Follow up on zOMG from the admins

[All Honey]

ATA got locked while I was composing my last post so I'm putting it here.

All Honey

Let the Fb devs go do their thing. Let the zOMG devs do their thing. Problem solved.

If that's not good enough for you - pull the Fb team off of Fb and bring 'em on over to your own damn site where attentions is needed very badly in all sorts of areas.
You've got problems all over the place right here that have been on going for freakin' years.

(yes, I'm er, disgruntled but when faced with mismanagement, deceit, things that plain don't make sense etc., that's how I get. Sheesh this place is getting more like the US government.)

[Quibuz]

II_Kisame_II

Discomfiture

II_Kisame_II

I understand your reasons for cancelling the marketing campaign for zOMG in its infancy, but when you guys had to opportunity to virtually run a marketing campaign for free by promoting zOMG in game through Monster Galaxy, you guys simply let the opportunity let by. When Monster Galaxy was getting 20 million monthly users, you guys failed to capitalise it, this tells me you guys weren't serious about zOMG. I've spouted this idea numerous times in the AtA months back, but you guys kept misinterpreting it by thinking that I was talking about advertising in Facebook, I didn't mean that. So since you guys are in a attentive mode, will it be possible to promote zOMG through the new games you guys are releasing and publishing?

This! Can't tip post hard enough.

I played Moga for a couple weeks when it was arguably in its prime, and there was happily a 'watch this Harry Potter trailer' and win some Moga shiz for free ! Why, oh why, couldn't they have inserted a Zomg! trailer or link the same way? Would have been such an easy way to promote it, even bring more traffic back to Gaia, talk about an opportunity lost.

It would have been a great win-win situation, but Gaia has no sense, they wouldn't even add their own logo onto Monster Galaxy and we were told that Monster Galaxy was developed to attract new users, I doubt it attracted any at all. I again highlighted this in the AtA months ago, but it never got answered.

Gaia is clouded in the pursuit of short term profit and they want to do it through whatever means. Although there is nothing wrong with that ambition; they are ordinary people trying to make a living, its just that they lack the sense of planning things out fully. Especially when it came to zOMG and the selling point of Monster Galaxy, they sold the wrong things and should have concentrated on selling items. I felt that Gaia was distancing itself from MoGa and didn't want to be associated to making a 'Pokemon rip off' and for that reason the game had no character and I think this mistake may be repeated in their future games. From the very start they should have given all players a Avatar. They should have given users the ability to explore the world like in zOMG, but in the quality of their flash spaces like the holiday spaces. They should have let users buy items for their avatars and be able to invite friends into their home spaces and allow them to socialise; something most games in Facebook lack. They missed the point as Monster Galaxy should been the very soul of GaiaOnline, but in Facebook and just through those steps attract mass amounts of players to this site, but the game was nothing but a Pokemon rip off, a true representation of Gaia Interactive, soul less and money hungry. If I were in charge I certainly would have gone in the direction as mentioned and who knows MoGa would have turned out to be a phenomena.

Gaia also lacks the ability to capatlise on simple things in zOMG like releasing double shadow orbs or double gold or re-releasing sweetheart ring, little things that would steam in revenue. If you cant exploit simple money makers then you just fail at business.

Even though I understand why they are expanding into Facebook, I feel they are doing it wrong and not learning from past mistakes. Also I don't even want to accept the idea of 'maintenance mode', when in fact they could easily outsource to firms that could model future zOMG maps and then Gaia just releases these area incrementally just like Boardwalk and Shadows. Things like building new rings and animated could be done in house. Though I maybe be naive on what it would cost to outsource, I still think its possible to continue development, all Gaia has to do is pay a one of charge and they receive a map model that just needs them paint over.

Its their decision not mines. Oh well end of rant. I hope your reading this devs.

words of wisdom II_Kisame_II. I want to rant my opinion about this too. biggrin

Being one of the closed beta testers and a regular zOMG! player for the past 5 years, i find it a shame to see posts about this game being discontinued. I find it an absolute disgrace that a friend had to notify me of this thread. The least i would have expected was an official Dev Announcement.

The fact that this game hasn't brought in the revenues Gaia was expecting can be seen as a sign of mismanagement or miscommunication between the developers and the different departments of the organisation that Gaiaonline is. If gaiaonline claims that the costs of development are too high, why don't you find a sponsor for zOMG! ??? After all... the site is infested with commercials already. And i can't imagine that zOMG! players would mind seeing certain advertisement logos on the loading screens if that would mean the continuation of developent of the game. I can imagine a coca cola stand on the buccaneer's boardwalk, or well placed logos or on the walls of Barton town too. But to find such a sponsor you will have to have a game that is out of beta. According to the beta image above the version number in the startup screen the game is still in beta. Why not fix all the existing problems (glitches, bugs, gamelag and errors) and uplift the beta status to a version 1.0 release? Expansions can always be added.

If gaiaonline wants to attract more people to play zOMG! why not reward people for bringing in new players? This can be done by giving them soulbound items like rings or badges.
I think certain banners, to be used by gaians and zOMG! enthousiasts to post on other forums or sites like tumblr and other social network sites, should be made available by gaiaonline.
Also the zOMG! Landing page (http://zomg.com) should be made more accessible by integrating it in gaiaonline's homepage. If you want free publicity for one of your products... why not use your own site first to advertise it?

The ever increasing requirement to join Facebook to be able to play games related to gaia is a very BAD development and a marketing technical fail in my humble opinion. You want people to visit YOUR site (gaiaonline.com) but instead you ask them to sign up for a completely different and unrelated site instead. NO WONDER you're losing "customers" (gaians in non-marketing terminology). Personally i don't own a Facebook account and i do not have the desire to get one. I have my reasons for that, but i won't mention them here since they don't contribute to this topic.

If gaiaonline would discontinue zOMG! I predict a lot of gaians will feel abandonned by the staff and will quit visiting this site.

[Pilfer von Durem]

Quibuz

Personally i don't own a Facebook account and i do not have the desire to get one. I have my reasons for that, but i won't mention them here since they don't contribute to this topic.

They sell your information.
And when you get arrested for protesting against police brutality, it makes it easier to get death threats.

Topic derailed? Nah, just offers more proof as to why FB isn't the future.

[II_Kisame_II]

swarf

Much as I love the creativity of this approach,

I'm glad you like it.

Quote:

I think it's a difficult proposition. Facebook is, to say the least, not popular among the zOMG community.

Thats well highlighted in the community, but I wont say its a difficult proposition, I will explain further in the post.

Quote:

Advertising a facebook game in zOMG would be pretty pointless.

I had the idea the other way round, zOMG has thousands of players as apposed to millions on Facebook. Advertising the way you describe it truly makes no sense

Quote:

The situation isn't totally symmetric, but I don't think zOMG appeals to your average facebook gamer as much.

If a game like Monster Galaxy and Farmville can appeal to your average Facebook gamer, zOMG sure damn will, just a matter of perspective and how you promote it.

Quote:

Not that some people wouldn't join, but it's inefficient. It's probably a better use of Moga's ad space to send traffic to other Gaia facebook games like Zombie Farm.

There I think you may be viewing it wrong. I will explain how I had this idea in mind and what strategy I thought of.

As you guys have said many times, it was difficult to advertise zOMG from the start, though I understood the reasons behind it, many others didn't and when zOMG had a similar fiasco like this the year before, people kept saying that you guys ought to be advertising more, but I saw no solutions being offered.

There out of frustration I came to the idea of advertising zOMG in Monster galaxy. I thought it was a brilliant idea and immediately saw its potential, since the amount of exposure zOMG could have got would have been overwhelming. The way I viewed was more of a Quest than a advert, per se, where users were rewarded with a in game item for previewing the zOMG intro. All you guys needed to do was show that Intro and you've bought yourself a lot of site traffic and potentially new players.

I thought last year that maybe this idea would hit HQ like a burst of inspiration and shared it numerous times. The strategy I had in mind was, you guys did a little cross promotion, it attracts players and traffic. As those players continue with the game, you guys continue working on Dead Mans, as those players near completion, they'll start to wander around wondering what to do after beating the game. Thats when the release of DMS retains those players and you guys go off to work on Boardwalk and increase efforts to monetize the game by releasing more summons and etc. Though its nice to bring in players, its key to retain them, thats what I thought DMS was going to do, retain those new users and give them the illusion that zOMG is not a dead game and is being continually being worked on.

But did that happen? No, I find it funny when I think my idea through and compare with reality. The opportunity was let by, you guys left it to us to bring players from outside, when in fact you could have done it easily. Now we are in the scenario of zOMG in life support and HQ witnessing the wrath of z!F and making excuses that our revenue isnt sufficient, thus not going to be worked on. I find it tragic that zOMG wasn't what it could have been, even when it could have been revived had the devs paid attention to me. If I remember correct I think I wrote to Narumi once and he said it was a CEO decision if cross promotion can happen, I doubt he shared the idea to him.

For many of those players, zOMG would have been the first MMO they played, it certainly was mine and what was great about it was its unique atmosphere and the freedom to play in browser. zOMG can attract people, all it needs is exposure. I hope you guys think carefully about this and take steps further by promoting them on upcoming games. If you care about rescuing zOMG, if you care about us, you'll do what is necessary to save the game. Sometimes it makes business sense to abandon a game that hasn't worked, but with the rare potential zOMG has, its stupid to let it down, we the z!F know its potential, the question do you guys?

[All Honey]

DARKNRGY

(snip)

We are going to continue our investigation into statements made regarding the Buccaneer Boardwalk area completion and the bugs with the DMS update. We've heard your concerns and we are looking into a resolution that is acceptable for the community. As the week is at its close, we will provide a status update next week.

(snip)

We're going to continue our analysis and provide updates as we learn of them. We'll have more for you next week. We'll try to provide a more concrete plan for zOMG at that time. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.

Written by: Panagrammic, DARKNRGY, Swarf, Lanzer, Siskataya, and Narumi Misuhara

K, it's next week. What exactly is the plan?

[swarf]

II_Kisame_II

But did that happen? No, I find it funny when I think my idea through and compare with reality. The opportunity was let by, you guys left it to us to bring players from outside, when in fact you could have done it easily. Now we are in the scenario of zOMG in life support and HQ witnessing the wrath of z!F and making excuses that our revenue isnt sufficient, thus not going to be worked on. I find it tragic that zOMG wasn't what it could have been, even when it could have been revived had the devs paid attention to me. If I remember correct I think I wrote to Narumi once and he said it was a CEO decision if cross promotion can happen, I doubt he shared the idea to him.

Hold up. It's not entirely fair to say opportunity was let by. Monster Galaxy has been running two banners above its main game and that's already pushing it for screen real estate. To advertise zOMG would require replacing a banner spot or overlapping Moga UI. So it's not true that an opportunity was let by; but rather than a different opportunity was taken. Moga was, at all times, advertising other assets for Gaia or itself (through Applifier). The folks who chose the targets for the Moga ads are professionals and I trust them at what they do. If we could have added more value to Gaia as a whole by advertising zOMG instead of Zombie Farm, etc then I'm sorry. I know we don't always nail it. But, our ad team isn't sitting around ignoring things either.

[ValKyriePunk20]

swarf

Hold up. It's not entirely fair to say opportunity was let by. Monster Galaxy has been running two banners above its main game and that's already pushing it for screen real estate. To advertise zOMG would require replacing a banner spot or overlapping Moga UI. So it's not true that an opportunity was let by; but rather than a different opportunity was taken. Moga was, at all times, advertising other assets for Gaia or itself (through Applifier). The folks who chose the targets for the Moga ads are professionals and I trust them at what they do. If we could have added more value to Gaia as a whole by advertising zOMG instead of Zombie Farm, etc then I'm sorry. I know we don't always nail it. But, our ad team isn't sitting around ignoring things either.

Whether they meant to or not, they sure aren't focusing on zOMG. It's the bottom line. And we all know that the real bottom line is the amount of profit made off of a product. If zOMG isn't making a profit (no matter how much we love it) it will not be developed. I just wish the company would be honest about that fact so we can all move on.

[allegoriest]

I have to say, I really do think your opinion keeps changing Swarf. :/ I mean, you did kinda post stuff to people who will take your word as absolute gospel, and were kinda vague at least from what you'd been saying, at least monetary-wise. Last week they were making more than enough, and now you're all, I meant a different figure. emotion_awesome Regardless, that put alot of people on defense, and now they're still stuck there. Either way, you set all these people off, and now they're all pissy at everything, and NOTHING in this thread makes any damn sense. Absolutely nothing.

All I know is:

There was stuff for sale that was all, omg support zomg!
People bought it for some reason.
All the stuff bought, yay!
Money vanishes, get broken content, people in despair.


I don't spend GC. I'm a poor b***h. Point being, these people paid for stuff, give it to them. They want to know where the goddamn money they spent went, you're saying, omg two sets of developers, we stole all the gaia ones, but they're reallocated and blah blah blah. Don't' care. Just give them what the goddamn paid for.

I don't care. Just give the people their damn money's worth and stop drama mongering.

[ValKyriePunk20]

allegoriest

I have to say, I really do think your opinion keeps changing Swarf. :/ I mean, you did kinda post stuff to people who will take your word as absolute gospel, and were kinda vague at least from what you'd been saying, at least monetary-wise. Last week they were making more than enough, and now you're all, I meant a different figure. emotion_awesome Regardless, that put alot of people on defense, and now they're still stuck there. Either way, you set all these people off, and now they're all pissy at everything, and NOTHING in this thread makes any damn sense. Absolutely nothing.

All I know is:

There was stuff for sale that was all, omg support zomg!
People bought it for some reason.
All the stuff bought, yay!
Money vanishes, get broken content, people in despair.


I don't spend GC. I'm a poor b***h. Point being, these people paid for stuff, give it to them. They want to know where the goddamn money they spent went, you're saying, omg two sets of developers, we stole all the gaia ones, but they're reallocated and blah blah blah. Don't' care. Just give them what the goddamn paid for.

I don't care. Just give the people their damn money's worth and stop drama mongering.

Thank you for this. >> TIPS. 3nodding

[Starshine]

gataka

web ad screenshot
Sep 09. Fan Dumb + zOMG! made me laugh, so I took a screen shot. And TvTropes is awesome :U

Oh god, thank you for taking a screenshot.

Worst ad banner ever emotion_facepalm

[Robotic Chibi-tan]

Thread got unstickied crying

[Starshine]

Thread unstickied, whyyy?

Is new one coming?

[Red Kutai]

allegoriest

I don't care. Just give the people their damn money's worth and stop drama mongering.

The issue here is a misconception as to what their money was worth. The fact is, through its history zOMG! has sold Null Fragments, Powerups, Headstart Tickets, Buddies, and Bloodstones - but at no point has the game ever sold development insurance. And that's what these users thought they were buying - the promise that zOMG! would continue to be developed in the future.

What needs to be addressed by both sides, here, is why they thought they'd purchased the right to more updates for zOMG!. If Gaia deliberately led them to believe that that's what their puchases were affording, then it's Gaia's responsibility to uphold that promise. However, if the community simply led itself to believe that, one can hardly consider it Gaia's responsibility to respect those unfounded conclusions.

The simple fact is, zOMG! is not - and has never been - a charity. Not a single user has ever "donated" to zOMG!; they've puchased items, and receiving those items is the most one can reasonably expect in that exchange. However it was that those users came to believe those purchases were donations or promises, that simply wasn't ever the case. The better those users are able to understand and explain how they came to believe those things, the more successful we will all be, in handling this issue...

[seabrume]

And suddenly this post is not a sticky anymore... Maybe they're hoping it will drop off the map.

[Starshine]

No other sticky to replace it, huh?

This was the closest thing to an announcement that we have for the whole issue. Now it's time to sweep everything under the rug?

I don't think so D:<

Change the ingame client server log in announcement, make a site wide announcement. You have to keep your users informed!