Follow up on zOMG from the admins

[Mademoiselle Kit]

swarf

Swarf, I know the issues about telling us the numbers, but we still haven't answered the main question of whether or not the cash shop sales (that we were told were going to go to zomg to save it) were enough to support zomg. You said it was--others said it wasn't.

If Gaia can't tell us official numbers, we still need an official TRUSTED source to come forward and tell us these things:

1. Was our support of zomg enough to sustain it? (Since zomg has been pulled now, long term is useless--I'm asking, was zomg in the black EVER, when we were told it was always in the red)
2. We were told our sales of zomg thing would go ONLY to zomg. Why were we told this if it wasn't the case?

And:

If we were lied to about either of those two things: WHY?

[Almandaragal]

Lots of "interesting" stuff here.

Mademoiselle Kit

We were promised figures. Is there a chance these figures will come to light?

[snip]

In conclusion: Your post did not give us the answers we were seeking. Please try again.

No one was promised figures. They promised that "To that end, we will look into this matter further, and will update you, with as much detail as we can reasonably provide. We hope each and every one of you will review the data and feel free to draw your own conclusions." Big difference.

What I'm seeing is a lot of people believing only what they want to, which is information that was provided with a slant, bias, and twisting of the facts based on what I've been able to put together.

Quote:

Same. Exact. Story.

No offense, but you guys didn't convince us the first time, in AtA. I'm not seeing anything new in this post. All we want is to be treated like adults and given the whole truth. Not threads full of weasel words meant to placate and/or confuse us. >_<

Also, why was swarf's thread locked?

Quote:

I am continuing to withhold any and all money I would have spent on this website until we get some REAL answers. Quit feeding us this garbage, Gaia. It's not funny.

Quote:

I don't believe it. I believe he is being intimidated into backpedaling just enough so that he can't be said to be going against the administration. And I believe that he did not put his own name on that post, at least not of his own free will.

Quote:

Wish I could believe you, buddy. You have no idea. You understand why I can't though.

All of those quotes show that the general attitude is "I will only believe what corroborates what I want to hear". If that's the case, why are you even reading this thread? You don't want to hear the truth, you want to hear "Swarf is a good boy, we were wrong, yes, we've been lying to you. We're going to give him a promotion and give you all free summons".

Mademoiselle Kit

Empress Boa

im ok with the decision and announcement. as long as they dont delete zomg entirely and I can still play,it's all good cool

Dear, that's not at all why we're upset. We're mad because of the possibility we have been lied to:

Or maybe swarf was the one misrepresenting the facts. Or just start reading from this post. It's pretty obvious that no, zOMG is NOT an overall profitable product. It may have actually broken a profit for the first time in 2011, but you're forgetting the multiple years before that. A quarter million dollars in 2011 isn't a patch on 4-5 million dollars in production costs and stuff, and that figure of bron's is more like 1 or 2 years old, so it doesn't factor in upkeep costs since.

So really people, please stop acting as if there was only the gospel truth from swarf, and only poisonous lies from the other HQ staff. No one was completely forthcoming, and emotion obviously tainted the "facts" that started this whole fiasco.

[Silent As Shadows]

swarf

Mademoiselle Kit

We were promised figures. Is there a chance these figures will come to light?

You did not address whether or not zomg was making profit or not, the big issue about this. If Zomg was failing, give us the numbers. Otherwise, we are going to look at anything posted by a staff member in a skeptical light.

Since this concerns the game WE LOVE and its future, I'm afraid we will need cold, hard facts before we are satisfied. Was it in the black? Was it in the red? These conflicting statements are making it hard to trust anyone right now. I hope you can see the dilemma we are in.

We are going to need facts before we back down. If it was in the red, then why hide it? Show us, and while we will be sad, we will back down. But all this secrecy about the numbers is making me suspect the latter, and the idea that Gaia might be hiding this fact makes me very upset and angry.

I never wanted to believe Gaia would lie to me, but after this...well, I hope you can understand my dilemma. Only will facts before my eyes convince me otherwise.

In conclusion: Your post did not give us the answers we were seeking. Please try again.

I can't say enough how much I love the zeal you have for this. <3 I'm a stubborn b*****d (dark can testify), and I don't like backing down on something important to me. Seeing how passionately you stand up for this makes me feel like going outside the office and picketing at the entrance for statistics. But something I've been reminded of the last few days is that it's critical to weigh the benefit of an action against the cost.

Sharing zOMG's detailed numbers has the benefit of enlightening the community about why Gaia has to make certain decisions. I love the idea of everyone being able to see why we do what we do. It would add to community confidence and give people a better understanding of what it takes to run a business. But for people to understand why an engineer or artist would be assigned to zOMG or some other project, we'd need to share the financial details of those other projects as well. And if some of those projects were future projects, we'd need to share information about our past projects that were similar, specific marketing costs, user growth, expected revenue growth, etc. We'd end up basically divulging most of Gaia's financials.

And what's the cost of just opening up Gaia's books and sharing everything? Well, that one hits Gaia pretty hard. First off, this would be a huge invasion of some people's privacy. It would require posting salaries, expenses, and other things that allow people to figure out personal info of our staff. Even if we posted it anonymously it wouldn't be hard to figure out who makes what given that some projects have just one or two people on them.

Second, it would expose Gaia's plans and strategies to competitors. Gaia is trying to make money (which is good for everyone here) by making facebook and mobile games. We're also still being challenged by other forum sites. These markets are pretty cutthroat. If some company saw how much we spend per project, how efficient our marketing is, how much we make per player, how much we're investing in future products or a ton of other info that could be inferred, they'd have a huge advantage over us. There are thousands of ways they could use the knowledge to play our own game better than us. They could hit us where we are weak. They could copy what we do well. Gaia needs to keep its financial numbers within the company.

So I know you guys mean only the very best in demanding to see the numbers. And I admire your feistiness more than you know! But I already got too specific and it's not a good decision for Gaia to let that snowball. We need you guys to trust us on this one.

Gaia tries really hard to make decisions that a responsibly business would make. And we'll all do our best to hold each other accountable to this. Pirate's honor!

-Swarf

While I understand the point you are making with -some- of this, I can name several examples of a forum based site like this one revealing financial information in regards to a decision they were making to better ease the minds of their members... and nothing bad came of it. At the very least they could have given the numbers for zOMG itself.

But really, numbers haven't been what I've been after. I really could care less about the numbers... I just wish HQ would be honest with us and stop stringing us along like we're all stupid. Or at LEAST continue working on zOMG until the content WE PAID FOR is finished. (Buccaneer Boardwalk, Buddies.... yea.) A refund would be nice for those users that paid for these things. (I myself am not one of them, but I am still in full support of this idea.)

I dunno swarf, this all has been so incredibly frustrating. It's absolutely ridiculous that us as users have to doubt what you or JK or any of the trustworthy staffers say because of our distrust of HQ. It's ridiculous that we have to wonder in the back of our minds whether or not you were forced into saying something or not... It's ridiculous that this kind of distrust was created by HQ in the first place.

What do I want? A public, site wide announcement admitting fault for zOMG's failure, the lies that were fed to us, and the -truth- behind why zOMG is being shelved. I don't CARE if it's a bullcrud reason like "Oh, we don't really care anymore. Cry all you want. It's not coming back" or "It's making enough to support itself, but truth is, we want more, so." ...Maybe I'm being far reaching.

I just think it's crap that a site as wonderful as Gaia has been drug into this kind of drama by it's own admin.

Thank you for caring about us so much though, swarf, and thank you for being level with us.

[Silent As Shadows]

Sakura Parfait

Silent As Shadows

Light Soprano

Silent As Shadows

Light Soprano

One of the people who wrote the OP was swarf...and remember, he was the one who gave us the "inside info" beyond the false facts given in AtA before he deleted his thread.

(also, the only admins in the list of staff members DARKNRGY put at the end of the OP are Lanzer and Siskataya, so...I don't know why the thread title says "from the admins". I'm guessing "admin" used here is a collective term or something that has nothing to do with their actual job titles)

Do you -really- believe he helped write that? Considering what he said in his original post? And the fact his original post was taken down the next day? He SAYS he did it willingly, but most of us believe otherwise. Most of us feel he was threatened into it. This is no different.

And you don't work at Gaia, so there's no knowing whether he did it intentionally or whether he was forced to, and even if it was forced, we don't know who forced him to take it down--was it Lanzer? Was it the CEO? Was it another admin (doesn't seem like Siskataya, one of the contributors of this thread, would have done it since she seems to handle customer-related stuff, from the kinds of posts I've seen from her)? Definitely not Narumi, since he mentioned in the other thread that a lot of the decisions made were made before he became "the evil manager", and even then, he's a developer, not an admin. Pan, who's also one of the people who helped write the OP, is also a developer and along with Narumi, is among the only two devs who actually communicates with users on mainsite Gaia (yes, swarf and JK also communicate with us, but that's for the zOMG aspect).

No, I don't work for Gaia, but neither do you. And Gaia has a BAD habit of flat out lying to us. I have no confidence in this post being written by him. I think he was coerced into it.

It strikes me a VERY funny that almost every name on that list was dropped at some point in the other thread by users as admin that they trusted.

Except that the only admins on the list are Lanzer and Sistakaya. The rest are all developers.

Oh my god you know what I meant. Wow. :/

[Pixelated-Kawaii]

swarf

I can't say enough how much I love the zeal you have for this. <3 I'm a stubborn b*****d (dark can testify), and I don't like backing down on something important to me. Seeing how passionately you stand up for this makes me feel like going outside the office and picketing at the entrance for statistics. But something I've been reminded of the last few days is that it's critical to weigh the benefit of an action against the cost.

Sharing zOMG's detailed numbers has the benefit of enlightening the community about why Gaia has to make certain decisions. I love the idea of everyone being able to see why we do what we do. It would add to community confidence and give people a better understanding of what it takes to run a business. But for people to understand why an engineer or artist would be assigned to zOMG or some other project, we'd need to share the financial details of those other projects as well. And if some of those projects were future projects, we'd need to share information about our past projects that were similar, specific marketing costs, user growth, expected revenue growth, etc. We'd end up basically divulging most of Gaia's financials.

And what's the cost of just opening up Gaia's books and sharing everything? Well, that one hits Gaia pretty hard. First off, this would be a huge invasion of some people's privacy. It would require posting salaries, expenses, and other things that allow people to figure out personal info of our staff. Even if we posted it anonymously it wouldn't be hard to figure out who makes what given that some projects have just one or two people on them.

Second, it would expose Gaia's plans and strategies to competitors. Gaia is trying to make money (which is good for everyone here) by making facebook and mobile games. We're also still being challenged by other forum sites. These markets are pretty cutthroat. If some company saw how much we spend per project, how efficient our marketing is, how much we make per player, how much we're investing in future products or a ton of other info that could be inferred, they'd have a huge advantage over us. There are thousands of ways they could use the knowledge to play our own game better than us. They could hit us where we are weak. They could copy what we do well. Gaia needs to keep its financial numbers within the company.

So I know you guys mean only the very best in demanding to see the numbers. And I admire your feistiness more than you know! But I already got too specific and it's not a good decision for Gaia to let that snowball. We need you guys to trust us on this one.

Gaia tries really hard to make decisions that a responsibly business would make. And we'll all do our best to hold each other accountable to this. Pirate's honor!

-Swarf

While I understand that some of that might fall into privacy issues, but can you understand how people might not trust your word on it? Not to say that you're untrustworthy or anything like that. But as they say, talk is cheap. People want to see figures of where all the money they spent is actually going. It obviously hasn't gone to zomg at all. And seeing as how they paid out and Gaia hasn't delivered, I think they are entitled to see some sort of figure or statement as to whom pocketed the money spent on all the DMS stuff, the amulets, etc etc. If Gaia can't do that, then I think people should be given a refund. Also, if Gaia doesn't want to show the people the statements or whatever...it makes one think they have something to hide. Like, maybe the money went on facebook games instead of zOMG, and Gaia doesn't want people to see it? This is merely a speculation. But, they seem to be pushing a lot for fb games now that they have money from the zOMG fan base.....?

[Nymph of Spring]

pirate

For you, Swarf.

emotion_donotwant emotion_bigheart

[carbonphyber]

Starshine

God I miss Fleep, I wonder how he's doing...

Fleep's doing well!
He bootstrapped his own website hosting images of peoples' ancestors and it just broke into the top 5,000 of all websites on the internet. I think he's still working alone -- so that's a huge deal. I think he's making enough money to eek out an okay living but I think he likes being his own boss.

[Nespin Fernagon]

Good step.

Not addressing the core issue - the loss of trust.

Not addressing most of the side issues either - the conflicting views as to profit, why the facts were not poured over before decisions were made, why the core (well, only) developer wasn't involved in important decisions... all of which leads back to trust, admittedly.

Good catch on the "We saw you want ticket refunds. Looking into it", at least.

Keep trying. We're let down that the game is axed, yes. But what we are positively pissed about is the difficulty getting straight facts on...well, anything.

[meep12345meep12345]

swarf

Gaia is trying to make money (which is good for everyone here) by making facebook and mobile games

Would you be able to elaborate on this a little bit?
I mean, if this is true, how is the money coming from Facebook/mobile games being used on Gaia?

Clearly, if the money from these Facebook, and mobile, games is, in fact, funding Gaia (or, at the very least, going back to Gaia Online), what is preventing that money from being used to provide regular, game-sustaining updates to zOMG?

[Starshine]

carbonphyber

Starshine

God I miss Fleep, I wonder how he's doing...

Fleep's doing well!
He bootstrapped his own website hosting images of peoples' ancestors and it just broke into the top 5,000 of all websites on the internet. I think he's still working alone -- so that's a huge deal. I think he's making enough money to eek out an okay living but I think he likes being his own boss.

I'm glad to hear that, and thank you for answering! heart

[ryry Kenny_McGroot ryry]

what i see is "zomg didnt make as much money as we hoped, so we're shelving it" but that doesnt mean it isnt turning a profit neutral

whats the harm in running something that makes a profit and earns a little money on the side, even if FB games do generate the most revenue? it seems like gaia cant make up their mind over why they shelved zOMG.

i dont think i can believe anything anyone not working for zomg says without hard evidence.

[Spifficated]

5-1 wasn't good enough, okay. I still feel like that answer contained a lot of fancy words that could have been directed anywhere, but it's still an update.

You need to take care of BB or refund the tickets and you still need to take a gander at the bugs. You should, but we'll see how far that goes. I still don't like the decision, but I'm done bitching about it.

Edit: The issue anymore wasn't Zomg for me, it was the trust and communication. It took Swarf having a bad day for us to get any kind of answer, mostly as damage control.

Edit 2: I still think Gaia should take a look at this thread. Omnileech had a great idea that a lot of us would enjoy. It would give the community a reason to still gather together and give us a fun, random experience that could easily be done once a week and probably without much effort. I don't know if any of you devs made it to one of the Jack spottings in BB this year, but there were an insane amount of people.

[Nespin Fernagon]

DARKNRGY

Mademoiselle Kit

We were promised figures. Is there a chance these figures will come to light?

You did not address whether or not zomg was making profit or not, the big issue about this. If Zomg was failing, give us the numbers. Otherwise, we are going to look at anything posted by a staff member in a skeptical light.

Since this concerns the game WE LOVE and its future, I'm afraid we will need cold, hard facts before we are satisfied. Was it in the black? Was it in the red? These conflicting statements are making it hard to trust anyone right now. I hope you can see the dilemma we are in.

We are going to need facts before we back down. If it was in the red, then why hide it? Show us, and while we will be sad, we will back down. But all this secrecy about the numbers is making me suspect the latter, and the idea that Gaia might be hiding this fact makes me very upset and angry.

I never wanted to believe Gaia would lie to me, but after this...well, I hope you can understand my dilemma. Only will facts before my eyes convince me otherwise.

In conclusion: Your post did not give us the answers we were seeking. Please try again.

My first draft I did an experiment where I actually did do a full disclosure on a BUNCH of numbers. Some of those numbers came from a report we built for a patent troll lawsuit against gaia and a bunch of other companies (they thought they owned pre paid game cards lol) so they're reputable figures. It would certainly put the issue to bed once and for all. We all talked about it and decided against it. I suppose it's possible we would release but there are some pretty serious implications in doing so (try asking any other company about this). We would need to disclose salaries, marketing strategies/cost, etc and we are not going to get into yet another debate about how much the employees are paid and stuff like that. This is completely reasonable for us to be sensitive about.

We really don't need a full breakdown.

What we'd need is "Development costs were about this much."
"The game earned about this much"

...which admittedly is still sensitive. But even just "It was in the black this year." or "It wasn't in the black this year", followed by "It was/wasn't in the red for the previous years" would be SOMETHING.

Admittedly something that we'll have a hard time swallowing now, due to previously mentioned issues trusting staff, but something.

[purplewiz]

While I understand that Gaia, Inc. is reluctant to just hand out the confidential detailed financials on this project (and, since they are a privately held company, they have no legal requirement to publish an annual financial report (believe me, I've looked for one)), some higher level numbers may go a long way towards explaining the current financial basis for this decision.

They will not, however, address the erosion of trust, or explain why the zOMG userbase was repeatedly told they needed to jump through this hoop or the another to "save zOMG" when either it was unsavable or the powers that be had no intention of saving?

Discovering that the revenues from zOMG items bought by the zOMG community were being directed towards Facebook games was a further slap in the face. One of the strongest subtexts running through all four of these threads is that the zOMG community and the Facebook gaming community have precious little overlap. It's no wonder the zOMG community is feeling as though they're a cash cow.

I admit I have little sympathy for the situation since it was clear back in 2010 that Gaia really never had a clear plan for how to monetize zOMG and recoup the substantial initial investment it required.

ETA: in fact, rereading the first posting, it appears that the goal wasn't monetary at all, but "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.". Which makes it sound like the money would be considered well spent if it brought in users - NOT if those users spent money on the site. It appears on this rereading that the game was never designed to be monetized.

I appreciate the heads up, but look forward to actual answers.

[dilann]

yeah like they said "we'll have everyone sign it"

this sounds totally like crap, still doesn't answer our question: are you going to make more updates? and hire a full-time developer just for zOMG?