The Money Situation

[Deim]

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This thread is to detail theories on why gaia has become so hungry for money, how much money gaia potentially makes, and why we think things are going the way they are.


Let me start off by saying this; I am an 06 users, I have been around since before the cash shop opened up, and I have been around to see some of the changes the site has made since then. I was one of the people that used to donate hundreds of dollars a month to gaia, back between 08-10 I had a stack of cash cards on my computer desk over 2 inches thick, I would donate about 1/3rd of my pay check every week to gaia via either cash cards or mobile payments. If I had to make a guess, I've probably donated around 1000+ to gaia in my time here. For the longest time like I said I would donate every week, eventually however my income started to become less disposable and overtime I donated less and less until I pretty much had to stop all together. It wasn't until last year that I started donating again, never much, maybe 10-20 a month and occasionally as much as 40, but never anywhere near as much as I used to. After seeing the state gaia is in now, I am honestly ashamed to admit how much I donated. I loved gaia, and in a way I still do, but with the way things are now, I'm just utterly disappointed in not only gaia, but myself.




Alright now that you know a little about me, I'd like to talk about Gaia's money situation.

I've had the discussion of gaia's income with people over and over again, and no matter how you cut it, there is just no way gaia could need money as bad as they are acting like they do.

Let's do some basic math. Gaia has 27,208,893 registered users as of the time I am posting this, now at any given time there is usually about 20k people online. According to this site gaia gets around 200k views each month from just the US, that doesn't include anyone from Canada, UK, or any where else in the world but the US.

Now lets say just the Americans on the site donate money and we'll say every one of those people donates 10 dollars, this is a very modest number considering how many people donate 50+ every month, that would mean gaia nets in 2mil a month, or 24mil in a year. Now according to Wikipedia gaia as 90-95 workers, we'll say gaia pays all of it's workers very well and each one takes home 100k a year, that would make 9.5mil that gaia pays out to it's employees leaving them with 14.5 mil. Alright now lets say gaia has spends 4.5mil on general costs such as building costs, electrical costs, general repairs, software upgrades, ect, that still leaves them with 10mil in pure profit in a year. Now the numbers pretty much speak for themselves, keep in mind now that this doesn't count anyone outside of the US, so that number could be exponentially higher.

Now put that into perspective, this is how much gaia is potentially making right now, while we are in the decline of the site, imagine how much they could possibly have made back when I was donating a lot, or when they were at their peak, or imagine how much more they could be potentially making with the ridiculous amount of marketing they are doing.

I'm going to be blunt and honest when I say this, unless gaia is just throwing it's money out the window, using it as toilet paper, shredding it, or feeding the homeless, there is no way anyone can convince me that they are pulling in 10 million dollars and are still hurting for money.

The only logical reason for gaia to push more cash options on people is because;
A. They are going under and they need the money.
B. Someone is getting really greedy and needs a 5th mansion to live in.
C. They are planning on closing the site and are simply milking it for everything it's worth before the inevitable crash.

Now ruling out A because of the money situation I pointed out earlier, that only leaves two options, neither of which are very good, so I want to know what you guys think.

Do you think gaia is running itself into the ground intentionally?
How much money do you think gaia pulls in each month? (My math aside)
Do you think they are planning on shutting down after milking people for that last drop?
How would you respond if an announcement was made saying they planned to shut down?
What are some of your theories, and how do you feel about mine?

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[Madame Xiva]

Thank you for this post, and thank you for sharing your insight and views.

I, like yourself, have been on Gaia for years though I've never donated, even when donations were truly donations.

I firmly believe that Gaia is milking those that are still naive enough to spend money on this site to BUY things (no longer a "donation," mind you) in an effort to fund Gaia's new "sister site."

For a time, I thought Gaia was just running itself into the ground. Then I thought they might just be cashing out before we all got the announcement saying "Thank you for your loyalty. Now kiss our asses."

But I think that Gaia Interactive is just milking the cash cows that seem oblivious to anything other than having expensive pixels here in an effort to fund this new site.

The logic of that, however, is lost on me. How could a business (ANY business) think that a good idea to start a new site is to take advantage of members on the current site (Gaia); alienate the longtime members and loyal users of that site; disregard their opinions and patronize them with nonsense about "keeping the lights on" and then expect US, the very users that are left feeling like Gaia has spit in our little virtual avi faces, to join this new site like a bunch of lemmings?

I don't even recognize the Gaia I once knew, and I certainly wouldn't follow any future venture of Gaia Interactive to another site or anywhere else. This ride off the side of a steep cliff was more than enough, thank you.  

[Sash0]

I think they are trying to profit from us from what Ive heard, there is a thread here showing evidence or something which made me annoyed at gaia for a few days  

[Deim]

Madame Xiva

Thank you for this post, and thank you for sharing your insight and views.

I, like yourself, have been on Gaia for years though I've never donated, even when donations were truly donations.

I firmly believe that Gaia is milking those that are still naive enough to spend money on this site to BUY things (no longer a "donation," mind you) in an effort to fund Gaia's new "sister site."

For a time, I thought Gaia was just running itself into the ground. Then I thought they might just be cashing out before we all got the announcement saying "Thank you for your loyalty. Now kiss our asses."

But I think that Gaia Interactive is just milking the cash cows that seem oblivious to anything other than having expensive pixels here in an effort to fund this new site.

The logic of that, however, is lost on me. How could a business (ANY business) think that a good idea to start a new site is to take advantage of members on the current site (Gaia); alienate the longtime members and loyal users of that site; disregard their opinions and patronize them with nonsense about "keeping the lights on" and then expect US, the very users that are left feeling like Gaia has spit in our little virtual avi faces, to join this new site like a bunch of lemmings?

I don't even recognize the Gaia I once knew, and I certainly wouldn't follow any future venture of Gaia Interactive to another site or anywhere else. This ride off the side of a steep cliff was more than enough, thank you.

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I didn't even consider the sister site, since I've heard so little about it, I've honestly forgotten it exists, and you know, if I were to be completely honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it never comes to pass. With gaia basically abandoning all of its actually fun games for new 3rd party games, and then changing things about the site despite user protest, I just don't see a sister site of their ever even getting off the ground if they even start it like they have been claiming.

I'd also like to address the "contractual obligations" they had to center the site. Let me just get this straight, Gaia, who has been doing sponsorships for years, is suddenly just now getting some contract with someone who is forcing them to center the site against the will of the users? Nevermind the fact that they wont even tell us who they are contracted with, and why they would want the site centered in the first place, by why would they even consider doing something like that with someone in the first place if what the people wanted them to do was something so many people were against? I mean are they hoping that whatever the sponsorship is will outweigh the fact that we have to deal with centering anytime we come to the site? Their sponsorship "events" if you can even call them that, last around a month tops, the site has been centered for what a week, two weeks now, and no new sponsorship event. I'm calling BS. Even if they were crazy enough to take a contract with someone and do something the users didn't want, why haven't they at least said, yes this is what we plan to do, why are they leaving us in the dark, and why has there been such a gap so far between the sponsorship event and the centering?

If they aren't doing an event, and are simply getting some sort of funding from these people to center the site, that only further proves how little they care about us and our opinions and how more money centered this site is becoming.

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[Madame Xiva]

Shoopuffs

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I didn't even consider the sister site, since I've heard so little about it, I've honestly forgotten it exists, and you know, if I were to be completely honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it never comes to pass. With gaia basically abandoning all of its actually fun games for new 3rd party games, and then changing things about the site despite user protest, I just don't see a sister site of their ever even getting off the ground if they even start it like they have been claiming.

I'd also like to address the "contractual obligations" they had to center the site. Let me just get this straight, Gaia, who has been doing sponsorships for years, is suddenly just now getting some contract with someone who is forcing them to center the site against the will of the users? Nevermind the fact that they wont even tell us who they are contracted with, and why they would want the site centered in the first place, by why would they even consider doing something like that with someone in the first place if what the people wanted them to do was something so many people were against? I mean are they hoping that whatever the sponsorship is will outweigh the fact that we have to deal with centering anytime we come to the site? Their sponsorship "events" if you can even call them that, last around a month tops, the site has been centered for what a week, two weeks now, and no new sponsorship event. I'm calling BS. Even if they were crazy enough to take a contract with someone and do something the users didn't want, why haven't they at least said, yes this is what we plan to do, why are they leaving us in the dark, and why has there been such a gap so far between the sponsorship event and the centering?

If they aren't doing an event, and are simply getting some sort of funding from these people to center the site, that only further proves how little they care about us and our opinions and how more money centered this site is becoming.

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I see what your mean, but I really do believe that there is a sister site, as it's been acknowledge by several Gaia admin and staff. Sure, they might be outright lying, but even with Gaia being the way it is now, they try to at least choose their words carefully when covering a lie. That would be pretty difficult to do with all that's been put out into the Gaian public about this new site. I believe that GC buyers are just funding it.

As for the site centering, I think that "contractual" nonsense had to do little with contracts and a LOT to do with pop-up ads. The site hadn't been centered for two minutes before the first pop-up appeared. Maybe there's a third-party programming contract for those somehow, which only further undermines staff statements about needing the money for this site to grow staff; develop and improve projects; etc. The contract might have also been with whomever is putting together these PlayPen Pay-to-Win games. Regardless of the venture, I have little to ZERO confidence that a dime of it is put back into Gaiaonline. Gaia Interactive, yes. But not anything for us. As you so aptly noted, Gaia has shown how little regard they have for anything we have to say. Not even those that are "keeping the lights on" by throwing money at Gaia Interactive for GC and pixels for a site that I don't think will be around a lot longer.  

[Wilson-Kun]

But all these new items do seem rather tempting gonk I've probably spent like less than 50 the whole 4 years i've been on. And what's all this talk about a sister site??  

[Starshine]

The reason they are needing money is simple, they are making a 18+ avatar site, and they need to fund it somehow.

A whole new site with it's own artists, admins, and developers, that's what they are trying to make us pay for.