Welcome to Gaia! ::

Okay, technical question here -

Does tank health actually change (go down) if you have no fish in the tank?

When I had a full tank of fish if I forgot to visit my tank on any given day I would see a drop in tank health. It would go from 100% to something like 98.xx%. Then with daily feeding (or visit) it would creep back up to 100%

My tank has been empty for two or three days. Just now I visited my tank for the first time thinking I would toss in a goldfish. I was surprised to see my tank health is still at 100%.

I decided to leave the goldfish out and check back to see what happens.

i will spread the word

It's Saturday, it's sunny, I'm heading out with a friend to enjoy the day so this will be short. (dang, maybe I meant 'sort of short'. I type fast but this still got longer than planned. smile You can find longer versions of these points by searching my posts in the public forums but here are some short versions (grin):

To my knowledge Gaia has not said any nerf is due to inflation. Depending on your interpretation the possible exception I am aware of is DJ Helsing saying they plan to nerf the dolphins to 'balance things'.

You can make a persuasive argument that inflation on Gaia is GOOD for Gaia as a company. It makes people who can afford to buy cash cards more likely to purchase with cash and drives off people who use the system but can not afford to financially help the company in any way. Harsh but true.

My personal belief is inflation is simply a handy scapegoat and Gaia is happy to let users THINK that is why they nerf a fish or booty grab. People want to believe this because the alternative - that Gaia is cold heartedly screwing over its paying customers to pave the way for more cash intake is harsh. Gaia is their warm fuzzy place. They don't want to taint that with harsh realities. A great many Gaia users are too young to have a good grasp of what goes on to run a successful corporation.

Historically though Gaia nerfs fish and or aquarium features shortly prior to introducing some great new feature they want you to purchase. I do not believe this time is an exception but I would like to think the fish strike will help them realize this tactic is building resentment.

Whether you want to believe it or not nerfing tanks and/or fish WILL help inflation. Fish prices drop first because they are less useful but over time other prices would decrease as well because folks would have less spending power. The simple reality of any economy real or pretend is the more money you pump into the system and on average each person has, the more they can afford to spend on an item before it hurts. The reverse is also true of course. So yeah, over time it would reduce inflation.

However as stated above I believe creating and then reducing inflation is just a byproduct of Gaia's intended actions. If their sole purpose was to reduce inflation they would simply stop introducing high paying fish and anything else on Gaia that has a high pay off. It is economics 101. Gaia creates high gold producing items because people will pay more real cash money for them. They drive cash card sales. Historically (at least in the history of Gaia that I know about) they sort of 'kill off' old cash products before introducing a new one.

I really think the whole inflation debate is a red herring and Gaia Interactive is quite happy to see people think they are killing off features to 'help the Gaia economy / users'. I saw one poster say Gaia is doing this nerf because they are 'acting from the heart'. I wanted to stick my finger down my throat. If somebody is really bored and has good notes it would be real interesting to see a time line of different nerfs and the release of subsequent new products.

Gaia said at Sakura-Con they would be introducing the new My Gaia page and showed us screen shots. There are some other new features coming as well. Still, I wonder if the timing of stuff this week has anything to do with being a diversionary tactic from the fish strike and to appease the masses with some new shinies.

Maybe I am reading too much into that and these were planned release dates. Still, I find it interesting that the fish strike gained momentum and shortly after that Gaia:
Restarted the easter egg hunt
Released new cash shop items
Released EI update
Announced the usual - hurry up and buy the old cash shop items that are leaving
Released the My Gaia page update.
Updated Ocean Party on Facebook

MAYBE this was the planned release date for the My Gaia page but the thing is buggy as hell and feels like it came out of the oven half baked. At the very least there can be no doubt it did not receive sufficient QA testing prior to release. The bugs are so numerous they slap you in the face.

I agree that hoarders, RIGs etc can also affect inflation. Pardon me for saying so but people's silly wants also affect inflation. People seem to forget this is all just pixels and pretend. Hoarders can hoard all they want but the price won't go up unless people actually pay that price. It is simple supply and demand. Assuming sellers really want to sell an item the LMP will naturally creep down if no one is buying.

I do not personally see myself paying millions of gold for some silly pair of slippers or scarf or what ever. I'm not poking at people who want stuff; I'm just saying it is good to remember priorities and (IMO) to punish the hoarders by moving on to some other item.

But to put it another way - just because there are other things that affect inflation on Gaia does not mean booty grab does not. Saying, "Yeah but what about 'X'" is a diversion, not a valid argument.

Probably the simplest way to look at Gaia Interactive's actions now and in the past (and what ever happens in the next few weeks) is start by thinking of them first and foremost as a FOR PROFIT corporation. Forget the warm fuzzies and the feel good Rah Rah at the conventions and online events and stuff. Just think about a group of executives and managers sitting in a conference room and deciding how they are going to bring in more revenue to pay the bills and turn a profit.

If you can see it in that light then most of their other actions make sense even if at times (fish strike - cough!) I do not agree with their choice of business practices.

If you do that just about everything else I have seen people whine about falls into place:

Releasing high gold fish even though there is inflation on Gaia.
Releasing Alpha Code items that are worth a lot.
Nerfing previously sold products before introducing new products.
Putting known bugs on back burner and instead prioritizing developer time towards new cash shop items and flagship features like zOMG
Not communicating about changes on Gaia that are undesirable to the average user.
Releasing new coding in a hurry before it is properly tested. (When is the last time you saw any new Gaia event go off without a hitch?)
Tolerating rather dubious advertising practices on their site so they can pull in the ad revenue.

You can probably add to this list but you get my idea. All of this points to a company that is desperately trying to generate enough cash inflow to stay afloat during ugly economic times. They are making hard choices and trying to minimize the backlash from their customer base.

That can be a tough act for a company like Gaia because the very product they sell is the 'warm fuzzy shiny feel good' thing. When it comes right down to it Gaia does not really provide you with anything in terms of hard product unless you bought a shirt or stuffy or something from the Gaia gear shop. The other stuff they offer - forums, instant messaging, a few games - can be had on any number of social networking sites also available for free.

I personally don't envy executives in a company like Gaia or those party balloon stores or any other company that sells a product no one really needs. During a down economy people will still buy food and gasoline and toilet paper. If they have to cut back they stop buying balloons and silly hats and pretend things made of electrons.

As I've said in many other posts. I do not fault Gaia at all for trying to turn a profit. I just feel they could phase out old items (e.g. fish) in a way that does not hurt the customers who purchased the product.

LOL! I wouldn't worry about it. I doubt anyone is going to call you a SCAB and spit on you.
(Scab is a derogatory term for workers who cross real life picket lines.)

Your current tank and sig are still accomplishing the intent of the strike.
1. Inform as many users as possible about the strike / petition.
2. Remove as many HT tanks as possible from the system to help Joe user realize that booty grab gold is coming from the expensive fish we purchase and if we stop buying them there will be a lot less booty grab to play.

Besides, I see the strike an the petition as two separate things combined into one thread for convenience.

The Petition is asking Gaia to restore our glow times or come up with some other fair minded compromise solution to address our grievances. We believe they wronged us by changing a product after we purchased it with no advance (or otherwise) notification.

The Strike is simply a tool to help draw attention to the petition. Each user is helping in their own way in as many ways as they feel comfortable with. For example some users have the strike in their sig but are unable to put their fish in the freezer without losing them because they are ghost fish. Some day Gaia will fix the ghost fish glitch but for now I can't blame them since for now the ghost and freezer glitches are a couple of the few things working in favor of the tank owners.

The stated duration of the strike is one week, then another week if Gaia does not respond. Another version suggested at 9 days to at least go through two weekends. I committed to that and actually took my fish out early. (TUE or WED I think)

If the strike is ineffective I will eventually put my dolphins back in my tanks and tolerate what ever specs they have.

If the PETITION is ineffective I will NEVER EVER PURCHASE ANOTHER GAIA CASH CARD or give them my money in any way.

I suppose deciding if the petition is effective could be a bit subjective. For me I guess it will boil down to whether I feel Gaia has started dealing fairly, openly and honestly with me about the products I purchase from them. I would also like to see some sort of compromise or compensation for the many dolphins I have already purchased and have in my tanks and inventory.

With the exception of the Gaia Gear store items Gaia's entire inventory sits on hard drives and can be changed or wiped out with a few lines of code. The users can not hold their purchases in their hands. If Gaia continues to erode the trust of their customers they will have nothing.

Some days I am pretty sure Gaia counts on it's vast majority of teenage users being too stupid to see past the "Rah! Rah! Look! A shiny!" approach to business. Heck, maybe they are even right but I've met 12 year olds on Gaia who were much smarter than that.

Another good one would be a hermit cat or cuttle fish since they're extremely low trigger and can also be obtained through the daily chance and thus are free 3nodding

I am getting comments under my tank.. All of them are positive about the strike!! Everybody keep up the good work!!

I too can wait though I will probably put my dolphins back in and restart my contests at the end of two weeks if Gaia does not act sooner. If they do not respond by then they probably will not respond to the strike itself so at that point I see no gain. In fact I see it as possibly helping Gaia drive cash sales. If a couple thousand tanks stayed empty it would encourage new tank owners to take the plunge due to limited competition for players.

If the strike does not work I will continue with phase 2 which is not purchasing any Gaia Cash. Less dollars coming in is really what will motivate Gaia. To me the strike is just a way of informing Gaia there will be less dollars coming in. I will probably also have a brief statement in my sig about why I'm not buying Gaia Cash.

compromise or compensation
That would depend. I'm just trying to be open minded to other ways Gaia could make us feel valued as customers instead of saying, "It's my way or the highway".

I've seen various workable possibilities tossed around in conversations.

Increase the (official) life span of the fish to compensate for needing longer to get ROI. (some day freezer glitch and ghost fish glitch will be fixed.)

Adjust the percentages of gold form booty grab so the tank owners get more per glow so they can recoup their costs while still decreasing the total amount off gold introduced into the system.

Give Gaians a pro-rated buy-back option in either gold or Gaia cash so they can spend the money on something else. (Not my favorite option but better than nothing.)

Do some combination of adjusting glow frequency, fish life span and tank gold percentages to have the net effect of allowing tank owners to earn the amount of gold they reasonably expected to earn when they purchased the product.

I would certainly be content with going back to 'same as it ever was' with my dolphins but I am trying to be open minded about accepting alternative solutions.

Any of these solutions should include the promise that FUTURE changes like this are CLEARLY communicated IN ADVANCE. I still like the idea of don't change the product once purchased - just stop selling it when you want them to die off.

Unfortunately some of the solutions being suggested are based on the premise Gaia is acting as they are for the purpose of adjusting inflation.

My own long term idea of 'just stop selling watermeats or dolphins' is likely not appealing to Gaia because they would have to wait much longer before being able to introduce each new fish and have a lot of people buy it. The net effect of their current actions is they have sold a lot of product the customers are not allowed to return. The net effect of my way would mean they would sell a lot less product. People would only purchase what they planned to use before the next fish was likely to come out.

I do agree inflation is a red herring as it relates to Gaia's motivation for fish nerfs. As I've stated before I also believe it appeals to Gaia as a company because it helps push cash sales. Never the less a lot of folks are talking about inflation. To that end I created my own suggestion to Gaia for a gold sink. You can read about it here.