ran by perhaps the single largest contingent of brain-damaged morons to ever operate a keyboard. It's no surprise they've actually abandoned something that's making money (presumably in favour of moving onto facebook where there's a chance they'll make even more money). Hey! That's Gaia logic for you!

Now, I don't know if what Swarf is saying is 100% true, though he's obviously the most reliable in terms of this issue. I will say this: I have respect for Swarf now, and I honestly, truly have had zero respect for any Gaian for a long time now. I have been waiting for the day when a developer actually summons up the ******** spine and says "Oi! Gaia! What the fook are you playing at, you complete imbeciles? This is bullshit!" It's too bad that Swarf is just another victim of Gaia cutting away live flesh in favour of jamming a few dollar bills into the wound.

I've never had respect for Gaia. Between Alchemy, Cash Shop, CIs, Facebook games and this news, it seems to me like Gaia is purposefully trying to alienate its user base in favour of sucking on Uncle Sam's n****e. Abandoning zOMG? Not surprising. When was the last time Gaia well and truly cared about its fanbase? Sure, they've only went and pissed off the loyal fanbase who raked in the moolah for Gaia by playing zOMG and buying the items and amulets, but this is Gaia: There's always more money to be had. Like a leech, they tasted money and then proceeded to latch onto the userbase and suck them dry. So I assume they've moved on to focus on Facebook games: No surprise there. After all, there's even more money to be had in it.

I've lost count of how many times i've said that Gaia, when it comes to new features, goes "Hurpy durpy! Thiz iz a shiny new feature!! Letz ignore our other feature COZ THIZ ONE CAN MAKE MONEYZ!!!" and it seems like zOMG is no exception to the rule. It's a shame, really. zOMG had a dedicated team working on it, they worked hard from what little time they were given, they worked for the users, the users paid their hard earned money for the items...and this is how we all get repaid? zOMG gets canned, its corpse left to rot, and Swarf isn't even invited to the meeting where the decision is made to stab the knife in zOMG's back? What the ******** kind of messed up decision-making is that?

I'll tell you what kind of ******** up decision making it is: It sounds to me like the higher-ups in Gaia Online consists of nothing more than parasites and yes men. Odin ******** forbid that they, the people who actually run the ******** site and oversee the features that are released and operated on, should actually work to please the users for once like some of the devs do. No, we're not users. We're dollar signs in their eyes. We're walking banks. We're SUCKERS. That's how I feel. That makes me feel even worse than having been lied to. How does it feel, knowing that those who tug at Gaia's strings see us as nothing more than wallets ready to be plundered? We're NOTHING to them. We are statistics, we are numbers on the spreadsheet. They don't care about us. Very few of the devs and admins actually give a s**t about us beyond when the community is pissed off and ready to rebel. Speaking of admins, I don't see any of them cowardly guttersnipes coming out of the woodwork to address the issue, does anybody else? No, they throw out their meatshields and expect them to absorb the flak. Typical Gaia. It's nice to see that, in today's economy, Lanzer can sit back in his chair and lazily lounge around, knowing the users are paying for his meals while he ******** them in the a** with a barbed wire d***o.

Figures on a spreadsheet. That's all we are. That's all we've really been.

[Mortok]

I'm not going to listen to the word of one developer over several others. Swarf's "whistle-blowing" reads exactly like the typical response of a disgruntled employee throwing a tantrum because their pet project got put on the back-burner.

[sodium]

Mortok

I'm not going to listen to the word of one developer over several others. Swarf's "whistle-blowing" reads exactly like the typical response of a disgruntled employee throwing a tantrum because their pet project got put on the back-burner.

True facts.


I'll admit, I'm usually one to defend Gaia. I understand handling a business as such is hard to do. But it's starting to get to the point that most of the information we get as users/customers is second hand or rumors.
I'm okay with people boycotting or quitting Gaia based on a principle such as this, but we need to know for sure what's going on. The Gaia staff shouldn't sit back and let themselves lose users/customers based on faulty or incomplete information. ):

[Pilotslover]

Mortok

I'm not going to listen to the word of one developer over several others. Swarf's "whistle-blowing" reads exactly like the typical response of a disgruntled employee throwing a tantrum because their pet project got put on the back-burner.

That's how it read to me too and as such it should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Commander Sigma]

Mortok

I'm not going to listen to the word of one developer over several others. Swarf's "whistle-blowing" reads exactly like the typical response of a disgruntled employee throwing a tantrum because their pet project got put on the back-burner.

It does sound slightly odd, but you're right; after all, there are three sides to every story involving two parties - your side, my side, and the truth.

[Pilfer von Durem]

Mortok

I'm not going to listen to the word of one developer over several others. Swarf's "whistle-blowing" reads exactly like the typical response of a disgruntled employee throwing a tantrum because their pet project got put on the back-burner.

You're not going to believe someone who was on the project versus an admin routinely proven to be "out of the loop", a developer/manager not in any way associated with zOMG!, and who else?
Playing devil's advocate is one thing. You are trying to start a fight on shaky ground.

Swarf hadn't even been on zOMG! duty for awhile. If anyone were to react out of pride, it should have been [ JK ].

[Aileeya]

A year ago, the "right thing to do" evidently in Lanzer's eyes, was to offer a refund for BB headstart tickets should development cease.

Soooo, what's that imply now?

[dilann]

Mortok

I'm not going to listen to the word of one developer over several others. Swarf's "whistle-blowing" reads exactly like the typical response of a disgruntled employee throwing a tantrum because their pet project got put on the back-burner.

I understand that your looking at this from a neutral standpoint. But the only way to truly understand this situation is to actually experience the situation. Have you played zOMG before?

Perhaps that would be a more suitable question for you. If not, then all your argument I would say is incompetent. Meaning you don't really know what your saying because you have no idea what Gaia has done.

I believe you would totally have more compassion with the zOMG Forum Community voicing their opinion if you have actually experience the magnitude of deception we have been. We did raid ATA to beg for answers and the answers they told us does not seem very satisfactory. For example, they told us to support zOMG by buying power-ups, knowing that all the proceedings will help with the game. But we later learned that the money were going is not actually going to its rightful place but to other place, completely unrelated to zOMG.

Gaia has been on their defensive side all throughout the ATA. Practically, the impression they gave us is that, our community is too little to make cash for them. But we know its false, we are advertising for them, we are giving them money to support it but they wont do what is expected of them.

Finally, someone inside actually told the truth. That zOMG is indeed profitable but since only Gaia people play it, they won't give attention to it anymore. They want bigger audience, other than Gaia people. So it also brings in the impression that Facebook is way way more important than us. Even though zOMG (us) is funding those games.

[dozenrats]

hibi-tea

Lahnahteck

Miss-dark8607

Yes they do want to break your heart and they are utter liars! You guys have been used and abused like a used blow up doll.

Question is, have they been lying to us for so long for years?

Real, real questions is: Can you trust the words of only one person?

I trust Swarf as much as I trust Gaia on this matter. Until either shows concrete evidence backing their claims, either, or both, could very well be lying.

I would rather trust the words of someone who had the courage to speak when it could have cost him his job rather than the words of someone who's primary motive is to make as big a profit as possible, no matter who it hurts or what communities get destroyed by it. I know in my heart who is telling the truth here.

[hibi-tea]

dozenrats

I would rather trust the words of someone who had the courage to speak when it could have cost him his job rather than the words of someone who's primary motive is to make as big a profit as possible, no matter who it hurts or what communities get destroyed by it. I know in my heart who is telling the truth here.

Because being a business is just an evil thing, isn't it?

I don't see someone speaking out against the company who employs them as courageous. Frankly, that says two things to me: 1) They were either planning to quit or they knew they were losing their job, and/or 2) They may very well be acting out of spite.

No one who values their job or a pay check would speak out against their company unless they were doing something that was unconstitutional, and/or illegal.

Also, you don't know who is telling the truth. Neither part has ponied up any documents to back their claims. Just because someone gave you specifics numbers means absolutely nothing.

Quite frankly, all I see is a community clinging to a person who's telling them what they want to hear without any proof to back it up. I'm not going to cling to the claims of one person, just like I'm going to be suspect of a group of people who give me vague answers.

Like I said. I trust Swarf just as much as I trust Gaia on this topic. Unless either produces documents, I'm assuming I'm being lied to by both.

[hibi-tea]

Lizmay

There would be no reason for Swarf to lie about those things. If he were planning to quit, he'd have done it by now. As he stated, he couldn't keep witnessing the dishonesty going on and keep quiet about it. If I had to bet my life on who was being honest here, there would be no contest. I trust Swarf 100%.

You don't know Swarf's reasons for doing anything. You just know what he has decided to tell you.

You can trust him if you want, but as it stands I can't full well trust someone on this matter by their word alone. Documents. That's what I want to see. Otherwise he could very well just be playing on the communities feelings, just like Gaia may very well be lying to everyone about zOMG.

[dilann]

check out "the zomg parody" from the second post in first page.

[Commander Sigma]

Pilfer von Durem

Mortok

I'm not going to listen to the word of one developer over several others. Swarf's "whistle-blowing" reads exactly like the typical response of a disgruntled employee throwing a tantrum because their pet project got put on the back-burner.

You're not going to believe someone who was on the project versus an admin routinely proven to be "out of the loop", a developer/manager not in any way associated with zOMG!, and who else?
Playing devil's advocate is one thing. You are trying to start a fight on shaky ground.

Swarf hadn't even been on zOMG! duty for awhile. If anyone were to react out of pride, it should have been [ JK ].

He could be saying this as a last-ditch attempt to save zOMG regardless of whether or not it's profitable; people do crazy things and desperate times call for desperate measures.

I'd like to think what swarf is saying is true but as far as I'm aware, if it's really profitable then Gaia has no reason to discontinue zOMG. I'm thinking it's profitable but compared to the time and money spent developing it, it's not worth it when there are projects that have a smaller time and money investment and more profit; I have a somewhat hard time believing a Facebook game would cost as much, if not more, to develop than an MMO. Of course, the only type of Facebook games I really know are Farmville, Cityville, and a few other absolutely mundane games of the same type, so maybe I'm wrong.