DARKNRGY
(?)Community Member
Greedy Fatcat
Offline
- Posted: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 03:16:31 +0000
There have been some strong opinions and misconceptions about the feasibility of zOMG, both its lifetime success and its future potential. Gaia Interactive made a business decision to halt production and I'll try and list out some of the high level reasons.
Initially, our objective was to acquire a large number of active players. At the time we launched we wanted to both inherit a large chunk of Gaia proper's user base and acquire many new users from outside of Gaia. Instead we only obtained a portion of what we anticipated.
When we launched zOMG, we were seeing millions of active users per month on Gaia proper and this set the context for our expectations. The scale of investment and the size of the team was determined using this expectation. While we saw that our most engaged users were attracted to the feature, we were unable to break into the larger game playing market outside Gaia.
The high level objectives for the zOMG team were constantly in flux and this resulted in hindering the zOMG team's ability to focus their efforts well on any particular objective. Our initial vision was to build a much smaller and more casual game, but the eventual scope demanded a shift in requirements. These lessons were learned the hard way and we acknowledge mistakes we made.
In terms of marketing, there are questions and concerns about the scale. We had a full time marketing staff, and one of their major goals was promoting zOMG. The ways this works at Gaia (and most companies), is that you run the planned marketing campaign, look at the results, and make conclusions. This is exactly what we did for zOMG. To look at the effectiveness of marketing, you take the cost and divide it by the revenue to get an cost per user "acquisition cost". In zOMG's initial campaign, we were seeing about a 1 to 5 return. This means for every $5 we spent on marketing, we got $1 back in revenue. The results were tangible and concrete, and it resulted in our canceling the marketing campaign.
We learned that, even with an exceptionally great game and loyal user base, the current market is not always receptive.
There are also some less tangible limitations within any particular staff's skill set. We want to take our prized engineers and leverage their capabilities in areas where we see the most potential and where their skill set is matched the best with requirements. There is always going to be untapped potential in all of our products, and we can only make our best judgement about where to focus our talent.
The outcome of zOMG, as a business product, does not take away from the fact that the game was one of the most technically and creatively impressive products we ever built. We are proud of zOMG as a game and as a part of Gaia. The reception by our core user base continues to inspire. Everyone who contributed to zOMG went above and beyond, building a game that each and every one of us is proud of. The zOMG team did a fantastic job. If you get a chance, tell them "thanks"!
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.
Moving forward, there will always be a chance that Gaia makes mistakes in gauging the market, product design, communication, and just about anything else that can be done wrong! We always try our very best to minimize such mistakes and communicate appropriately to the community our intentions. We know some of you will be skeptical and draw a different conclusion and we welcome that. Our community has always thrived on the freedom of expression and we welcome all forms of critique.
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
Initially, our objective was to acquire a large number of active players. At the time we launched we wanted to both inherit a large chunk of Gaia proper's user base and acquire many new users from outside of Gaia. Instead we only obtained a portion of what we anticipated.
When we launched zOMG, we were seeing millions of active users per month on Gaia proper and this set the context for our expectations. The scale of investment and the size of the team was determined using this expectation. While we saw that our most engaged users were attracted to the feature, we were unable to break into the larger game playing market outside Gaia.
The high level objectives for the zOMG team were constantly in flux and this resulted in hindering the zOMG team's ability to focus their efforts well on any particular objective. Our initial vision was to build a much smaller and more casual game, but the eventual scope demanded a shift in requirements. These lessons were learned the hard way and we acknowledge mistakes we made.
In terms of marketing, there are questions and concerns about the scale. We had a full time marketing staff, and one of their major goals was promoting zOMG. The ways this works at Gaia (and most companies), is that you run the planned marketing campaign, look at the results, and make conclusions. This is exactly what we did for zOMG. To look at the effectiveness of marketing, you take the cost and divide it by the revenue to get an cost per user "acquisition cost". In zOMG's initial campaign, we were seeing about a 1 to 5 return. This means for every $5 we spent on marketing, we got $1 back in revenue. The results were tangible and concrete, and it resulted in our canceling the marketing campaign.
We learned that, even with an exceptionally great game and loyal user base, the current market is not always receptive.
There are also some less tangible limitations within any particular staff's skill set. We want to take our prized engineers and leverage their capabilities in areas where we see the most potential and where their skill set is matched the best with requirements. There is always going to be untapped potential in all of our products, and we can only make our best judgement about where to focus our talent.
The outcome of zOMG, as a business product, does not take away from the fact that the game was one of the most technically and creatively impressive products we ever built. We are proud of zOMG as a game and as a part of Gaia. The reception by our core user base continues to inspire. Everyone who contributed to zOMG went above and beyond, building a game that each and every one of us is proud of. The zOMG team did a fantastic job. If you get a chance, tell them "thanks"!
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.
Moving forward, there will always be a chance that Gaia makes mistakes in gauging the market, product design, communication, and just about anything else that can be done wrong! We always try our very best to minimize such mistakes and communicate appropriately to the community our intentions. We know some of you will be skeptical and draw a different conclusion and we welcome that. Our community has always thrived on the freedom of expression and we welcome all forms of critique.
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
