WideEyed
(?)Community Member
Offline
- Posted: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:07:29 +0000
Just in case some of you were interested, but unable to attend, or, like me, had a devil of a time keeping up, here's what the Admin had to say in response to our Raid tonight.
The page is already massively stretched, so I'm just quoting the answers that were given. I think that, in most cases, you'll be able to figure out what the question was.
For what it's worth, I think we totally rocked it!
When zOMG was launched there was a substantial marketing investment and we promoted it the best we could. Not sure where you got this idea that we didn't try to promote it. We also tried an expansion. Although I do agree that continued expansion and marketing would increase its popularity, that goes without saying. It's not a binary calculation though; the growth would need to proportional or better than our investment.
Indeed! One of the options we're going to explore is to bring in someone who's familiar with the system on a contract basis. I'm not happy that it has bugs that interfere with the experience because that's one of our big initiatives right now.
tbc.....
.
.
The page is already massively stretched, so I'm just quoting the answers that were given. I think that, in most cases, you'll be able to figure out what the question was.
For what it's worth, I think we totally rocked it!
Lanzer
Hello everyone and welcome to this week's ask the admin thread! Hope everyone had a great time at the Gaia anniversary. We're still hard at work on the Towns update and planning for the next event plus more NPC stories are now under way.
I understand that many were concerned about the state of zOMG, and I'm sorry I don't have a specific solution to announce, but I'd like to share with you where we came from and give everyone a little more insight to where we came from:
Knowing that there are many unanswered questions about zOMG, I know that we owe everyone further explaination about where we came from and how we arrived at the current decision as it stands.
zOMG was a project we created many years ago, with a large team, tons of time, money, and resources, we put in enormous effort trying to make something with lots of depth and gameplay that is deserving of the loyal Gaians waiting for a battle system. Large console titles takes about 10M to 30M to produce, large MMO can cost north of 100M. Creating a complex game is a very expensive endevour and with a tight team our expense was low in comparison, but still quite astounding for a Gaia project. We invested tremendously and at the same time, we put in tons of effort in promoting the game, marketed heavily outside of Gaia, partnered with flash game sites to include zOMG as one of their titles, and hoped for the best as the game press forward.
As the fate of all games, there's a certain element of luck on whether or not the leader of the project comes up with just the right amount of idea, style, and organization to make a game a success. Thousands of games are created each year, only a hand full were ever profitable. zOMG received a warm welcome by Gaians and we had our initial supporters for zOMG, though over the next months, it was clear that the support for zOMG itself could not sustain the team to continue adding features at a fast pace. It's scary to think how many millions would a game need to make to sustain a team of engineers, but removing the math, the bottom line is that there just wasn't enough. Within the gaming industry, the math is pretty clear on what makes a profitable title and what doesn't. We were in a tough place when the numbers didn't add up.
Many of us adore zOMG and the effort we put into the game, and had been constantly putting in effort to maintain the game while trying to add more features on the side. While other companies typically shut down a game the moment they don't see success, we continue to do whatever we can to maintain zOMG because we love the game, and because we know many Gaians enjoy it. Two and a half years after we realized that zOMG couldn't cover the cost of building the game, we still released the DMS update. Not for profit, but only because we wish to entertain the Gaians who deserves more content from zOMG.
As a company, I cannot argue with anyone who thinks that Gaia is "money hungry" or only think about profit. We do think heavily on the bottom line, we do think through how many people should work on which project so that we can earn money. We think like this because every month we work out the math and we are faced with facts such as how much more time can we be in business if we can't make ends meet. We were once faced with hard facts down to the exact number of months that we can operate until we can't pay our staff members anymore and have to shut down. We had to make choices to make the company smaller, and we have to make the choice of making certain titles for wider audience because we would like to keep the lights running.
Despite the constraint in money and resources, Gaia is lucky to have such a great user base and we have the support to have a team dedicated to continue updating core features, creating new events, mini games, and items for the community.
I understand that many were concerned about the state of zOMG, and I'm sorry I don't have a specific solution to announce, but I'd like to share with you where we came from and give everyone a little more insight to where we came from:
Knowing that there are many unanswered questions about zOMG, I know that we owe everyone further explaination about where we came from and how we arrived at the current decision as it stands.
zOMG was a project we created many years ago, with a large team, tons of time, money, and resources, we put in enormous effort trying to make something with lots of depth and gameplay that is deserving of the loyal Gaians waiting for a battle system. Large console titles takes about 10M to 30M to produce, large MMO can cost north of 100M. Creating a complex game is a very expensive endevour and with a tight team our expense was low in comparison, but still quite astounding for a Gaia project. We invested tremendously and at the same time, we put in tons of effort in promoting the game, marketed heavily outside of Gaia, partnered with flash game sites to include zOMG as one of their titles, and hoped for the best as the game press forward.
As the fate of all games, there's a certain element of luck on whether or not the leader of the project comes up with just the right amount of idea, style, and organization to make a game a success. Thousands of games are created each year, only a hand full were ever profitable. zOMG received a warm welcome by Gaians and we had our initial supporters for zOMG, though over the next months, it was clear that the support for zOMG itself could not sustain the team to continue adding features at a fast pace. It's scary to think how many millions would a game need to make to sustain a team of engineers, but removing the math, the bottom line is that there just wasn't enough. Within the gaming industry, the math is pretty clear on what makes a profitable title and what doesn't. We were in a tough place when the numbers didn't add up.
Many of us adore zOMG and the effort we put into the game, and had been constantly putting in effort to maintain the game while trying to add more features on the side. While other companies typically shut down a game the moment they don't see success, we continue to do whatever we can to maintain zOMG because we love the game, and because we know many Gaians enjoy it. Two and a half years after we realized that zOMG couldn't cover the cost of building the game, we still released the DMS update. Not for profit, but only because we wish to entertain the Gaians who deserves more content from zOMG.
As a company, I cannot argue with anyone who thinks that Gaia is "money hungry" or only think about profit. We do think heavily on the bottom line, we do think through how many people should work on which project so that we can earn money. We think like this because every month we work out the math and we are faced with facts such as how much more time can we be in business if we can't make ends meet. We were once faced with hard facts down to the exact number of months that we can operate until we can't pay our staff members anymore and have to shut down. We had to make choices to make the company smaller, and we have to make the choice of making certain titles for wider audience because we would like to keep the lights running.
Despite the constraint in money and resources, Gaia is lucky to have such a great user base and we have the support to have a team dedicated to continue updating core features, creating new events, mini games, and items for the community.
DARKNRGY
There's been some discussion around zOMG that has our attention. We've been listening and this is as good as an opportunity as ever to make things a little bit more official. Normally biglanky14 would do this, but where is he???? DISNEYLAND!
We don't expect that zOMG can experience the kind of growth we want, as a company, compared to some of the other things we could be doing. I don't have a good excuse for the people that love and play zomg and just want for it to be great. Due to the resources it would require to meet expectations, it just made more sense (to us) to try again with something else. Some of the same great people that made zOMG are making new things, which we also hope will be great.
zOMG is one out of a large number of features that require our attention and there are some hard calls to make. Currently, we don't have any plans to add content to zOMG. It is in maintenance mode, which means we intend to keep it up and running. The zOMG following is formidable and we know the community deserves a great deal of respect. We'll do our best to keep things running smooothly and provide support. That's our current plan - nothing more, nothing less. Could the plan change? Of course, who knows. Since we're a little strapped in the Swarf department we're exploring some options for getting some additional help for bug fixing. It's a tricky project to maintain because its infrastructure demands a wide set of knowledge so we value your patience while we figure something out. If the stars line up right, we'd like to work on minor improvements - rings, updates to quests, that sort of thing.
So that's it. There really isn't much more to the story unless you want to go on rumor. Yeah, we wanted a bigger and better zOMG, but we took our shot and weren't satisfied with the results. The window of opportunity has passed and now we want to continue to take a fresh look at online gaming. The more users we can reach, the better production we can provide. We all want something new and shiny. I hope everyone can relate to that just a little bit smile . No matter how you feel about it though, the Gaia team we have now (which right now is a really loyal and passionate group of old skool folks), will continue try and make gaiaonline.com run smooth and for everyone to have as much fun as possible. The same thing I've done every single day of work since May 2004. I'm sorry expectations weren't communicated well and I hope this clears some things up.
We don't expect that zOMG can experience the kind of growth we want, as a company, compared to some of the other things we could be doing. I don't have a good excuse for the people that love and play zomg and just want for it to be great. Due to the resources it would require to meet expectations, it just made more sense (to us) to try again with something else. Some of the same great people that made zOMG are making new things, which we also hope will be great.
zOMG is one out of a large number of features that require our attention and there are some hard calls to make. Currently, we don't have any plans to add content to zOMG. It is in maintenance mode, which means we intend to keep it up and running. The zOMG following is formidable and we know the community deserves a great deal of respect. We'll do our best to keep things running smooothly and provide support. That's our current plan - nothing more, nothing less. Could the plan change? Of course, who knows. Since we're a little strapped in the Swarf department we're exploring some options for getting some additional help for bug fixing. It's a tricky project to maintain because its infrastructure demands a wide set of knowledge so we value your patience while we figure something out. If the stars line up right, we'd like to work on minor improvements - rings, updates to quests, that sort of thing.
So that's it. There really isn't much more to the story unless you want to go on rumor. Yeah, we wanted a bigger and better zOMG, but we took our shot and weren't satisfied with the results. The window of opportunity has passed and now we want to continue to take a fresh look at online gaming. The more users we can reach, the better production we can provide. We all want something new and shiny. I hope everyone can relate to that just a little bit smile . No matter how you feel about it though, the Gaia team we have now (which right now is a really loyal and passionate group of old skool folks), will continue try and make gaiaonline.com run smooth and for everyone to have as much fun as possible. The same thing I've done every single day of work since May 2004. I'm sorry expectations weren't communicated well and I hope this clears some things up.
Lanzer
zOMG is on maintenance mode and there isn't a clear definition on what we can add to the game, so I don't have a clear answer right now, though as we gather resource we'll be able to have a clear answer for that.
I'll look into having the summon buddies as items. If it's not too hard, we should be able to do it, but we'll have to look and see.
I'll look into having the summon buddies as items. If it's not too hard, we should be able to do it, but we'll have to look and see.
DRKNRGY
Yeah, I know it's frustrating. We wanted zOMG to be more successful and that's why the challenges were laid out. There is a trickle of new users, but the number of users leaving is larger and the total daily users continues to drop. DMS had some effect, but not what we were hoping for. We are not seeing growth or even steady state.
Any money purchased through Gaia goes to Gaia. While we compartmentalize projects in terms of revenues, etc, money from one area is not systematically directed to any particular project.
Development for zOMG is complex from a technical and creative standpoint. Development is just one aspect of production and even that requires specialized knowledge, special tools which are difficult to revive, etc. There are some things that are easy, however, and I'd like to explore those options with the team.
Any money purchased through Gaia goes to Gaia. While we compartmentalize projects in terms of revenues, etc, money from one area is not systematically directed to any particular project.
Development for zOMG is complex from a technical and creative standpoint. Development is just one aspect of production and even that requires specialized knowledge, special tools which are difficult to revive, etc. There are some things that are easy, however, and I'd like to explore those options with the team.
DRKNRGY
When zOMG was launched there was a substantial marketing investment and we promoted it the best we could. Not sure where you got this idea that we didn't try to promote it. We also tried an expansion. Although I do agree that continued expansion and marketing would increase its popularity, that goes without saying. It's not a binary calculation though; the growth would need to proportional or better than our investment.
DRKNRGY
Indeed! One of the options we're going to explore is to bring in someone who's familiar with the system on a contract basis. I'm not happy that it has bugs that interfere with the experience because that's one of our big initiatives right now.
tbc.....
.
.
