from love to pain
Runic Knight
That is the problem though. The best form of advertising, as anyone in advertising will tell you, is word of mouth. Nothing else comes close. Right now the community is getting frustrated and many are leaving. The amount of new people coming in do not equal people who have invested years into the site. As such they are less likely to spend money right away then someone who has been here a while who wants to invest. Furthermore, there is a negative backlash effect in advertising where public opinion or even simply over-advertising leads to a negative view of the company and a decision to never buy their product because they are so pushy. All of this swirls together to lead to very poor long term strategy. You have your target audience leaving and no longer investing, you have your new audience slowly shrinking because of bad word of mouth advertising, and those that do come are barraged by adds right off the bat, leading to possible negative reactions. Beyond even all that, you have a marketplace here that is unstable, so things that were sound investments before (the monthly items) are now less stable for money and more likely to be passed up, and think about what Flinn's Booties have done to player confidence in the market of the site itself? It is less worth it to buy a bundle now then it was because of all the inflation.
Even a novice in economics and advertising like me can see the long term consequences as nothing but trouble. Though, that isn't too surprising considering who is in charge and their previous habits with such a company.
Finally, I will ask a question. Look at how the company has been acting the last few months. How they have jacked up prices and spammed flinn booties so often, in spite of the problems they cause. Look at the various flash "sales" every day now. Does that not seem like the actions of someone desperate for cash? Does that not resemble the actions of a sleazy used car salesman at a dealership that is going under? Does that not seem just a little desperate when compared to months prior? I do not think they are making as much money as they once have else they would not act so rashly, but that is my view I guess.
They found an item that sells really well. They're going to keep releasing it.
In their most recent announcement, staff admitted Gaia was basically in the black last quarter, but now they're doing better than ever.
And as for your new users won't buy, they most definitely will. It's the only way to get items these days, and if they're joining the site, they're going to want to take part in its biggest feature: avatar dress up.
Let's just agree to disagree, though. I don't want to go back and forth on this and pull the thread off topic.
You actually both have a point here.
from love to pain is most likely correct on the assumption that new users will more likely buy CS items(provided they survive the sticker-shock in the Cash Shop) in order to participate in one of the biggest features of Gaia Online, which is dressing up avatars (imo, forums are the primary feature of the site, but that's another argument).
However, Runic Knight's also correct that a major factor for the survival of sites like Gaia Online is "word of mouth". That 'word of mouth' comes from the very same userbase that has been growing more and more dissatisfied with the way things are being run. I've chatted with several fellow Gaians off-site who have compared Gaia Online's tactics to those of EA, and would never recommend it to their friends in the site's current state.
Some newbies might be willing to shell out obscene amounts of money for pixelated items/more Gaia Cash, perhaps a percentage of those same newbies might (predictably) recommend it to their friends. However, the combined negative effects of word mouth and sticker-shock from the prices in the Cash Shop will probably have an impact on whether newbies stick around or move to greener pastures before the end of the next financial quarter.
As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."
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