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The recent quest, which advertises the Tsubasa DVD, caused alot of trouble in the forums as only gaians from the US, UK, Canada and Australia can officially do it (due to legality issues).

Of course, everyone can start the quest by clicking on the links given by tektek or simply buy the quest item from the market, but what do you think about this critical conflict between admins, sponsor and the members of Gaia? Is it right to advertise for a product on Gaia when not every member can be involved into it? Is Gaia selling its freedom? Are the admins going off their original road, where everyone from all over the world has the same chances?

Let's collect some opinions. 3nodding

In the same vein that Gaia cannot display films not within the public domain, Funimation cannot sanction or allow for the participation in the Tsubasa quest to everybody.

I think what it came down to was licenses and the legal issues similar to those ones that led to Gaia re-doing their TOS to disallow minors under the age of 13 to even be on the site in the first place. Funimation only owned the license to Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia, and while Gaia is a worldwide site, most places are nowadays that exist on the Internet. Conversely however, Gaia HQ is based in Milpitas, California, and thus has to abide by the federal laws within that.

In being given a sum of money from a sponsor investing in the site, it actually ties into why Gaians wanted a keyblade or some other thing from an anime or a video game, but could never get it unless Gaia made a "knockoff" version that was similar, but not the same. It's the copyright issues as well as legalese that all corporations engage in to keep their property as their own.

In some ways, it could be seen as a marketing ploy as well. What makes users more adamant to do something rather than take it? Finding workarounds to get the item anyway despite restrictions to engage in the site more and this leads to more exposure for the series as a whole (speaking of which, Cel, did you want second season? I can mail those to you).

I've met Lanzer, Ling, VO, L0cke, Jakobo, kaia9, DARKNRGY, and so many other devs in real life. They love this site as much as its users, but with the effort to keep the site free for us to use, they have to support other sponsors who will impose such restrictions. The reasons for The Last Mimzy and now the new promotion Gracie not having such restrictions is the inherent fact that those will be broadcast worldwide and that its production studio holds the rights to it specifically for worldwide distribution.

I personally don't think that Gaia's losing its focus or its freedom, but in a world where they are trying to balance freedom for the users and keeping the site up and running, I think it's a more reasonable solution to have to accept restricted distribution rather than taking the site down for lack of funding.

Well put indeed.
And that is why we call Aquafire "The Diplomat"
biggrin

I wonder what this leads to.
When I started this thread back in May, such advertising quests, cinema movies and peak previews were pretty new and like an exception or kinda like a mini event.

Today, Magic reached Gaia aswell and I realized that I'm no longer surprised like I originally used to be in such cases...This is indeed scary, as this shows me that I'm seeing Gaia with other eyes than at the end of 2006.

You know when Gaia started back in 2003? Gaia originally was meant to be a big database of links in the first place. Some time and effort later, Gaia left this linklist behind and completely focused their way on the community and roleplay aspect.

Now, Gaia is going back to the roots and does even more intensive advertising for outstanding products and projects than Gaia did with its linklist.
I'm not complaining or anything, I now see the point behind the whole thing and can live with it pretty well.

It's just that Gaia slightly changes its image one more time, which is another chapter in Gaia's history. I really wonder what Gaia will be like when the Battle System arrives, thus even more costs will have to be handled.

I think it's time for a new Gaia layout, so people can see that Gaia has reached a new level.

Oooooh! wink

I saw one of the pictures from Otakon? and it does loot pretty neat.