Don't your users matter? Dev replies; More replies please!

[Budui]

I kind of agree. If they want to keep them in the Daily Chance they should at least take the time to make sure they're useful. Make new things that the paper can be turned in to. Like they did with the bugs to ink to tattoos.

[Vampire Lemons]

Like origami! O: I would totally collect paper to make something like a paper dragon that my avatar can hold or wear on it's head. And you can change the color of the origami depending on the paper you use. Blue crumpled paper for blue origami, etc.

[chikz_13]

chickz_13

I just wish they would take the flowers, crumpled papers & bugs out of the daily chance..they're useless to most people..who strives to make a paper hat? rolleyes
I think those should be items only to be picked up in towns and bought in the marketplace.. it's one use of towns anyways..
Exspecially because most days I don't even get gold or items in the dc, 3 times this week I ended up getting only bugs, flowers and paper!
I know that if they take them out, there will be nothing else to give but gold and items..so if you don't remove them, could you at least make the gold amount a little higher? 5 or 10 gold is so sad..

Budui

I kind of agree. If they want to keep them in the Daily Chance they should at least take the time to make sure they're useful. Make new things that the paper can be turned in to. Like they did with the bugs to ink to tattoos.

Vampire Lemons

Like origami! O: I would totally collect paper to make something like a paper dragon that my avatar can hold or wear on it's head. And you can change the color of the origami depending on the paper you use. Blue crumpled paper for blue origami, etc.

Awesome ideas! May have to wait a while until it gets done (with all the work the dev's have right now) but it would be a great idea if they did add new items that we can create with these useless pieces of garbage (lol).

[Cosmic Remnant]

@Budui: It's true, it's pretty good in Texas actually. The best place would not be Dallas/Ft. Worth or Houston though. Not even Austin. Might want to stay away from the coast too after I think about it. San Antonio is a nice city, fairy large but has quite a bit of economic growth in numerous areas (even on the South side). We're pretty cheap down here too (especially with those dang taxes). El Paso, the pan handle, those are pretty good areas too.

[Budui]

OOooh! Origami would be something that'd actually make me want to collect paper. Even if it took a rediculous amount of paper, that would be so cool!! But, I also agree that it should not be high-priority. ^.^


Skittles I remember a friend of mine (who's hobby is researching o.O) was looking at commercial costs around the US and I think he said Texas was one of the best places to start up a business right now. He almost convinced his employer to move there, heh. But that was a few months ago, and with the way the US market keeps changing, I don't know if it's the same anymore. :shrug:

[The_Martyr]

Doctor Steel Loves You

Ok... I rarely come into this part of Gaia, but, I'm here, so, I'm saying my peace...

I've been on Gaia since 03. July 24th, 2003 to be exact. Learned about it at the first Anime Expo I ever went to. Since then, I've stayed on Gaia. Over 5 years later, I'm still here. I've supported this site through thick and thin. I've done my fair share of complaining about things and my fair share of sticking up for the staff and saying "hey, they're just trying to make things better, right?"...

I'm done.
I have been completely insulted by Gaia for the last. Time.
Let's start from the beginning..
'Who remembers what Gaia's ORIGINAL layout was? Yeah, the one with Rock Puppy on the front. That one made me happy... Very plain, but it got the point across. So, revamp after revamp, the site started to look more like Sesame Street... I went "waitwaitwaitwtf?" and said something about it. Went unnoticed really, until a bunch of people were making threads about it. When that happened, they changed it. Remember how the banner at the top used to change over and over with each refresh? Yeah, that's because people complained that it was too little kid oriented... Well, now, they're trying to make it look like the cool, hip teen hangout... WHAT THE HELL, GAIA STAFF!? SERIOUSLY! Now, we have sponsors like MTV and different movies and things... I won't lie, seeing myself at the AX07 panel in the Cinemas was freakin' sweet, but now... You're just going way too far by putting your sponsors up... The layout of the site has gone overboard. I'm sure everyone has seen the banner ad that says "SURPRISE HER WITH A BIGGER p***s" on a PG-13 site... Uhm, hello? Staff, make sure you know what the hell you're putting up in ads. Seriously.

Now, different features... Fishing was cool... At first. Now, we have puzzles, crosswords, fishing... ALL this s**t that we don't need. So, instead of developing the battle system that HAS BEEN PROMISED SINCE 03.. We get fishing. Wait, what? How does that work? Your feeble attempts to tide us over have failed, Gaia. An aquarium... Seriously? I have one of those already and... Well, I think I like cleaning the algae out of their tank better than staying a second on the one now. I gave it a shot, I bought stuff for it and everything... But now... Seriously... I don't get it. I really don't. Gaia IM... Ok, don't get me started. Seriously. I won't touch it. It fails, period.

Basically, Gaia staff...
This is coming from me, The_Martyr... You've let the place go like Jared from subway after finding out that donuts come in fat free... You've left the original anime roots, which is why I came here. The boycott starts on the 6th and goes to the 8th... Screw that. Starting the 6th... I will only sign on every 5 days to see what's going on. I will no longer support your site. Because of your "updates", I have had many friends leave this site...

We want the old Gaia back. NOW. We're demanding it and we won't STOP until our voices are heard and complied to... Our money is the blood of your business. Once we leave, you'll die... They all do. Heed our warning, Gaia Staff... The "oldbies" of Gaia who want its original days back will not stop until we get what we demand...

To The Utopian Playland. <3

[GraphiteHelix]

I've been talking with Fleep about a few suggestions brought up here about sponsorships. This conversation started based off something he said in his PMs with [ .NK. ]. Here's what went on!

Advance apologies for a possible page stretch. sweatdrop

Fleep

luvableteekerz

Fleep

luvableteekerz

I apologize for disturbing you. I saw a PM you had with one of my friends posted in her Site Feedback forum and thought I could share some suggestions people have made from said thread and it's petition. Maybe you can toss the ideas around with your fellow staff members!

Fleep (in PM with [ .NK. ])

We're trying to figure out the money situation, and unfortunately more sponsorships seems to be the most viable option at the moment. Very, very, very, very, very few Gaians actually spend money with us. So Cash Shop items and EIs aside, most of the supply of those on the site is coming from a tiny percentage of users.

First of all, we (as in those in the above mentioned thread) understand that Gaia really needs the money, and further understand (most of us anyway) that Gaia has been losing money. Here are some suggestions tossed around among us.

MCs. We feel like the main reason why MC sales have slipped, aside from having a messed up economy, is because the quality of the MC items have slipped. Perhaps if the MC items had the quality of the EIs, more people would buy them.

Also, decrease the number of new EIs. Perhaps make it monthly like MCs are, or do away with MCs and make EIs take its place. Since EIs came out, those hoarding MCs felt like their items started losing value because better, more popular items came out and continue coming by the crapload. Maybe you can put EIs in the MCs? It may increase the MC revenue.

Sponsorships. I have two teenage cousins who left Gaia because they thought MTV and Celebrity Snare was one of the most dumbest moves Gaia has ever made. They would rather see sponsors of top gaming sites and companies, top anime/manga companies...advertisements for popular things soon to be released (StarCraft II is coming out...have you tried approaching Blizzard Entertainment to sponsor you?)

Some of your current sponsors don't really appeal to those you're trying to hook in, and don't matter to those you're hoping to keep. Perhaps if you allow us a little bit of the say in who sponsors the site...I think, not only would that help with your sponsorship revenue...it'll keep us users happy, attract those interested in what's being advertised, and perhaps even bring some older users back (I know my two cousins would come back if more videogame advertising were involved)!

Maybe you can do a monthly poll or something to see what the latest trend is. Gaming's booming. Anime never dies. Good movies are sure to be made. Ask us. Keep us happy. Don't try and figure out what'll attract people. Keep us happy, we'll refer people. We'll convince people to come back. It's your current userbase that's keeping the site running, not those out there who might join.

Again, I apologize for disturbing you. I know how busy you developers are with features, updates and fixes. I sure do hope you take the time to read this and hopefully reply back so I can let my friends in the thread know you care!

Oh, and thanks for signing my little Gaia badge at Fanime 08 after the panel. You rock! xd

Teekz

Unfortunately we don't just get to pick-and-choose our sponsors, and a lot of the content that users like best have no money to spend on sponsorships. Indie stuff, manga, animes -- these provide no opportunities for us whatsoever. The closest we'd come in the past was our Funimation sponsorship -- but that only really brought in pennies. It's never as simple as just doing the thing that seems right, sadly.

I'm sure you guys have a few pending sponsors on the table right now, right? Ones that offered a few big bucks and now you're discussing when and how you'll put it on the site? Is it possible to create a quick poll with these sponsors listed and have us vote for which ones we want to see? For every five on the poll, pick the most popular two or three. I don't know, just a thought.

Unfortunately we can't do that either. We're under NDA's with every sponsor until a deal is signed. They don't necessarily want their competitors or our competitors knowing who they're working with unless it actually goes out. Like I said -- it's not as easy as it sounds, and the way sponsorships work in the entertainment world don't really work with this kind of system.

We could try to reinvent the way that every disparate entertainment company does their marketing -- but it's much more likely that they'll just stop working with us than try to adjust to our style of business.

And that's that.

[Akasha Heartilly]

Budui

So, I've been tooling around several other threads of this nature. I've been trying to pay attention to a lot of financial stuff. I no longer think that Gaia is a money-grubbing whore.

I think they're desperate.

I think they've made a lot of silly financial mistakes, and it's going to bite them hard. They've got a lot of money from investors. If I remember correctly Time Warner invested $12 million in Gaia. That's a lot of money that Gaia does have to pay back. And from what I've read Time Warner is not the only company that invested.

Then you take a look at how this company is seemingly run. As far as I've seen, the financial statement seems to be that Gaia "Costs 1.5 million a month to run, and only earns 1 million a month". They have somewhere between 92 and 110 full-time employees (depending on where you look). They have servers to pay for, bandwith and hosting to pay for, and they have to pay for their office space in California. Then you throw in things like... Convention expenses, these "company luncheons" and other frivolus benefits we seem to be hearing about, and then you see things like the Aquarium being developed. If gaia is making a 500,000 loss each month, then they need to find a way to lower how much they spend a month. Just trying to make it up won't help them.

Now, I know running a business is expensive, but it seems to me that they're making a lot of, frankly, dumb mistakes. If they're in the red, then they need to make serious changes, instead of investing more money on something that may or may not work. Firstly, lets look at WHERE their company is located. California is one of the most expensive places to run a business. So... why run it there? Gaia could function perfectly anywhere else in the world. Move them to Texas, where I've heard it's pretty cheap to run a business. Yes, this might mean asking employees to move... but, frankly, they seem to be costing a lot of money that Gaia doesn't have.

I'm sure that each employee at Gaia is devoted and hardworking, but, as much as I hate to say it, layoffs happen. Especially when, like now, the economy is falling. If nothing else, cut back on what you really don't need. Gaia doesn't need to go to every convention in the United States. They don't need to pay for the booth, the admission, the plane tickets and room and board. While luncheons are nice, stop them. I worked for a company that did monthly luncheons, but when times got hard they were the first thing out the window. And, if they are so desperate for cash, they really need to focus on the MMO. Pull employees who are working on the next "aquarium". Have them work on the MMO. The MMO will bring more users, which makes ad companies happier. Besides, people who are used to paying for an MMO I don't think will mind contributing to Gaia. Those who aren't on the battle system... work on glitches and updating items. Slow down on the cash shop. Obviously your users actually don't what this updated so much. Make your users HAPPIER, and they will pay. At least, I know I would.

I'm sorry, I never really mean to type this much... sweatdrop I just am starting to think that Gaia's going to stumble and fall... and not because they pissed off their members.

edit I'm not business wiz, so please correct me if any of this is wrong. I'm just calling it as I see it.

Moving a comany, esecially one like this were sole developers have been the main ones putting their heart and soul into something and then asking them to move across country, just doesn't work. Mostly they would lose everyone in the company and have to start fresh. You really want to wait another 5 years for the MMO and everything to be fixed while the new ones have to learn and relearn everything the old ones did, I think not.

Just because it may be cheaper, it may also not have the infanstruct that is needed to run a place like Gaia.

That said, there is things Gaia could easily cut back on the inside to save money. Honestly cutting back on cons wouldn't do it, because users everywhere have been begging Gaia to come to X place. Helps to build customer loyalty and that helps increase profit.

[Vampire Lemons]

Well, I guess that does explain why they don't put out polls to see which ones we would prefer...

At least they're taking the time to reply to PMs though. It's helpful, and actually explains why some of our suggestions aren't feasible rather than are being ignored.

[Akasha Heartilly]

I really do want something to be done with bugs with the bugs and flowers.
Origami sounds fantastic and I want flower fields for you avy!

[Taladrea]

Instead of inks being used for hair dyes (an idea I came up with earlier) maybe use the flowers for the hair dyes.

The PM does explain the lack of polls about who we would rather see sponsor the site. However, I think that some of the sponsors are just lining up because of the hype that Gaia has right now. Not the actual potential that Gaia has....its just a theory I have mind you.

[Akasha Heartilly]

Hmm, flower dyed hair.
I like.
There deffinantly needs to come about something of flowers and trash, for they just sit in my inventory and rot. Or I just get rid of them.

[Vampire Lemons]

Seeing the new cash store items gave me a thought...

Could we get an evolving item as a reward for the Halloween event this year? Like, for christmas we get the santa boxes and halloween usually gets us Jack items. O: Maybe one of the jack items could be an evolving jack item this year instead?

And I don't mean something big like the normal EI's. Something smallish would be suitable. O:

[GraphiteHelix]

Since the Devs have been so helpful, this is my way of saying thank you. *buys a few MCs* I hope that pays someone an hour or two. 3nodding

[Akasha Heartilly]

That would be neat for the Halloween.

Still wondering what is going to happen for the event.