I suppose I should go back and address the thread as a whole; I didn't mean to jump into the middle of things. sweatdrop
Kalon Ordona II
Gaians spend money on items, not content.
To be fair, Gaians - like all people - spend money on what they consider valuable. By virtue of being 'Gaians', yes, we are inclined to value items - but that's simply because the system in place encourages us to. The fact that zOMG! doesn't make effective use of that system is troublesome, but I don't think that means it shouldn't be an expectation. If other games can make money, zOMG! is not so inherently bad that it can't as well.
What zOMG! needs, in this regard, is something that Gaians actually feel is worth their money; currently, the game doesn't offer much. It's an 'if you build it, they will come' scenario - if you offer something people want, they will buy it; the fact that the latter has yet to happen on a large scale implies that former simply hasn't been satisfied. Figuring out what your audience values is a major part of being successful in any business.
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zOMG! should be known to the internet at large.
They did try - the internet at-large simply didn't want to hear about it. sweatdrop
They attempted a full ad campaign shortly after zOMG! came out, which wound up returning about 20% of the money investment. At that point they deemed that running another such campaign would simply be wasteful, and decided against it. And zOMG! simply hasn't been widely advertised, since.
Furthermore, there are a couple of key problems with the notion that zOMG! is good for bringing in players. Firstly, as I pointed out, it's consistently failed at offering players anything they're willing to spend money on - the game is bad at turning players into profit. Thus, zOMG!'s advertising would need to be exponentially more successful than that for other games, to achieve comparable profits; exponentially more successful advertising tends to be exponentially more expensive. Until the game converts players into profit efficiently enough to warrant it, they can't really afford to convert profit into players.
The second issue is that zOMG! tends to attract users who aren't altogether attracted to Gaia - this exascerbates the first issue quite a bit, particularly if we're relying on Gaia-side sales to make up for zOMG!'s lack. Some who come for zOMG! will integrate into the community, and become full-on Gaians; many, however, just want to do what they came here for. Unless zOMG! can do something worthwhile with those players (at this point, the game doesn't even do a good job of educating them into strong players, so their contribution to cooperative play is often minimal), there's really not much point in spending time and money to attract them.
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zOMG! has that level of potential.
zOMG! is amazingly unique, intriguing, and fun.
zOMG! is worth it.
zOMG! is amazingly unique, yes; its design is intriguing, and as a game it's obviously fun. Without some pretty significant changes, though, "worth it" might be a stretch. redface
I love zOMG! as much as - perhaps more than - anyone else. But the fact is, the game must figure out a direction to go that's worth investing in, before I'll honestly consider it wise to invest in it. The game has spent too long already making gambles, and it's really no better off for it. zOMG! has been put in the position, time-and-time-again, to be 'saved' by the community - and it's worked, each time. But what I want is less for zOMG! to be 'safe', and more for it to be healthy - and it won't be truly healthy until it can support itself. Rather than just preserving the game, I want to see it thrive. And that simply won't happen until we understand how to make it do so.
I'd argue there's a good deal more to fix, beyond just bugs. As an example, you point out zOMG!'s strong customisation aspects a few times, but always referring to the Avatar System; zOMG!'s real customisation tool, though, is the Ring System. I understand your not mentioning it, though, because it's not really doing its job at the moment - there's not enough balance or synergy to make the system truly expressive. zOMG! has some great innovations, but the implementation of those innovations isn't really serving the game well; address that, and we might just have something worth advertising. Unfortunately, what we're referring to is a pretty deep "that". sweatdrop
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We can do it!
Gaia, let us help zOMG!
This, however, I agree with absolutely; and I even think you're going about it in roughly the right way. 3nodding
The first step, importantly, is understanding that zOMG! does have shortcomings; the second, of course, is understanding that we can help address those. In my experience, zOMG! has an overwhelmingly creative community - we come up with lots of ideas. zOMG! has problems. Gaia has shown that it doesn't know how to address them. That's where we come in; a few-hundred heads are better than one, after all. If we can help them come up with viable, practical ideas for removing the obstacles to zOMG!'s success, then the decision to invest becomes an easy one. Currently, it's just a matter of greating to there, from here... sweatdrop