This upsets me greatly, Gaia - now including an AtA response

[Rya Dracosin]

dreamsk

Rya Dracosin

dreamsk

Rya Dracosin

dreamsk

Honestly those pictures are so small I cant see anything resembling Flynn in there.

I have my laptop connected to a 60" TV.

There's no mistaking that mug... And just as a double check, I did look back on the "last hour" and whatever Flynn's booty announcements... matches her face and appearance spot on. It's the "grab your gold" ad under the GAMIFICATION slide.

sweatdrop I also have really good vision (when I'm able to focus my mind into looking at things, anyway)...

Now that you've told me it's to the right of the sign, then I saw it. sweatdrop

Since I have adblock, I don't see the large square ads for such things, so I wouldn't have even really noticed it right away unless I looked hard enough. Someone should do an edit to point it out to those who haven't seen it.

And I looked in on that whole Gamification thing... and felt relieved for a moment.... then my heart sank... At first I thought they're like "Ohhh this is a good thing, lets give more to our customers!" and then I read that they're tricks to make people want more and more... and ugh... business. mad

Gaia had such a good thing going with being up close and personal with it's users. Then they had people come in to manage and they didn't get up close and personal and I think that's where it got killed. This site is UNIQUE and thrives off community....

sweatdrop I have never seen that ad before either.

Seems deplorable, though big food companies put chemicals that physically addict you to their foods, such as pepsi and mars candy.

Yep...

Just like they're trying to add aspartame to regular milk (not just chocolate milk) and not even add it on the label, just to get more people to drink it and increase sales. I need to find me a dairy farm that's not afraid to sell it to me straight from their tank.... or buy a few cows.... ugh

I find the best business practices are those that reward their consumers with more than what they pay for. Good customer service, extra features, personalization, and so on so forth.

Gaia has always been a community of people and even the professionals were community driven folk. Hell, even Fin, an ex-CEO attempted to get involved, and I sorta miss him at this point. I never knew this site would sink this low.

[Erogenous Jones]

Uncle Kenny

This wasn't a presentation given to Gaia employees or the company. That's not even our office.

Uncle Kenny

I don't know what the presentation is, so I can't really say. I only know it wasn't something in Gaia.

Narumi Misuhara

Hi frozen_water, I can definitely understand your concerns, however it's important to understand that those images are out of context. They had nothing to do with Gaia.

Regarding managements vision of Gaia, yes, we all want to see Gaia do well and thrive. Gaia has an amazing community and none of us want to see that go away. Not sure why the idea is going around that we don't care about the community. We continue to have mini-events, we've recently had amazing gold only item recolors and we have tons of free contests going on all the time.

Wow.
These answers are either totally naive or disgustingly dishonest.

Sure the presentation wasn't given to the staff at Gaia, because the concepts being presented are already in place at Gaia!

Gaia is so proud of how well their system works, that they're now taking the show on the road and selling their swill to other providers.

I wonder if this will finally open some eyes around here to the fact that there is no longer the slightest consideration for us as people on Gaia's part. We are merely livestock being kept alive for what we can produce for the site.
Anybody naive enough to think that anything Gaia does for us from this point on is being done because the folks there think of us as friends and want to do stuff to make us happy because they like us, should really not be walking around in general society because they are simply too naive to survive out there.
If nothing up to this point has driven the message home to we users that we are now nothing more than wallets, this certainly should, or nothing will.

This is really saddening because while I've got so much history here, and I still enjoy my time in the Forums with the many folks I've met, this feeling that the people hosting the site have so little regard for me has really cast a pall over my time here.

[TheLostNobody]

Darkend Light

I personally believe the latter after the whole survey fiasco. Who really knows.

I do as well. And I hate their crappy excuses or explanations after the fact like it "was intended for another audience" or whatever zero said.

[Queen Rae Luna]

I don't know what's going on, and I don't know who is responsible. All I know is since the Summer Sale in June, something has changed.

(Not in chronological order)
*The offensive survey was released
*Flynn's Booty was released (and re-released, and re-re-released, and so on) causing the Marketplace to inflate
*"Flash sales" offering rare items for Gaia Cash began happening every week (at least it seems)
*Items bought with Gaia Cash have dramatically jumped from under $2o.oo to hundreds in some cases.
*Centering the site despite many complaints
*New management was introduced to Gaia Online
*Most recently, however, was last night's photos presented in the AtA of Gaia's Chief Operating Officer and his lovely presentation

To me, it doesn't matter who the presentation was for. A representation of Gaia (Flynn in a Flynn's Booty Advertisement) was included in the presentation, meaning (in my opinion) that they have already employed these tactics within Gaia Online and that they think of us all as "lab rats" with money.

Of course, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but it appears we have been given glimpses, and from what I can tell, it doesn't look good. All I know is that since June, things have rapidly deteriorated. The fact that no one seems to be addressing the pictures much other than to say "Oh, it wasn't given to us" is suspect. Who cares? Why is it the Gaia COO? Why is Flynn's picture there? It's the content that counts, and I am disgusted.

What's worse is that so many users are very young (as young as 13). Why take advantage of them? Is the business aspect of Gaia Online so important that they sell out and stop caring about/listening to us?

We'll just have to see what happens I guess. Since the photos surfaced, though, I know I don't feel like generating any more money through the Sponsored Offers/Daily Cash links.

[baby_kitty_258]

Flustershy

baby_kitty_258

scullylam

this is the work of psychology isn't it.... to cause addictions, that is an illness... so... gaia wants to feed an illness? and we are the lab rats that are tested in this psychological research. to see how much we are pushed into this "gamification". so... why are there no papers to sign off on gaia? if we are merely subjects in a study we didn't know about. unethical and biased? :/

i totally agree. where are the papers for consent, gaia??. if you are going to play with the addiction center of my brain, i want compensation (or get out of my head) esp. if this cannot be reversed. also, what about all the damage being done to any number of children whose brains are still developing cognitively? //all the legal implications at a corporate level

Clearly, it's past testing stages if it's being so widely used. Tis like saying you need to sign off to use make-up just because it was used on chimps. Fast food even has warnings about how it contains things known to cause cancer and birth defects, yet children are allowed to buy that as well.

Unethical? Maybe. Illegal? Not quite.

well, maybe your kids use makeup and eat things with cancer, but mine don't.

[Murder Toys]

Really I don't believe Uncle kenny or Narumi Misuhara one bit.
No offence but after your company has lied to us and screwed us for a month and a half. I'm going believe the OP who has proof where as you two have just denied it with out giving us any information. If it had nothing to do with Gaia what did it have to with?

[Kumacakes]

♔

smh

[Flustershy]

baby_kitty_258

Flustershy

baby_kitty_258

scullylam

this is the work of psychology isn't it.... to cause addictions, that is an illness... so... gaia wants to feed an illness? and we are the lab rats that are tested in this psychological research. to see how much we are pushed into this "gamification". so... why are there no papers to sign off on gaia? if we are merely subjects in a study we didn't know about. unethical and biased? :/

i totally agree. where are the papers for consent, gaia??. if you are going to play with the addiction center of my brain, i want compensation (or get out of my head) esp. if this cannot be reversed. also, what about all the damage being done to any number of children whose brains are still developing cognitively? //all the legal implications at a corporate level

Clearly, it's past testing stages if it's being so widely used. Tis like saying you need to sign off to use make-up just because it was used on chimps. Fast food even has warnings about how it contains things known to cause cancer and birth defects, yet children are allowed to buy that as well.

Unethical? Maybe. Illegal? Not quite.

well, maybe your kids use makeup and eat things with cancer, but mine don't.

That's not even relevant to what I was pointing out.. sweatdrop

The examples were only to show that you don't need to sign off on things, even if they are potentially dangerous to your health and/or if they were tested on critters. Heck, I don't even agree with that. There should be clear warnings for such things. All that I meant to convey is that it is not illegal, though perhaps it is unethical. emotion_yatta

[Red Wysteria]

It's not as if rats like to be lab rats. They're forced. People have a choice. So comparing them...I don't think is very insulting. I just take it to mean that if a person is like a lab rat, they're forsaking freedom to be one. While I don't see how any of the users on here are at all like lab rats. What's insulting is that companies like this strive to turn their loyal userbases into addicts by ruining what was good and still hoping they will continue to be loyal, but that's not gonna work if people realize they're being messed with and choose not to be taken in by what they're doing. Loyalty can only go so far when it's clear this isn't at all like what it used to be. I was loyal to the gaia in the past, the one which I was convinced would shut down out of bankruptcy rather than shame itself turning into what so other many other online games turn into. Sure, the beer and drug companies use this technique and their buyers choose to be like lab rats, but unlike here, they go into it knowing how bad it is in the first place; there was no loyalty built up. To be betrayed like this isn't going down that way. Nobody came to gaia to get addicted to something lame. To be frank, I'm not really offended, I'm just pissed.

[Google]

Lol what 'amazing' community?
Lots of people have left because of inflation.
More than half of site feedback threads are negative.
Halloween event this year actually sucks imo.
Site centering sucks, apparently majority of the voters voted no, but still site was centered. What is the point of the voting poll? If you're not going to listen anyway?
Caring about the community? Oh come on, take a look at the marketplace, site feedback, the number of users that are online...etc. Doesn't look very positive to me.

[Matasoga]

"Out of context?" ...How dare you? You pictorally say that we're labrats, and now even more directly imply that we're fools, as well?
Whether this was specifically a Gaia-funded presentation or not is completely, 100% irrelevant. This is Gaia's COO. It's almost certain that he wasn't talking about practices that he didn't believe in. He did even use Gaia as an example. Obviously believes that this is how it should be done. The is zero respect for the users now, and those who have been paying attention need no proof of that. For the few who might, we now essentially have an admission.
I think every user on the site should see this. I'm debating making it my signature, with a brief caption?

[reborn_sasrep]

en sak

Sad to see but I had a feeling this is what we are to some. Very sad to see..

i wanna crying when see we compare with a rat lab crying crying crying

[kremzeek]

I totally believe Uncle Kenny. I myself have worked at companies and not known what management was doing right in the next room. Seeing that presentation was probably as big a shock to him as the rest of us.

[Beemie]

Rya Dracosin

Hell, even Fin, an ex-CEO attempted to get involved, and I sorta miss him at this point. I never knew this site would sink this low.

I was reading Fin's profile page and journal the other day and was amazed at how involved he was. And Gaia was a lot bigger company back then, from what I heard. Fin seemed to be very focused on the community and trying to make this a fun place for the users to hang out. Also, I remember in an old thread seeing several pics of him and the Gaia staff, where they had all dressed up in "corporate-type" clothes for a photo shoot and party they had. They all looked very spiffy & looked like they were having fun, too. I wonder why he decided to leave?