Gaia, let us help zOMG!

Wouldn't you help zOMG! if you could?

Cookie!	100.0%	[ 56 ]
Total Votes:			[ 56 ]

[Red Kutai]

WideEyed

Actually, to my eye, there appear to be three data points in the Revive Graph, which might well correspond to the one weekend that the zOMG! Easter Event was running, and while it's true that Easter Eggs deal no damage, the Animated are still out and about.
Any Newbies trying to collect eggs would be easy prey for the Animated in higer areas, and with Revives being relatively cheap, the spike may be valid rather than an anomaly.
I was also somewhat surprised by the sheer magnitude of revive sales, but the graph comes directly from Gaia's own resources, so I have to trust it.
The only supposition I can offer for sales being so brisk last July would be Summer Holidays for the school kids.

Looking at the monthly version, you appear to be right; that spike represents the days from April 14th, to April 16th, which appears to be the last weekend of the event. You appear to be right about the correlation, if nothing else. wink

Still, the fact that eggs exist in every area predisposes me to think that running into troublesome Animated wouldn't be a prime concern among egghunters. I can see how someone might get the idea that, using Revives, they could find 'higher level' eggs (even if there's no practical difference, it can feel like there is), but I don't see how such a sentiment could be widespread enough to facilitate several-hundred extra daily sales of Revives. I am very curious as to what caused the spike, as well as the high sales indications - especially given that there are currently only 34 Revives listed on the Marketplace. How there would've been several-hundred even listed on that day strikes me as extremely strange. I suspect there's something else involved, there. redface

Quote:

Whereas in previous areas, I could always eventually get strong enough to breeze through, I'm about as strong as I'm going to get now, and DMS still takes a brutally long amount of time, so where I had never availed myself of Powerups before, I now go through them at an alarming rate, just to try and "pick up the pace" as it were.

And do you understand why I'm against the notion that we should make it take "brutally long" to achieve anything, just to force people to buy Powerups to make it reasonable? The game taking up so much time for no genuine reason (DMS takes time for time-taking's sake) is bad, but simply trying to sell more Powerups encourages that. And I'm just against any philosophy that encourages us to make the game worse - no matter how profitable that philosophy might be. Sacrificing the gameplay to save the game is not what I'd call 'success'... whee

[Apple Blossom19]

I was a zETA, one of the users let into beta testing for the last push towards the release of zOMG, and I fell in love with it there. I was a hard a** hoarder with my MCs, and yet the game made me sell two of them for an advanced ticket to zOMG, which I still have to this day. (Best birthday present btw)

When my old computer died, I went looking for a new one specifically towards playing this game.

When I came back to Gaia and zOMG, DMS was opened. I HAD to have a amulet... but had missed the sale.

I went questing for gold for it.
I went and played a dice game for it.

Then someone gave me one even though I hadn't really even beat Sealab X yet!

Marshall's Little Helpers and Pinkos Smeb thread helped me get my victory badge and recipes.

Then I went into DMS.

I missed Spring Cleaning 2011, but bought cookies on the MP, spending the majority of them on zOMG topics.

I try and help people with zOMG since I have spent the last two years playing zOMG daily, and right now it's what keeps me coming back.

I love this game. It's better than WoW imo, because it is more casual than that, and I spend the majority of my time with friends playing around than being hardcore. Hell, most of the people on my friends list are people I have crewed with xD

I don't know how to support zOMG more than what I have been doing, but if I can do more, please tell me what to do.

Better than any weapon, you have my loyalty.

[WideEyed]

Red Kutai

WideEyed

Actually, to my eye, there appear to be three data points in the Revive Graph, which might well correspond to the one weekend that the zOMG! Easter Event was running, and while it's true that Easter Eggs deal no damage, the Animated are still out and about.
Any Newbies trying to collect eggs would be easy prey for the Animated in higer areas, and with Revives being relatively cheap, the spike may be valid rather than an anomaly.
I was also somewhat surprised by the sheer magnitude of revive sales, but the graph comes directly from Gaia's own resources, so I have to trust it.
The only supposition I can offer for sales being so brisk last July would be Summer Holidays for the school kids.

Looking at the monthly version, you appear to be right; that spike represents the days from April 14th, to April 16th, which appears to be the last weekend of the event. You appear to be right about the correlation, if nothing else. wink

Still, the fact that eggs exist in every area predisposes me to think that running into troublesome Animated wouldn't be a prime concern among egghunters. I can see how someone might get the idea that, using Revives, they could find 'higher level' eggs (even if there's no practical difference, it can feel like there is), but I don't see how such a sentiment could be widespread enough to facilitate several-hundred extra daily sales of Revives. I am very curious as to what caused the spike, as well as the high sales indications - especially given that there are currently only 34 Revives listed on the Marketplace. How there would've been several-hundred even listed on that day strikes me as extremely strange. I suspect there's something else involved, there. redface

Quote:

Whereas in previous areas, I could always eventually get strong enough to breeze through, I'm about as strong as I'm going to get now, and DMS still takes a brutally long amount of time, so where I had never availed myself of Powerups before, I now go through them at an alarming rate, just to try and "pick up the pace" as it were.

And do you understand why I'm against the notion that we should make it take "brutally long" to achieve anything, just to force people to buy Powerups to make it reasonable? The game taking up so much time for no genuine reason (DMS takes time for time-taking's sake) is bad, but simply trying to sell more Powerups encourages that. And I'm just against any philosophy that encourages us to make the game worse - no matter how profitable that philosophy might be. Sacrificing the gameplay to save the game is not what I'd call 'success'... whee

I wouldn't argue with you there.
Unfortunately, we in the z!F labour in near total absence of any hard facts when it comes to much of zOMG!'s performance and contributions to the RoG, but I can certainly see where the amount of time involved in playing through DMS just once, could certainly be a disincentive for many casual gamers, not to mention the horrifically long time it would take anyone to obtain/ craft any or all of the Epic Recipes.
There is no question that, in it's current form, DMS is not for the casual.
That being said, it has, IMO, proven to be a viable revenue source for the game, and while I would never suggest applying that model overall, I can see where using it in select new areas might be a way to go.
Strictly "blue-skying" here, but say Gaia were to make one of every four or five new areas released, correspond to the DMS model, who's to say that it might not make zOMG! more self-sustaining?
Add to that equation, new, perhaps "area-specific" Powerups (Double-Shorb, Loot Doubler), and you could find that zOMG! could indeed become self-supporting, while still providing new, free content for the more casual zOMGaian.

The way I see it, there's no such thing as free.
Everything has to be payed for somehow, and up until DMS, monetising zOMG! has simply not been an issue that has been solvable.
Perhaps by creating a mix of content, some following the Pre-DMS model, and others following the DMS model, this conundrum might finally be resolved.

Oh, and seeing as we all have a tendency to make statistics say whatever we want them to, and I am a huge fan of z!Events, I am going to stick by my guns and say that the Revive spike over the weekend of Z!Easter, is directly attributable to Newbies getting their heads handed to them while attempting to collect eggs in areas where they probably should not have been. wink

[Berylle]

Heh. And I thought team spirit was dead on Gaia. I guess if people like Kalon were in charge of Gaia I wouldn't feel so cynical lately. As it is, I don't expect this valiant effort to have any positive results. But it's still nice to read. emotion_hug

[iRection]

I <3 you.

[oukashi okamii]

Tarot Rune

I have to admit that I admire your thread.. but too lazy to read the entire thing. sweatdrop

There are a lot of us here that have a passion for zOMG! and its community. Believe me when I say this, I've seen and even taken part in many attempts on and off the net to save zOMG! and fight for it to be all that it can be. There is only so much we can do.. and HQ clearly has no intentions of returning to zOMG!.


I'm here, and i'm going to be around as long as zOMG! remains playable. But my current course of action is not to spend a penny on GC, which has been remarkably easier than I had previously thought. I'm not online nearly as much as I used to be either.. But i'm here, watching the community that I love. If HQ so much as hints that it might be interested in doing any real work on zOMG! again, you'll definitely see me posting again and encouraging zOMG! to grow.

Tarot Rune

abonai

You have my sword.

And my Axe.. Bow.. Cannon?... Nuke!

Im working hard on being an animator lol i may be going to otis collage of art to learn animator and add to my skills. 4laugh

[Hinterland Wayfinder]

pandexX

Im working hard on being an animator lol i may be going to otis collage of art to learn animator and add to my skills. 4laugh

Thats really great!
I've been continuing to toy with animation myself, but in small doses. I do a lot of art, but drawing in the animation program I use feels so mechanical rather than natural.. and I end up getting frustrated. >.>

Back onto thread's relevancy:
Aspire to be the best animator you can possibly be.. I would definitely look forward to seeing some of your future works!
But i've seen some really skilled people offer to do work on zOMG! for free.. Pretty sure there were legal issues or there was a lot of paper work involved somewhere that HQ didn't want to bother with.. Though maybe the fact that you live in the area and can physically be there offers a glimmer of hope? gaia_diamond

[oukashi okamii]

Tarot Rune

pandexX

Im working hard on being an animator lol i may be going to otis collage of art to learn animator and add to my skills. 4laugh

Thats really great!
I've been continuing to toy with animation myself, but in small doses. I do a lot of art, but drawing in the animation program I use feels so mechanical rather than natural.. and I end up getting frustrated. >.>

Back onto thread's relevancy:
Aspire to be the best animator you can possibly be.. I would definitely look forward to seeing some of your future works!
But i've seen some really skilled people offer to do work on zOMG! for free.. Pretty sure there were legal issues or there was a lot of paper work involved somewhere that HQ didn't want to bother with.. Though maybe the fact that you live in the area and can physically be there offers a glimmer of hope? gaia_diamond

That and ima work my tail off and go beyond what i must do for the job lol. 4laugh

[Kalon Ordona II]

I'm so encouraged to see so much enthusiasm and participation!

Some of you have way more knowledge on the subject than I do, and that's exactly why we all need to get together. =)

Apple Blossom19

Experiences like yours are exactly why we can't give up.
It also proves that zOMG is fun just as it is, even though there can always be more.
That's the other thing about zOMG's community aspect. It's fun just doing stuff as a crew, no matter what level you're doing it at. I still have fun guiding new players through the sewers, for example.

When you go on adventures like that with people, there is always friending going on, to stay in touch. And you've made new friends that you might not have made otherwise, which you can then seek out further in other places of Gaia and the internet and who knows.

You don't need WoW to do that. And what's awesome is that you have something better than WoW forums to go to after the game!

Red Kutai

WideEyed

Thank you so much, you two! I don't know about anyone else, but I love those ideas. I do hope no actual areas are "premium" in zOMG!'s future, like DMS was and might be after November 18th. Cash for extras like Revives and other power-ups is fine. Just not the area itself. There should be no premium *content.*

I do like the idea of having some areas be really hard and time consuming, while other areas are more normal, and then a few areas are not exactly hard to accomplish but are just really really hard to get into in the first place. Not like paying to get in, just like having to do a bunch of preliminary quests to get to it, or something.

I'd love that. Something for everyone. And having diversity like that provides an element of compare and contrast. You have your Newbie areas like the sewers, your Normal areas which make up more of the bulk of the locations, then your Gauntlet areas (like "running the gauntlet" ) that take time, and then your Experienced areas, which you need to do a lot to get into.

And there should be no Cash shortcuts to the areas, otherwise you'll get newbies in the high zones just because they have the money to throw around.
It's kind-of like the way zOMG! activity is tracked by enemies killed or screens visited, or whatever the correct terms are. Somethings can't be bought or botted. ^_^

Turning back to the money problem, though, I'm currently unmotivated to buy zOMG! cash items, because there's no certainty that my efforts to support zOMG! will actually support zOMG!, because the staff already said that the money goes to a general pool first. If we could be assured that the purchases do correlate somehow, I'm sure that would help.

Even with zOMG! cash items, though, isn't the main resource the non-zOMG! cash purchases. There's a lot of cash items for avatars, like with evolving items and MC's.
Is there a way to cross-check zOMG!-players and Avatar cash item purchases? Like, looking at players who play zOMG! who also buy cash items for their avatars? If we then compare those numbers to the purchases of zOMG!-specific cash items, will that give us a more accurate measurement of the revenue that zOMG! brings in?

The assumption is that part of the reason they're buying the cash items for the avatars is because of zOMG! Obviously that won't always be true, but knowing those numbers would give us a value to start with, right?

[Apple Blossom19]

Kalon Ordona II

And you've made new friends that you might not have made otherwise, which you can then seek out further in other places of Gaia and the internet and who knows.

It's funny, but I have found more people who live by me irl though zOMG! than any other way on Gaia cat_sweatdrop

Kalon Ordona II

Turning back to the money problem, though, I'm currently unmotivated to buy zOMG! cash items, because there's no certainty that my efforts to support zOMG! will actually support zOMG!, because the staff already said that the money goes to a general pool first. If we could be assured that the purchases do correlate somehow, I'm sure that would help.

^This cat_3nodding

[WideEyed]

Kalon Ordona II

Even with zOMG! cash items, though, isn't the main resource the non-zOMG! cash purchases. There's a lot of cash items for avatars, like with evolving items and MC's.
Is there a way to cross-check zOMG!-players and Avatar cash item purchases? Like, looking at players who play zOMG! who also buy cash items for their avatars? If we then compare those numbers to the purchases of zOMG!-specific cash items, will that give us a more accurate measurement of the revenue that zOMG! brings in?

The assumption is that part of the reason they're buying the cash items for the avatars is because of zOMG! Obviously that won't always be true, but knowing those numbers would give us a value to start with, right?

The point that zOMG! generates substantially more sales than the zOMG! specific purchases (Powerup, Buddies, Gems and Tickets) would indicate, is something I hammered on loud and long when Maintenance Mode was first announced.
I and many others agreed that any assessment of zOMG!'s financial viability had to include all monies that zOMG! was responsible for bringing to Gaia, and that included CS Items purchased by players so they could wear them in-game.
Unfortunately, the Admins said that they have no way of attributing a person's motives to their purchases, and as such, the only revenue they could directly attribute to zOMG! were those from zOMG! specific Items.
Needless to say, we weren't satisfied, but that was all they would/could give us.
I'm sure they could get a far more accurate picture if they really wanted to, but I think they are satisfied with the reports they currently get.

[rgjh8754]

WideEyed

Kalon Ordona II

Even with zOMG! cash items, though, isn't the main resource the non-zOMG! cash purchases. There's a lot of cash items for avatars, like with evolving items and MC's.
Is there a way to cross-check zOMG!-players and Avatar cash item purchases? Like, looking at players who play zOMG! who also buy cash items for their avatars? If we then compare those numbers to the purchases of zOMG!-specific cash items, will that give us a more accurate measurement of the revenue that zOMG! brings in?

The assumption is that part of the reason they're buying the cash items for the avatars is because of zOMG! Obviously that won't always be true, but knowing those numbers would give us a value to start with, right?

The point that zOMG! generates substantially more sales than the zOMG! specific purchases (Powerup, Buddies, Gems and Tickets) would indicate, is something I hammered on loud and long when Maintenance Mode was first announced.
I and many others agreed that any assessment of zOMG!'s financial viability had to include all monies that zOMG! was responsible for bringing to Gaia, and that included CS Items purchased by players so they could wear them in-game.
Unfortunately, the Admins said that they have no way of attributing a person's motives to their purchases, and as such, the only revenue they could directly attribute to zOMG! were those from zOMG! specific Items.
Needless to say, we weren't satisfied, but that was all they would/could give us.
I'm sure they could get a far more accurate picture if they really wanted to, but I think they are satisfied with the reports they currently get.

They could always create a thread with a poll to see how many people buy cs items so that their avatars look good in zOMG! or the forums.

[Red Kutai]

Kalon Ordona II

Turning back to the money problem, though, I'm currently unmotivated to buy zOMG! cash items, because there's no certainty that my efforts to support zOMG! will actually support zOMG!, because the staff already said that the money goes to a general pool first. If we could be assured that the purchases do correlate somehow, I'm sure that would help.

The problem that we tend to fall into here is the implicit notion that zOMG! deserves 'its share' of Gaia's profit; that if it contributes 1%, then it deserves 1% back. The issue, there, is that if other features are generating much more profit, that 1% is better spent elsewhere; the question isn't whether zOMG! simply makes money, but whether it's worth investing money into.

It doesn't really matter how much money zOMG! makes; what matters is whether by putting money in, will Gaia get an amount of return comparable to Gaia's alternatives? If they can reliably make money 10:1 on MoGa (just for example), it doesn't even matter if they can make a 2:1 profit on zOMG! - they have a limited amount of resources, and they will always aim to invest those resources in the ways that achieve the most return. If Gaia had unlimited resources, I'm confident they'd invest in zOMG! in a heartbeat; they don't, though, so we have to accept that the problem is greater than simply breaking even.

Do we see why the 'let the bad content pay for the good content' system doesn't work, then? If only the bad content (DMS-like content, as discussed previously) makes profits, then only the bad content is worth investing in. If only the bad content is worth investing in, then only the bad content will be produced. If only the bad content is produced, zOMG! becomes a bad game. The fact is, whatever solution we find to this issue is going to define zOMG!'s development - because only the content that adheres to that solution is going to be worth producing. Again, the question is deeper than just, 'how can zOMG! make some money' - it is, more accurately, 'what does zOMG! need to be in order to make it a sound investment'. I love the game, and I want to retain as much of its core design as possible; but I'm quite certain that solving the game's issues is going to necessitate some very fundamental revisions.

Additionally, the 'profit by peripherals' system doesn't really work, either; because it doesn't actually necessitate any investment. The argument that zOMG! makes money through avatar items is all-well-and-good, but it doesn't encourage them to invest in zOMG! - it encourages them to invest in more avatar items. This is the same fundamental issue with the notion of 'donating' to zOMG! - if it doesn't require an investment (and return on that investment in an impressive manner), it's not actually addressing the issue. In the end, I couldn't care less whether zOMG! 'makes money'; what I want, is to see the game invested in. Monetisation is simply a means to that end; it's important for us not to forget what the goal really is.

Mind you, I'm not - even if it sounds like it - simply trying to shoot down every idea. The issue, though, is that there is no easy fix. I've spent a good deal more time considering this problem than I'd be comfortable admitting; I simply don't think we'll be stumbling over the answer any time soon. I agree with you that a unified discussion is probably the best way to produce viable possibilities - I tried it once, even - but I want to be sure we're really addressing the core of the issue. If I seem overly negative, it's only because I so believe in what you're trying to do, and I'd like to see it achieve the best results possible... 3nodding

[rgjh8754]

rebe-chan

Robotic Chibi-tan

ryry Kenny_McCormick ryry

abonai

You have my sword.

And my bow!

And my ax.

And my chain saw.

And my blowtorch.

[Owlie]

.~.Lady_Aji.~.

rebe-chan

Robotic Chibi-tan

ryry Kenny_McCormick ryry

abonai

You have my sword.

And my bow!

And my ax.

And my chain saw.

And my blowtorch.

And my kitty's nails.