Closing Summer Springs! BAD IDEA GAIA!

[Nileregwen DoUrden]

Seriously?
You make an awesome game, which admittedly needs more than 50 levels, and then you close it?!

YET... you keep open your MMORPG (which I personally hate) and your fighting games (which I also hate)! You get rid of a tested method of gaming that's better than Farmville and is the closest thing to Harvest Moon that I play on the internet.

IN FACT... it's the only game I play on facebook anymore because it's great. The graphics are awesome, the quests are always looked forward to, and the system is well thought out.

My only complaints for the game is a slow loading time and the fact that in the last few months you guys basically started ignoring the game.

YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU LOST PLAYERS?!
Because you stopped updating! You stopped giving out weeklies! You stopped having contests!
I know person after person on Facebook who said they'd stop playing until you brought back the weeklies and started actually giving a dang again!

People have spent a VERY long time playing Summer Springs... and now you're going to close it just because it's not the most popular thing on Facebook or Gaia. PATHETIC! I've been around long enough to know that you're focusing on your other games instead and just tossing this one into the trash.

Gaia used to be about fun. NOT about the bottom line. This is just one more example of how low Gaia's fallen from it's early (and less buggy) days.

KEEP SUMMER SPRINGS OPEN!
At least give us long enough to get to level 50 and have played through the dang thing! A little over a month isn't that long. Why can't you just let it die gracefully instead of staking it through the heart?

[Nileregwen DoUrden]

I'd like to add to my original comment (Gaia won't load the page properly so I can just edit my stupid post) that while I understand that there are legal issues in regards to the Korean company... why can't it just be bought out?
I mean seriously, if they pull Summer Springs from Facebook, where's it going to exist? The Korean company won't need the damn thing any more so just obtaining the rights and running it stateside would placate a whole heck of a lot of people.
I swear Gaia... stop making deals that screw over your patrons!

[Bad Kitty]

crying It's too late.
The game page on FB is gone..... completley blank.
They didn't even give us a month to finish up. crying

[AKB0048]

Nileregwen DoUrden

I'd like to add to my original comment (Gaia won't load the page properly so I can just edit my stupid post) that while I understand that there are legal issues in regards to the Korean company... why can't it just be bought out?
I mean seriously, if they pull Summer Springs from Facebook, where's it going to exist? The Korean company won't need the damn thing any more so just obtaining the rights and running it stateside would placate a whole heck of a lot of people.
I swear Gaia... stop making deals that screw over your patrons!

No. Fever Studios has the main rights. Only thing Gaia did was port it and localize it. As far as I know, the Korean version should still exist. It's not a matter of- Why can't Gaia buy it? They can't buy something if the owner isn't selling it in the first place.

However, situations where a small gaming company gets bought out by a larger one happens all the time. It happened not too long ago when OMGPOP was bought out by Zynga. And, it's actually the ultimate goal of small gaming companies.

[Nileregwen DoUrden]

Bad Kitty

crying It's too late.
The game page on FB is gone..... completley blank.
They didn't even give us a month to finish up. crying

I think it's more likely that it's been overloaded by people trying to play it all at once. Then again it's the only game on facebook that even loads for me... stupid satellite internet not being worth a dime.

AKB0048

No. Fever Studios has the main rights. Only thing Gaia did was port it and localize it. As far as I know, the Korean version should still exist. It's not a matter of- Why can't Gaia buy it? They can't buy something if the owner isn't selling it in the first place.

However, situations where a small gaming company gets bought out by a larger one happens all the time. It happened not too long ago when OMGPOP was bought out by Zynga. And, it's actually the ultimate goal of small gaming companies.

Well yeah I get that but from what I know the transition to Zynga for those games wasn't so bad. Nothing I played changed much at the time. I just don't quite get why you would want something to become localized just in one tiny country when it could be profitable world wide. Just seems bad for business in that sense.

[AKB0048]

Nileregwen DoUrden

Well yeah I get that but from what I know the transition to Zynga for those games wasn't so bad. Nothing I played changed much at the time. I just don't quite get why you would want something to become localized just in one tiny country when it could be profitable world wide. Just seems bad for business in that sense.

It was originally made for Korea, so no localization was involved. Plus, to you it may be "a tiny country", but the market for games like that in Korea is huge. Console games and console game systems are extremely expensive in Korea, so their largest market is PC games... particularly freemium games with micro-transactions. That's why there's actually a ton of them (see Nexon).

Also, depending on the situations surrounding the game, localization may be more costly than what it's worth. You could even look at Summer Springs as an example. It was localized for the English language and ported to Facebook... which is probably the most accessible platform out there, and yet it only had 20,000 players. I guarantee you the Korean and probably the Japanese versions had way more.

In fact, there are a ton of games that never get localized for similar reasons. You can't just say "get the game available to everyone and it'll have more players". That's actually showing a lack ot business sense. You have to weigh the cost versus the possible outcome. Even if you want to play it, there may not be enough people who want to play it to justify hiring translators, programmers, setting aside server space, etc.

Also, nothing changed you say... but OMGPOP games got pulled from here when they were bought by Zynga.

[Lockany]

Nileregwen DoUrden

Bad Kitty

crying It's too late.
The game page on FB is gone..... completley blank.
They didn't even give us a month to finish up. crying

I think it's more likely that it's been overloaded by people trying to play it all at once. Then again it's the only game on facebook that even loads for me... stupid satellite internet not being worth a dime.

AKB0048

No. Fever Studios has the main rights. Only thing Gaia did was port it and localize it. As far as I know, the Korean version should still exist. It's not a matter of- Why can't Gaia buy it? They can't buy something if the owner isn't selling it in the first place.

However, situations where a small gaming company gets bought out by a larger one happens all the time. It happened not too long ago when OMGPOP was bought out by Zynga. And, it's actually the ultimate goal of small gaming companies.

Well yeah I get that but from what I know the transition to Zynga for those games wasn't so bad. Nothing I played changed much at the time. I just don't quite get why you would want something to become localized just in one tiny country when it could be profitable world wide. Just seems bad for business in that sense.

The funny thing is that...300,000 people play in the Korean version (which I'm pretty sure they not are all Koreans or from Korea, since I'm not Korean, I don't live in Korea, but I'm playing it.) SS only has 20,000 monthly users and 60,000 fans...so the international expansion really hasn't brought them that much profit.

Meanwhile, I do agree that if SS updates more there will be more players. However, I think they should drop the constant free cash and weekly rewards. I don't like spending money on games either, but they need the money to pay for usage space/server, renewing the game, and fixing bugs.

It's no wonder Gaia couldn't make Fever Studio a better offer, because SS players don't spend that much money on the game since SS kept on giving away stuff.

[Nileregwen DoUrden]

It seriously only had 20,000 players?
I think one of it's problems was bad advertising to begin with. You had what? One contest? Maybe two? I never saw an ad for it on Facebook but I see ads for things like Farmville 2 and Cafe World all the time.
But I do agree that the multitudes of free cash hurt them. Course if they didn't do that then you'd end up getting stuck in some quests or stuck with an expandable farm. I refuse to pay actual cash for things on Facebook. I've done it on Gaia itself (when I actually had an income) but I'm not sitting here thinking that maybe my money will go completely to waste when I use it on Gaia.
I used to play Ragnarok's Korean version (I'm not Korean btw) and yeah, I get that people in Korea LOVE these types of games... but I still think with the proper advertising campaign that an English facebook spinoff of something they may turn into a full-fledged PC game in the future could bring them more revenue. Lots of people quit because of weeklies and you could switch that to a random item instead of cash, and lots of people quit because there was a complete lack of updates. There were a LOT of things that could've been done to promote the game... like the Grunny! That's what got me there in the first place! That little Deidrich Grunny.
I guess I'm just annoyed that I spent probably at least a month's worth or time, if not more, playing that game and soon everything will just be washed away. It's the same sort of anger I felt when I played Final Fantasy XI and when I didn't pay for two months due to moving, they deleted my characters and account completely... and don't get me started on the debacle of Star Wars Galaxies...
I haven't been able to get SS to load (been trying all day) so obviously it's buggy.
There's an unfilled niche in farming games... CUTE farming games, not cartoon-y or 3D-ish but straight up cute... in the US and while Harvest Moon does fill the gap... having something like it on Facebook was awesome!
Course now there's even a Ragnarok game on Facebook so who knows... maybe one day in the distant future we'll see some form of Summer Springs again.

[Lockany]

Nileregwen DoUrden

It seriously only had 20,000 players?
I think one of it's problems was bad advertising to begin with. You had what? One contest? Maybe two? I never saw an ad for it on Facebook but I see ads for things like Farmville 2 and Cafe World all the time.
But I do agree that the multitudes of free cash hurt them. Course if they didn't do that then you'd end up getting stuck in some quests or stuck with an expandable farm. I refuse to pay actual cash for things on Facebook. I've done it on Gaia itself (when I actually had an income) but I'm not sitting here thinking that maybe my money will go completely to waste when I use it on Gaia.
I used to play Ragnarok's Korean version (I'm not Korean btw) and yeah, I get that people in Korea LOVE these types of games... but I still think with the proper advertising campaign that an English facebook spinoff of something they may turn into a full-fledged PC game in the future could bring them more revenue. Lots of people quit because of weeklies and you could switch that to a random item instead of cash, and lots of people quit because there was a complete lack of updates. There were a LOT of things that could've been done to promote the game... like the Grunny! That's what got me there in the first place! That little Deidrich Grunny.
I guess I'm just annoyed that I spent probably at least a month's worth or time, if not more, playing that game and soon everything will just be washed away. It's the same sort of anger I felt when I played Final Fantasy XI and when I didn't pay for two months due to moving, they deleted my characters and account completely... and don't get me started on the debacle of Star Wars Galaxies...
I haven't been able to get SS to load (been trying all day) so obviously it's buggy.
There's an unfilled niche in farming games... CUTE farming games, not cartoon-y or 3D-ish but straight up cute... in the US and while Harvest Moon does fill the gap... having something like it on Facebook was awesome!
Course now there's even a Ragnarok game on Facebook so who knows... maybe one day in the distant future we'll see some form of Summer Springs again.

Well, 20,000 shows up when I typed in summer springs on facebook search bar, more or less I believe. A lot of people quit of course. The Korean version doesn't even give out cash that regularly, aside from 30 cash for 10 consecutive login, it would be just occasional contest which not everyone will win. The quests there do give out cash items, but not cash. Yet, so many people play and join. I have a couple of neighbors who decided not to upgrade their houses, and they play the game just fine. As for SS, I pretty much just ignore the quest whenever they ask me to buy houses and building, and I still had fun playing it everyday.(then again I'm one of those rare people who don't care about the story) I don't see why people are always complaining how hard or expensive the game is, you can still play the game without spending actual money. If you really want some of the nice things or go on with the quest, either be patient and save up cash or spend real money.

Honestly, I would buy some cash if they didn't give them out that regularly....and if they updated their catalog more often. It really upset me when they kept on taking things out instead of adding in. I'm a student, so I don't have that much money either, but I wouldn't mind spending $3-$5 if I have spare cash at the end of the month.

I agree with the advertisement though, they could have done a better job with that. I think I've seen more ad for soul crash than SS.

P.S. I played international ragnarok before and other mmos as well, I know it's frustrating trying to save up money in real life yet still want to enjoy the games, but we have to make sacrifices for things we love, and if it conflicts with our priority, we have to learn to let go.

[Nileregwen DoUrden]

Don't get me wrong I totally agree with the cash thing. Giving the 25 Cash after so many login days should really be the only time you get some, or maybe for finishing a really hard quest. I pretty much was fine with that because for the longest time I had no idea about weeklies because I don't check my email much.
I just think there were a lot of things that could've been done to make it more successful and perhaps had it been more successful then the company might've thought to let it stick around.
I have to admit though I did stop playing for about a month but that was only because I moved and it took forever to get the internet set up.

[Lockany]

Nileregwen DoUrden

Don't get me wrong I totally agree with the cash thing. Giving the 25 Cash after so many login days should really be the only time you get some, or maybe for finishing a really hard quest. I pretty much was fine with that because for the longest time I had no idea about weeklies because I don't check my email much.
I just think there were a lot of things that could've been done to make it more successful and perhaps had it been more successful then the company might've thought to let it stick around.
I have to admit though I did stop playing for about a month but that was only because I moved and it took forever to get the internet set up.

Yeah, I believe there are a lot of improvements that could have been made to keep people playing...there is a reason why people play farmville. If the license is main issue...then it can't be helped. I honestly think license isn't the down fall of this game; I feel the admin's actions toward the end made them looked kind of desperate.

Either way, it's said to see it go, it was once a wonderful game. : And by now they should see how much SS means to us, maybe they'll try to figure something out before December.

[Kotulire]

I really did enjoy the game, and it even got me to be more active in the forums, even my kids liked to play it, having fun placing flowers and stuff. I'm really disapointed that they are closing it. Couldnt they at least move it to here?

[ghurly05]

crying 2 NIGHTS IN TEARS AND A LIMIT OF TWO MONTHS FUN ....huhuhu why rich go? can't we never continue what happen to lena in the farm so as the story goes, crying crying crying crying crying

rolleyes Rich you give me a fever after you announce the farewell because its painful to say i give up even you are more tired than we are, because we're just a player, but don't forget we're apart of your richful talents and creativeness. or else beta tested next time... sad sad. why?

[CutieDolly_Mint]

i can't access to the game today exclaim exclaim exclaim exclaim exclaim gonk gonk gonk gonk

[The 15th Doctor]

It not a game made by Gaia its something on Facebook that Gaia hooked up with.