Leena no Majo
(?)Community Member
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- Posted: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:58:54 +0000
The front page has been updated. For those who have already read the first part, the new information can be found at the bottom.
This keeps being brought up so I feel the need to address the matter. I made this thread well before I became a moderator. I made this thread in October 2007, I was modded October 2008. Please do not think I made this thread simply because I am a moderator, I made this thread as a user who did a lot of research and wanted to pass that research on.
That quote is from an ask the admin, you can go to Lanzer's recent posts to find it or go to the AtA archives.
With the arrival of the Gaia cash shop I have seen both positive and negative reactions, but within them both I have notice people are calling Gaia money hungry.
It's a bit frustrating to say the least, because if you think of it realistically, like thinking out the cost of each server, electricity, office rent, staff etc etc, it really is a no brainier to figure out that the price to keep this site running is phenomenal. Here is an even longer list of the things Gaia has to pay for [X].
I do not look at the cash only store as Gaia being money hungry, what it is really is in my opinion is another way for them to get funding, because every single feature we have on this site has taken money to develop, and every feature we will one day have on this site is going to take more money to develop.
And all this is coming from someone who doesn't have money to spare on Gaia Cash, I don't even donate. I won't go into the details of my finical situation, but just to let you know I'm in college and supporting myself. Any MC I have, I have earned through questing and saving up gold.
So I understand where users are coming from who are upset about not being able to buy the cards, but really it could of been so much worse. They could of made the items unsellable and untradeble, but they didn't.
This alone has to show that they are thinking about the common user.
I'm not trying to say that this shop idea is 100% awesome, I have had concerns about it. I worried that the shop updates for the cash store will take priority over regular stores, I worried that our shop items will go down in quality now because of this cash store. But we have had store updates since the Cash shop was opened, one of them HUGE and I have to say that these concerns no longer have any ground. Not to mention many of the staff have explained that the cash shop will not take priority over the regular shops. They have also revealed that the team who works on cash shop updates DO NOT work on regular shop updates.
Though I am still not fond of the idea of an item being removed from the store after a certain period of time.
There has also been a huge outcry over recent sponsors like Bebo and the Hills. Sure, Gaia was founded as an anime community. Gaia still is, for the most part, that anime community but we have grown so much in size. I think it would be a little unfair to the users who have other interests besides anime if all we had were anime quests.
I mean did anyone stop to think, what about the people who might not like anime but love MTV? Now they have something to be happy about, it's only fair.
Now before you scream at me MTV SUXS. I agree, 100%. I hate MTV with a burning passion of a thousand suns however being sponsored by MTV, Gaia is hardly being money hungry or a sell out.
I also think Gaia has been doing an amazing job at making these sponsor quests non-intrusive. That's right, they do not affect our daily gaian lives. If you really don't like the fact that Gaia chose to do an MTV sponsor...then why participate? It's not like MTV has been plastered around the site. It has it's own little corner that we can all avoid if we want too.
Sponsors also give Gaia a chance to work on ideas that they would love to create but might otherwise not have the time to spare to work on them. I mean you have to admit that Virtual Hollywood was pretty neat.
So whatever your opinion is, positive or negative, can we at least try and tone down the "Gaia is a greedy cash consuming hog!" views...I mean honestly it must be a kick in the face for the entire team when people keep saying these things.
Everything they do, however unlikely it seems, is for us. They are trying to make features that we want, they are trying to make items that we want, they are trying to take Gaia to the next level for US.
Unfortunately though, these kind of things take money and I'd rather see them try and make it through a shop with special items and sponsorships then through things like premium accounts or having to pay monthly for the site.
No spoons, seeing as the discussion material is quite obvious.
Quite a bit of sad news today, because of the state of the economy Gaia has now had to cut 13% of it's staff. It's going to be sad to see so many faces go. Source.
Say hello to this journal entry by Fleep [X]. This entry gives a good list of the other expenses that the Gaia staff has to worry about that I didn't even think to mention. I reposted it down here in case anyone decides to tl;dr the initial post
You know how at the bottom I speculate how much it takes to run Gaia for a year? Well looks like I was pretty close with my 16 million guess. It actually costs 25 mil to run Gaia yearly. Source
We are in fact in the red. It does, in fact, cost us more money to run the site - the servers, the rent, the bandwidth, salaries - than we make from selling virtual goods and advertising. People who buy virtual goods from gaia help keep us going. We totally totally appreciate everyone's support on the site. I hear you and am embarrassed that you've had bad customer service experience. We have improved it soo much over the last year. For example, it used to take us literally 8 months to resolve a hacking case. We're down to about 10 days now. We used to take months to answer a 'general inquiry' email and we're now down to a few days. That's all due to hard work, a bigger staff, and new software we've developed to resolve these things. It still needs to be much much better, but we're working on it.
We are testing lots of prices. Any suggestions on how to get someone who has never bought a virtual good to buy just one? Even a $1.00 purchase every month or so would make a huge difference to help cover our costs!
Thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Viacom has bought out Gaia, We just don't know it yet!
First off, if Gaia sold itself to Viacom, it would be on the news or at the very least have articles plastered about it on various business websites. This has not been the case, as a matter of fact NOTHING has turned up to indicate Gaia has been sold. There just happens to be a few sponsors owned by Viacom who has taken an interest in them.
Also, as it stands Gaia can not be bought out by Viacom, Gaia is a private company there for the only way that one would be able to "buy them out" is if Gaia had decided to sell themselves, which they have not.
Here's a bit of info about private and public companies:
But the Cash shop gets more attention then the regular shops!
I have seen ALOT of people saying that the cash shop is receiving more attention then the regular shops and I would like to point out, this is not the case.
Since November 2nd 2007 to September 16th 2008 there has been about 201 items added to the cash shop. These updates have not occurred all at once, but spaced out through the months. Some of the items in this count have been removed from the shop at this point in time.
Since Nov 29th 2007 to September 15st 2008 we have received eightregular shop updates that included a grand total of 1,370 items (give or take a few).
These counts DO NOT include the salon, tattoos or fishing updates. Sorry guys I have hard time keeping up xD
Now I think this stands to show that the cash shop definitely is not getting more attention then the regular stores.
It only seems like it is because the cash shop gets several little updates through out the months and we only get one regular store update anywhere from one to two months. However, when the regular stores are updated, they are updated with ALOT more items then the cash shop. Usually the Cash shop get anywhere form one to six items. The regular store updates get an amount of items that number in the hundreds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I would like to make something EXTREMELY CLEAR about what you are about to read. All of this information are figures I just made up. I tried to stay in the middle ground when using these figures, please do not make posts saying "Give me proof!" because I can't! 100% Can not do it. All of the information I went on was gathered from either Lanzer's quote or Fleep's journal, other then that we have no solid evidence!
So why did I write this following paragraph? Because I simply wanted to see what the figures were that I got when following middle ground. That is all. I'm am not way shape or form saying these are right. I am merely making a guess, an estimation if you will. You can give me your opinions on what I state below but please do not give me the "OMG you are totally wrong and just blowing things out of proportion/you have no proof" bit. I am most definitely NOT blowing things out of proportion, if I was then I would of just used high ended numbers when it came to Gaia's cost and low ended numbers when it came to the money Gaia receives, okay?
Everyone seems to think that Gaia is making millions off these sponsor deals.
I highly doubt that Dreamworks gave Gaia a million dollars to advertise their movie and give out a few free items. ((See link above for actual source info that proves this claim was in fact correct))
In reality they probably only got a couple thousand, at the best.
I don't think dipping millions into a privately owned website is a way that movie companies feel would make them more money.
As for how many users donate and buy cash. I can't say for sure.
I can say for certain that we have about 100k users on every day. Now I am about to use a whole lot of numbers and math, these figures are in no way shape or form definite, this just my supposing and I decided to try and go for middle ground when thinking up these figures.
So, we have about 100k users on everyday, let's say about 50k of those users donates 25 dollars to Gaia every month. That totals to 15 million dollars (50,000 x 25 = 1,250,000 x 12) yearly. Remember, I'm just trying to go for middle ground on these figures.
Now, in the quote Lanzer himself says that the servers rack up a seven digit number. They are running about 300 servers every month. California is an extremely expensive state, obviously I have no idea how expensive or what they charge over there for electricity so instead of going with a really high number, I'll go with the lowest seven digit number I can think of which would be one million.
So say the cost of running the servers and paying for bandwidth comes to one million every month. (I doubt it's one million, with cali being as expensive as people tell me it is I have a feeling that it is higher but remember I'm just supposing. I'm also trying to show I'm not trying to blow things out of proportion)
So that means electricity and bandwidth comes to 12 million dollars a year.
So that leaves 3 million out of the yearly 15 million figure from MCs I got.
However, Gaia also needs to pay it's employees which is a staff of 90+ . Lanzer states that yearly income is around 40,000 to 50,000 for people in San Jose. So I'll use 45,000 to be on nice, middle ground.
So, if I take 90 and multiple that by 45,000 that gives me 4,050,000, meaning the yearly cost for servers plus employee wages comes to 16,050,000 which is 1,050,000 over what my figure for yearly MC in take is.
NOW before you tell me that sponsorships and advertising can cover that deficit please be aware that I did not even TOUCH on how much Gaia has to pay yearly for Employee health care, which it does in fact provide as stated in Fleep's journal.
There is also the cost of buying the software they are using. Artists need programs like Photoshop and Corel Painter to make the art and items we see. They also need programs like Maya(or 3dMAX) and Flash for things such as Towns, Games and the Battle system.
Have you looked at how much it is to buy that software?
There is a WHOLE LIST of other stuff I didn't even touch on. (See Fleep's journal)
Now...I do not think the admins are exactly struggling to break even, but I don't think their getting the bills payed off by as much as everyone thinks. (An edit to this statement: it appears, by looking at Fleep's post Gaia is currently operating at a loss)
I would also like to state that I am very, VERY aware that any one of the figures I stated could be higher or lower.
I wasn't trying to talk out of my a** when I stated those figured, Like I said I was just trying to choose middle ground and see what the costs added up to by doing that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This quote was taken from a thread in the SF expressing their concern that Cash stores updates will take priority over regular store updates. Again you can look in Juno's post history to find it.
From this quote, we can reinforce the fact that Cash shop updates will not take priority over regular shop updates. Juno has always kept her word.
The cash shop items won't impact production of normal items.
Well, from what I've seen of the items so far, the MC's are worth 250 cash. (That's what you can get them for via the order system right now). So, I'd expect all the Cash Shop items to be priced relative to this.
These quotes come from a PM conversation I had with Jakobo.
We now have two guarantees that this Cash Shop will not impact the updates to the regular shop 3nodding
This keeps being brought up so I feel the need to address the matter. I made this thread well before I became a moderator. I made this thread in October 2007, I was modded October 2008. Please do not think I made this thread simply because I am a moderator, I made this thread as a user who did a lot of research and wanted to pass that research on.
Lanzer
The cost to run 300 servers and keeping a team of more than 90 people working is very high. Imagine this, in San Jose the average pay is around 40,000 dollars to 50,000 dollars a year. Just multiply that by 90. eek There are much much more expenses in detail. All the equipment in the server room also raked up a 7 digit figure... Few websites face the challenge of having to serve up to 100,000 users at a time.
That quote is from an ask the admin, you can go to Lanzer's recent posts to find it or go to the AtA archives.
With the arrival of the Gaia cash shop I have seen both positive and negative reactions, but within them both I have notice people are calling Gaia money hungry.
It's a bit frustrating to say the least, because if you think of it realistically, like thinking out the cost of each server, electricity, office rent, staff etc etc, it really is a no brainier to figure out that the price to keep this site running is phenomenal. Here is an even longer list of the things Gaia has to pay for [X].
I do not look at the cash only store as Gaia being money hungry, what it is really is in my opinion is another way for them to get funding, because every single feature we have on this site has taken money to develop, and every feature we will one day have on this site is going to take more money to develop.
And all this is coming from someone who doesn't have money to spare on Gaia Cash, I don't even donate. I won't go into the details of my finical situation, but just to let you know I'm in college and supporting myself. Any MC I have, I have earned through questing and saving up gold.
So I understand where users are coming from who are upset about not being able to buy the cards, but really it could of been so much worse. They could of made the items unsellable and untradeble, but they didn't.
This alone has to show that they are thinking about the common user.
I'm not trying to say that this shop idea is 100% awesome, I have had concerns about it. I worried that the shop updates for the cash store will take priority over regular stores, I worried that our shop items will go down in quality now because of this cash store. But we have had store updates since the Cash shop was opened, one of them HUGE and I have to say that these concerns no longer have any ground. Not to mention many of the staff have explained that the cash shop will not take priority over the regular shops. They have also revealed that the team who works on cash shop updates DO NOT work on regular shop updates.
Though I am still not fond of the idea of an item being removed from the store after a certain period of time.
There has also been a huge outcry over recent sponsors like Bebo and the Hills. Sure, Gaia was founded as an anime community. Gaia still is, for the most part, that anime community but we have grown so much in size. I think it would be a little unfair to the users who have other interests besides anime if all we had were anime quests.
I mean did anyone stop to think, what about the people who might not like anime but love MTV? Now they have something to be happy about, it's only fair.
Now before you scream at me MTV SUXS. I agree, 100%. I hate MTV with a burning passion of a thousand suns however being sponsored by MTV, Gaia is hardly being money hungry or a sell out.
I also think Gaia has been doing an amazing job at making these sponsor quests non-intrusive. That's right, they do not affect our daily gaian lives. If you really don't like the fact that Gaia chose to do an MTV sponsor...then why participate? It's not like MTV has been plastered around the site. It has it's own little corner that we can all avoid if we want too.
Sponsors also give Gaia a chance to work on ideas that they would love to create but might otherwise not have the time to spare to work on them. I mean you have to admit that Virtual Hollywood was pretty neat.
So whatever your opinion is, positive or negative, can we at least try and tone down the "Gaia is a greedy cash consuming hog!" views...I mean honestly it must be a kick in the face for the entire team when people keep saying these things.
Everything they do, however unlikely it seems, is for us. They are trying to make features that we want, they are trying to make items that we want, they are trying to take Gaia to the next level for US.
Unfortunately though, these kind of things take money and I'd rather see them try and make it through a shop with special items and sponsorships then through things like premium accounts or having to pay monthly for the site.
No spoons, seeing as the discussion material is quite obvious.
Quite a bit of sad news today, because of the state of the economy Gaia has now had to cut 13% of it's staff. It's going to be sad to see so many faces go. Source.
Say hello to this journal entry by Fleep [X]. This entry gives a good list of the other expenses that the Gaia staff has to worry about that I didn't even think to mention. I reposted it down here in case anyone decides to tl;dr the initial post
You know how at the bottom I speculate how much it takes to run Gaia for a year? Well looks like I was pretty close with my 16 million guess. It actually costs 25 mil to run Gaia yearly. Source
Fleep
Just an update to the numbers here, Leena -- Gaia has over 120 employees now that are necessary to keep the site running. So add $1,500,000 a year to that figure razz (30 more people than the 90 Lanzer mentioned at roughly $50k / year) and we hire contractors on a regular basis because we're understaffed, but we can't afford to open up more full-time positions
fin
We do a bit over $1 million a month in virtual good sales. In addition, we do a few hundred thousand a month from advertising. The main reason we talk to the press about our sales figures is for recruiting purposes: people trying to decide to work at Gaia vs. some other company want to know that we have a real, sustainable business model. Silicon Valley is a super competitive place to find talented engineers. (we've been really lucky recently - we've had a lot of people recently quit Google, Yahoo, and eBay and also little start ups to join us).
Our expenses are roughly $2mm per month (or approx. $25mm/year expenses). The expenses include payment fees to our merchants (Target, 7-Eleven, Paypal, etc.) and then everything to run gaia - salaries, rent, electricity, buying hardware (servers), food, legal expenses, customer service, etc. For example, just this month we bought half a million dollars of hardware to prepare for the launch of zOMG! Also, just people alone is bigger than you might guess. Many of us took pay cuts to come to Gaia because we wanted to work here so badly. Nevertheless, the sheer number of people needed to run the site is a lot: in addition to about 110 full time employees, we have another 50 or so contractors all over the world (freelance PHP, Java and Flash developers, 2D, 3D and animation artists, quality assurance engineers, etc.).
So, overall we lose money. But our plan has always been to keep investing in the site to make it better and not focus on short-term profitability. And, fortunately, as we make improvements to the site every month our traffic and our sales are growing. It's really thanks to you guys that we can keep investing in the future. We were able to raise a lot of money this year based on our fast growth and momentum and we made sure to raise enough so that even if it takes a couple more years to get profitable, we won't run out.
Our expenses are roughly $2mm per month (or approx. $25mm/year expenses). The expenses include payment fees to our merchants (Target, 7-Eleven, Paypal, etc.) and then everything to run gaia - salaries, rent, electricity, buying hardware (servers), food, legal expenses, customer service, etc. For example, just this month we bought half a million dollars of hardware to prepare for the launch of zOMG! Also, just people alone is bigger than you might guess. Many of us took pay cuts to come to Gaia because we wanted to work here so badly. Nevertheless, the sheer number of people needed to run the site is a lot: in addition to about 110 full time employees, we have another 50 or so contractors all over the world (freelance PHP, Java and Flash developers, 2D, 3D and animation artists, quality assurance engineers, etc.).
So, overall we lose money. But our plan has always been to keep investing in the site to make it better and not focus on short-term profitability. And, fortunately, as we make improvements to the site every month our traffic and our sales are growing. It's really thanks to you guys that we can keep investing in the future. We were able to raise a lot of money this year based on our fast growth and momentum and we made sure to raise enough so that even if it takes a couple more years to get profitable, we won't run out.
fin on Page 45
We are in fact in the red. It does, in fact, cost us more money to run the site - the servers, the rent, the bandwidth, salaries - than we make from selling virtual goods and advertising. People who buy virtual goods from gaia help keep us going. We totally totally appreciate everyone's support on the site. I hear you and am embarrassed that you've had bad customer service experience. We have improved it soo much over the last year. For example, it used to take us literally 8 months to resolve a hacking case. We're down to about 10 days now. We used to take months to answer a 'general inquiry' email and we're now down to a few days. That's all due to hard work, a bigger staff, and new software we've developed to resolve these things. It still needs to be much much better, but we're working on it.
We are testing lots of prices. Any suggestions on how to get someone who has never bought a virtual good to buy just one? Even a $1.00 purchase every month or so would make a huge difference to help cover our costs!
Thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Viacom has bought out Gaia, We just don't know it yet!
First off, if Gaia sold itself to Viacom, it would be on the news or at the very least have articles plastered about it on various business websites. This has not been the case, as a matter of fact NOTHING has turned up to indicate Gaia has been sold. There just happens to be a few sponsors owned by Viacom who has taken an interest in them.
Also, as it stands Gaia can not be bought out by Viacom, Gaia is a private company there for the only way that one would be able to "buy them out" is if Gaia had decided to sell themselves, which they have not.
Here's a bit of info about private and public companies:
some basic info
Publicly traded companies are easy to buy out if you have tons of money. Just buy the majority of the shares. Then when it comes time for a decision, veto anything you don't like, and propose anything you want. When it comes time to voting, you automatically have the minimum amount of votes by owning the majority of shares.
Meanwhile, in the case of Gaia, you can't buy into a privately held company if they don't want you to. It's like someone wanting to buy your house. Just because they have billions of dollars doesn't mean they can force you to sell.
Meanwhile, in the case of Gaia, you can't buy into a privately held company if they don't want you to. It's like someone wanting to buy your house. Just because they have billions of dollars doesn't mean they can force you to sell.
But the Cash shop gets more attention then the regular shops!
I have seen ALOT of people saying that the cash shop is receiving more attention then the regular shops and I would like to point out, this is not the case.
Since November 2nd 2007 to September 16th 2008 there has been about 201 items added to the cash shop. These updates have not occurred all at once, but spaced out through the months. Some of the items in this count have been removed from the shop at this point in time.
Since Nov 29th 2007 to September 15st 2008 we have received eightregular shop updates that included a grand total of 1,370 items (give or take a few).
These counts DO NOT include the salon, tattoos or fishing updates. Sorry guys I have hard time keeping up xD
Now I think this stands to show that the cash shop definitely is not getting more attention then the regular stores.
It only seems like it is because the cash shop gets several little updates through out the months and we only get one regular store update anywhere from one to two months. However, when the regular stores are updated, they are updated with ALOT more items then the cash shop. Usually the Cash shop get anywhere form one to six items. The regular store updates get an amount of items that number in the hundreds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I would like to make something EXTREMELY CLEAR about what you are about to read. All of this information are figures I just made up. I tried to stay in the middle ground when using these figures, please do not make posts saying "Give me proof!" because I can't! 100% Can not do it. All of the information I went on was gathered from either Lanzer's quote or Fleep's journal, other then that we have no solid evidence!
So why did I write this following paragraph? Because I simply wanted to see what the figures were that I got when following middle ground. That is all. I'm am not way shape or form saying these are right. I am merely making a guess, an estimation if you will. You can give me your opinions on what I state below but please do not give me the "OMG you are totally wrong and just blowing things out of proportion/you have no proof" bit. I am most definitely NOT blowing things out of proportion, if I was then I would of just used high ended numbers when it came to Gaia's cost and low ended numbers when it came to the money Gaia receives, okay?
Everyone seems to think that Gaia is making millions off these sponsor deals.
I highly doubt that Dreamworks gave Gaia a million dollars to advertise their movie and give out a few free items. ((See link above for actual source info that proves this claim was in fact correct))
In reality they probably only got a couple thousand, at the best.
I don't think dipping millions into a privately owned website is a way that movie companies feel would make them more money.
As for how many users donate and buy cash. I can't say for sure.
I can say for certain that we have about 100k users on every day. Now I am about to use a whole lot of numbers and math, these figures are in no way shape or form definite, this just my supposing and I decided to try and go for middle ground when thinking up these figures.
So, we have about 100k users on everyday, let's say about 50k of those users donates 25 dollars to Gaia every month. That totals to 15 million dollars (50,000 x 25 = 1,250,000 x 12) yearly. Remember, I'm just trying to go for middle ground on these figures.
Now, in the quote Lanzer himself says that the servers rack up a seven digit number. They are running about 300 servers every month. California is an extremely expensive state, obviously I have no idea how expensive or what they charge over there for electricity so instead of going with a really high number, I'll go with the lowest seven digit number I can think of which would be one million.
So say the cost of running the servers and paying for bandwidth comes to one million every month. (I doubt it's one million, with cali being as expensive as people tell me it is I have a feeling that it is higher but remember I'm just supposing. I'm also trying to show I'm not trying to blow things out of proportion)
So that means electricity and bandwidth comes to 12 million dollars a year.
So that leaves 3 million out of the yearly 15 million figure from MCs I got.
However, Gaia also needs to pay it's employees which is a staff of 90+ . Lanzer states that yearly income is around 40,000 to 50,000 for people in San Jose. So I'll use 45,000 to be on nice, middle ground.
So, if I take 90 and multiple that by 45,000 that gives me 4,050,000, meaning the yearly cost for servers plus employee wages comes to 16,050,000 which is 1,050,000 over what my figure for yearly MC in take is.
NOW before you tell me that sponsorships and advertising can cover that deficit please be aware that I did not even TOUCH on how much Gaia has to pay yearly for Employee health care, which it does in fact provide as stated in Fleep's journal.
There is also the cost of buying the software they are using. Artists need programs like Photoshop and Corel Painter to make the art and items we see. They also need programs like Maya(or 3dMAX) and Flash for things such as Towns, Games and the Battle system.
Have you looked at how much it is to buy that software?
There is a WHOLE LIST of other stuff I didn't even touch on. (See Fleep's journal)
Now...I do not think the admins are exactly struggling to break even, but I don't think their getting the bills payed off by as much as everyone thinks. (An edit to this statement: it appears, by looking at Fleep's post Gaia is currently operating at a loss)
I would also like to state that I am very, VERY aware that any one of the figures I stated could be higher or lower.
I wasn't trying to talk out of my a** when I stated those figured, Like I said I was just trying to choose middle ground and see what the costs added up to by doing that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Juno
It's true - we have felt a lot of growing pains as of late, but I can personally guarantee the community that the regular store updates will not be neglected. Sure, Cash Shop is now yet another store that must be updated, but technically, that is not my priority. My priority still rests upon the exact same things I've been doing thus far. 3nodding
This quote was taken from a thread in the SF expressing their concern that Cash stores updates will take priority over regular store updates. Again you can look in Juno's post history to find it.
From this quote, we can reinforce the fact that Cash shop updates will not take priority over regular shop updates. Juno has always kept her word.
Jakobo
Leena-nee
The art team obviously has a lot on their plate, there are tattoo updates, hair updates, car updates, house updates, store updates and MCs. A lot of people have assumed that a lot of things, item wise, get put on the back buner in the wake of MCs. Following this mentality, many users are wondering if Cash Shop updates are going to take priority over regular store updates?
The cash shop items won't impact production of normal items.
Jakobo
Leena-nee
It would be nice to think that these premium items wouldn't cost an arm and a leg in the marketplace, but realistically thinking they more then likely will. For example just look at any of the MCs and how far the older ones have inflated and the outcry from the community because of this.
Well, from what I've seen of the items so far, the MC's are worth 250 cash. (That's what you can get them for via the order system right now). So, I'd expect all the Cash Shop items to be priced relative to this.
These quotes come from a PM conversation I had with Jakobo.
We now have two guarantees that this Cash Shop will not impact the updates to the regular shop 3nodding
