OCCUPY GAIA :: SAY NO TO BUYING GC

[Elijaey]

from love to pain

I'll definitely take the pledge. I'm so dang tired of the inflation. One day an item is worth 15 million, the next day it's worth 70 million. I can't keep up with the prices and I can't afford to be dishing out real money left and right to buy GC. I'm tired and I want change! talk2hand stressed scream

It's the Gaia Great Depression. ;l

[Chieftain Twilight]

is it bad that my feelings on this are mixed, now?

[Blackrose_Knight]

Chieftain Twilight

is it bad that my feelings on this are mixed, now?

IDK man its pretty clear to me Gaia gives no ******** about its consumers or the community it once fosters.

Greedy little piggies

[Chieftain Twilight]

Blackrose_Knight

Chieftain Twilight

is it bad that my feelings on this are mixed, now?

IDK man its pretty clear to me Gaia gives no ******** about its consumers or the community it once fosters.

Greedy little piggies

I agree, I have already come to acknowledge that. I still have to wonder what the impact of not helping the company would be on the website itself. my only point that brings the question moot is that the current CEO won't use the money we pay them for anything of our benefit.... so I suppose that is why I continue to support this occupy effort.

but I can't help feeling that Gaia is dead.

[Tempest Lorelay]

Hikaruhia

Some of these ideas are excellent ideas that Gaia should look into. Being updated on what Gaia is using the money for, besides obvious things like paying employees and general maintenance of the website, making thread promotable with gold instead of GC, not having GC required to participate in events, clearing out perma-banned accounts, a friends only option in the MP, and giving Gaia a Kickstart are all really good ideas that would help Gaia as a whole for different reasons. But some of the suggestions offered on the front page to help 'ammend' the different issues are either unrealistic or outdated. Some of the suggestions put forth are being used.

Make items from the Cash Shop and/or Club Verge worth a fair price of gold in Derner Cri or another shop.

I'd like to point out that Dernier Cri is currently selling recolors of Nitemare Scarves and Mini Wings, as well as Devil Tale recolors, Angelic Scarf, Miniwings, and DJ Headphones. Items they would normally sell for 999GC in the Cash Shop.

Focus on a better balance between the quality of gold shop items compared to cash shop ones.

From as far back as I can remember, Gold Shops were updated once per month. Sometimes they were impressive updates and sometimes they weren't, it just depended. There was a mini GS update on March 13, a regular update on Feburary 23, a regular update January 25, a regular update December 30, 2013, a regular update November 30, 2013, a regular update October 30, 2013, September 4, 2013, August 20,2013, (the month Flynn's was first released), July 24, 2013, etc. April, May, and June of 2013 did not have gold shop updates, but this wasn't even the time of the problem first starting. They've been following a pattern this entire time. You only now have a problem with it.

Spend a month or so simply releasing Gold Shop items.

And how, exactly, would Gaia make revenue? Through adds? Even a month could potentially break the bank and send the developers into a deep enough financial hole they wouldn't be able to recover, unless they started slamming us with GC items immediately after the 'cleanse.' You'd be in the same situation.

Chance items should be gold shop items only.

CIs as in RIGs? Or CIs as in the gold droppers like Flynn's Chest? Because the RIGs that are released monthly, such as Radiant Galaxy, Dark Reflection, and Love Charm, have always been released and sold for GC. For as long as I can remember, they've been sold for 999GC in the CS. My memory isn't that old, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Put set pricing on certain, if not all, items in the MP.

The gold cap is 2.174billion, so that is basically the cap on all items. You can't buy an item off of the MP for more than that, and you can't have more than that amount on your account. So technically, there is a set price. Though I agree some items are too inflated for their own good.

Make hoarding of large quantities of premium items a bannable offense. A serious warning system would have to be in place.

Why, though? Like, seriously, what good reason is there for this? I'm trying to puzzle through it but I literally see no reason why this should be a bannable offense.

Bring back the Gaia merchandise shop so users can spend their money on real items too, not just virtual ones.

Speaking as a shipping and receiving associate for an entertainment store, this would require a decent amount of financing and time to figure out all the details. There are a lot of things to consider when deciding to sell real life merchandise, including what vendor to use to make the items and the prices, cost of shipping, sending to outside continental US destinations, where to store and keep track of the merchandise, obtaining appropriate packaging for each item, etc. Also, a way to keep track of the orders that come in. Handmaking labels - writing out the name and address - leaves a lot of room for error, thus costing more money essentially. A system would need to be put in place to keep track of the orders and print out shipping labels with tracking numbers and addresses already printed on them. Plus someone would have to be hired to take care of all the shipping and receiving of these items. Not to mention, it might not be cost effective in the long run. How many people were actually buying real life items before, and how many would be interested now? Once you had your nifty key chain or t-shirt, would you buy from the store again? Cost effective wise, it would depend on the amount of people interested in, first, purchasing from the store and, second, making more than one purchase from the store. Overall, it might be too complex to consider right now.

An increase in the low to mid-priced GC items (under 2,500 GC) instead of so many expensive ones.

As of right now, there are only 18 out of 110 items in the cash shop that are over 2500GC. In Club Verge, most of the items are over 2500GC.

Raise Gaian "wages" by upping gold rewards for posting, commenting, playing games, etc. to give gold-only users the advantage they need in the inflated economy.

I find this statement contradictory to the rest of the major points made throughout the post. You're saying inflation is bad and is ruining the site, but now you want to dump more gold into the system by raising the gold drops of each site function? Don't contradict yourself. Choose a point and stick with it, and be consistent. Complaining about inflation and then making a suggestion that would, in essence, cause more inflation, is very contradicting.

I work tomorrow morning, early, so I cut most of my points short and didn't include some. In recap though, if you're not interested in reading my hella long post, is that some of the ideas are good and Gaia should or is implementing them and some of them just suck and need to be reevaluated by the person who presented them as legit suggestions.

Thanks for your time. Sorry if I made no sense! I stayed up a little bit later than intended posting this, so my logic might be a little flawed.

I LOVE THIS! NICE JOB!!

[Vegan Cupcakes_x]

I wish I could heart this thread more!

[BaasuBlossom]

kaleidedope

BaasuBlossom

BaasuBlossom

(From that link is the answer to your questions on weather or not Gaia was listening to us and what they had to say, it in the cons. )

“Fun, until new management arrived”
Customer Service Representative (Former Employee)

I worked at Gaia Interactive as an intern for more than 3 years

Pros – *Awesome co-workers
*Lots of learning experiences

Cons – *Poor disaster management skills
*Poor PR skills
*Poor communication skills/inability to relay information between departments reliably
*New management has no care for the community/profit driven
*Suppression of user feedback/openly mocking feedback is the new regular and openly encouraged
*Poor treatment of volunteers

Advice to Senior Management – You've done a fantastic job with this company, how about you work your magic on another one? Like, right now. Go, leave and never come back. You have ruined an otherwise fine company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

(Now you know they are making FUN OF US for wanting them to do better, it time to leave)

reposts this for those who missed it. (this is from an employee) They ARE mocking you, they think it is funny that you care. They make fun of us openly in the office, they take our posts an use them as a joke. Don't you get it? Gaia doesn't care about this thread or any other. They want to run it into the ground and make fun of us for caring. It is over, they are not going to change. If they where they would of.

But you do realize that GlassDoor reviews are sketchy because
there's no verification of who the person is doing the review or
if they truly ever worked for the company they claim to. I could get
on there and pretend to be an employee and write a review, doesn't
mean I am.
Of course they're mocking us, but I don't know that that review is from
an actual employee rather than a pissed off member.

It was not taken from a random forum. It was taken from a business/looking for work site. Meaning no one was searching the business just so they could post bad reviews. It was also one of MANY from people that still work there and once worked there all saying the same thing.

[Tempest Lorelay]

Thank You so much to my anonymous gifter! The gift is very special to me and I will not sell / give it away it. I have done the same a few weeks ago.... cleaned out my inventory and gifted random people and friends. Thank you again.

Quote:

From: An anonymous benefactor
Message: Dear person,
I am currently cleaning out my inventory of premium items,and only purchasing items from the cheap shops to boycott the marketplace and cash shop. You are a randomly chosen recipient! Enjoy!

[Aeriall]

I miss the old site, I notice now all the announcements are about GC items and the animal skins are just a massive money sink.

[Xathoa]

You know what, I haven't in a long time. So I guess I'll sign.
I can't anyway, even if I wanted to.

And they really are neglecting people who don't spend. :/
They need to remember the rest of the site. The rest of the people who populate Gaia, everyone who made this place what it is now.

I'll be more inclined to pay when they change, but I doubt they will soon.

So, you have my username.

[MiniBoBini]

<3

[BleuP]

Today I used 2000 Gaia Cash from a GC Offer and bought 30 Dice Rolls. I should not have gained 220,200,000 gold worth from that. I'll definitely sign. It's not only the site, but the company too. Ever since Schofield became CEO, the company's work ethics seemed to have declined.

Former employees have said on glassdoor.com how new management have made them feel disposable, and that they killed all projects to solely work on virtual item sales. Hell, the announcements forum is full of Cash Shop ads and we get 5-10 a day. We used to get live streams of their baseball games and nerf gun wars. >>;

I honestly think Gaia should focus more on video game development rather than milking users for virtual items. They have the artists for it. Jenzee and o_8 were former Gaia artists that made art for successful games like Bastion and Skullgirls. Those games are well known for their art styles too. Gaia has some games on Facebook and on mobile devices, but they're freemium. >>;

1. Make $5-$15 video game on Steam.
2. Grant new premium items to Gaia users for achievements.
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!

Xathoa

You know what, I haven't in a long time. So I guess I'll sign.
I can't anyway, even if I wanted to.

And they really are neglecting people who don't spend. :/
They need to remember the rest of the site. The rest of the people who populate Gaia, everyone who made this place what it is now.

I'll be more inclined to pay when they change, but I doubt they will soon.

So, you have my username.

Odd place to run into you. xD

Their new CEO has a history with marketing positions with IBM, Oracle, and other companies. Big company CEO for a small, "fun", company. No wonder it's a mess. Marketing major sees way to make money. Marketing major releases tons of gold so users can buy anything they want! Users do that and inflate all the items... Other users can't afford good items and gold plummets in price... Marketing major rerelease all the good items! All "expensive" items feel worthless. Gold still feels worthless. Marketing major swims in money pool.

It's understandable that Gaia needs to sustain a yearly cost of $25 million USD, so making as many items is understandable from a marketing perspective. It's the same way with soft drinks or candy. More variety, more choices, happy customers. But its toll on gold value and, as mentioned above, killing all projects in favor of milking a virtual item economy does not make happy enough customers that would have gladly supported the site. I don't think Gaia is really able to make many gold items these days because of that $25 million USD bill, which is why I think they need a strong foot in another market that works with everything else they have. Once they have another market, like say video games, I think we can see Gaia return to a more enjoyable experience for users that don't have the money for virtual items. I don't buy Gaia Cash anymore, but I buy video games all the time without even considering the company. An enjoyable Gaia video game would be an instant buy from me.

[Xathoa]

bleu_flame

Xathoa

You know what, I haven't in a long time. So I guess I'll sign.
I can't anyway, even if I wanted to.

And they really are neglecting people who don't spend. :/
They need to remember the rest of the site. The rest of the people who populate Gaia, everyone who made this place what it is now.

I'll be more inclined to pay when they change, but I doubt they will soon.

So, you have my username.

Odd place to run into you. xD

Their new CEO has a history with marketing positions with IBM, Oracle, and other companies. Big company CEO for a small, "fun", company. No wonder it's a mess. Marketing major sees way to make money. Marketing major releases tons of gold so users can buy anything they want! Users do that and inflate all the items... Other users can't afford good items and gold plummets in price... Marketing major rerelease all the good items! All "expensive" items feel worthless. Gold still feels worthless. Marketing major swims in money pool.

It's understandable that Gaia needs to sustain a yearly cost of $25 million USD, so making as many items is understandable from a marketing perspective. It's the same way with soft drinks or candy. More variety, more choices, happy customers. But its toll on gold value and, as mentioned above, killing all projects in favor of milking a virtual item economy does not make happy enough customers that would have gladly supported the site. I don't think Gaia is really able to make many gold items these days because of that $25 million USD bill, which is why I think they need a strong foot in another market that works with everything else they have. Once they have another market, like say video games, I think we can see Gaia return to a more enjoyable experience for users that don't have the money for virtual items. I don't buy Gaia Cash anymore, but I buy video games all the time without even considering the company. An enjoyable Gaia video game would be an instant buy from me.

Oh wow, indeed. Strange!
I half expected that you snooped my posts. xD Apparently not, heheh.

But yeah, I saw he was a CEO of many other things.I personally don't know those things he's been helping, but I really don't care either. I just know what's going on here.
No one is being listened to. A lot of things have been cut off and trimmed (ATA and a few things).
Things that aren't "producing money" are being neglected (guilds, inventory arranger, ect.).
It's just ridiculous.
Gaia did have zOMG, but they quickly forgot about it and let off the DEVs who had direct control of it.

I'd be tempted and inclined for a game too. I love games. BUT- they need to put thought and effort in it too. Not just half-a** it like with some of the recolors.

I do like the rerelease of some of the hard-to-get items, in all honesty. Alchemy and banned accounts tend to take their toll on limited stuff.
But it's just how they do it and implement these rare rereleases that's the problem.
Contests are good. Maybe a limited quantity of a rereleased MC or so. But not for hundreds of dollars.

It's sad where this site is going. :/

Also, I didn't notice, but apparently this isn't the petition. The petition where one can sign is in the first post, and I have just corrected myself and signed there. Over 800 signatures.

[BleuP]

Xathoa

bleu_flame

Xathoa

You know what, I haven't in a long time. So I guess I'll sign.
I can't anyway, even if I wanted to.

And they really are neglecting people who don't spend. :/
They need to remember the rest of the site. The rest of the people who populate Gaia, everyone who made this place what it is now.

I'll be more inclined to pay when they change, but I doubt they will soon.

So, you have my username.

Odd place to run into you. xD

Their new CEO has a history with marketing positions with IBM, Oracle, and other companies. Big company CEO for a small, "fun", company. No wonder it's a mess. Marketing major sees way to make money. Marketing major releases tons of gold so users can buy anything they want! Users do that and inflate all the items... Other users can't afford good items and gold plummets in price... Marketing major rerelease all the good items! All "expensive" items feel worthless. Gold still feels worthless. Marketing major swims in money pool.

It's understandable that Gaia needs to sustain a yearly cost of $25 million USD, so making as many items is understandable from a marketing perspective. It's the same way with soft drinks or candy. More variety, more choices, happy customers. But its toll on gold value and, as mentioned above, killing all projects in favor of milking a virtual item economy does not make happy enough customers that would have gladly supported the site. I don't think Gaia is really able to make many gold items these days because of that $25 million USD bill, which is why I think they need a strong foot in another market that works with everything else they have. Once they have another market, like say video games, I think we can see Gaia return to a more enjoyable experience for users that don't have the money for virtual items. I don't buy Gaia Cash anymore, but I buy video games all the time without even considering the company. An enjoyable Gaia video game would be an instant buy from me.

Oh wow, indeed. Strange!
I half expected that you snooped my posts. xD Apparently not, heheh.

But yeah, I saw he was a CEO of many other things.I personally don't know those things he's been helping, but I really don't care either. I just know what's going on here.
No one is being listened to. A lot of things have been cut off and trimmed (ATA and a few things).
Things that aren't "producing money" are being neglected (guilds, inventory arranger, ect.).
It's just ridiculous.
Gaia did have zOMG, but they quickly forgot about it and let off the DEVs who had direct control of it.

I'd be tempted and inclined for a game too. I love games. BUT- they need to put thought and effort in it too. Not just half-a** it like with some of the recolors.

I do like the rerelease of some of the hard-to-get items, in all honesty. Alchemy and banned accounts tend to take their toll on limited stuff.
But it's just how they do it and implement these rare rereleases that's the problem.
Contests are good. Maybe a limited quantity of a rereleased MC or so. But not for hundreds of dollars.

It's sad where this site is going. :/

Also, I didn't notice, but apparently this isn't the petition. The petition where one can sign is in the first post, and I have just corrected myself and signed there. Over 800 signatures.

Nope. :u I was angry that $20 from a Gaia Cash offer got me about 8 items I never thought I'd ever get in the span of about an hour. Went to Feedback Forum. Complained. Success.

Well like I said before. o_8 and Jenzee worked on successful games like Bastion and Skullgirls. If Gaia can get javascript programmers, then they can develop games for multiple platforms using Unity. Javascript programmers are not rare to get. They could even hire a senior programmer and several Java programmers fresh out of college and they'd easily be able to make something great if given as much creative freedom that Supergiant Games gives. Half-assing it would be difficult unless it was freemium.

I don't think they should rerelease as many as they did. It drops the worth of the items. If you got an Angelic Halo by just clicking a button, it wouldn't be the same. It's their rarity that makes it so special. If they were to make a method of getting these items but making them soul bound, then that'd let some users get those impossible items without harming its overall value. (Maybe make them unbound after something. Point is, a way to get rare items makes them lose value.)

The site used to have the same work ethics as Valve and Google, but not anymore. I used to want to work at Gaia as a programmer, but I'd rather work for Zynga's Dallas campus. I think their work ethic has a lot to say about their overall relationship with customers.

I'm too lazy to correct myself. = A= Must continue eating apple pies and sweet tea.

[Rosecense]

I'm totally in, sign!
As a member since '06, I'm severely disappointed to what this site has become. I remember active mods and admins. Now they're just throwing staff updates at us and business talk.
I used to be very social in the forums, games, and even bought a few GC items. These items are just pixels, if they decide to shut down, all that money is down the drain or in some greedy person's pocket.
I've honestly began to grow out of gaia in the last couple years,this is just more encouragement to shut the door for good.
Hopefully they notice the damage before it's too late...
There needs to be a revolution >_> lol