Welcome to Gaia! ::

Nice thing, the cash shop right?

WRONG.

It's creating a bigger barrier between people that pay money, (real money) and people that don't. Its outrages. What's wrong with making some of those items store items? Why not give people something nice without making them pay for it? Really - what's all this on "to complex to be store items, or to simple to be MC's?" Think about it, why does it matter? The first collectibles were simpler than our store items. The wallet is like a pixel. lol

Another problem.

The goods from the cash shop sell for over 50K in the marketplace. 50k! Now think of all the people that purchase these items and than sell them. I don't know about you, but back in my day we had to WORK for our gold.

So what?

I think we see the REAL reason they put the tax in. To try to balance out the massive amounts of gold coming into the system. Kayak, Cash Shops, etc.

Our Conclusion

The admins have made a huge mistake. Gaia has stayed far from what it was when it began, and negative aspects of this change have become more and more prominent. I think Gaia should have stopped making games and features in '06. It sounds...silly, but it's true. They can't expect to continue this expansion unless they fix what needs to be fixed, although they have been doing a good job of fixing glitches as they come up.

So the question is this: Are all these money making methods necessary?

And it's impossible to answer, unless Gaia presented us with some kind of financial data, (accurate financial data for that).
It all ties into - are the sponsorships enough? Are MC's enough? Perhaps some features, (cars, VJ) need to be removed?

I feel that Gaia is declining as a business, by become more and more based off money and smooth yet crooked talk. The larger the site grows, the worse it seems to become for users. Elitists and noobs alike continue to pester us, and the admins ignore this.

I've noticed this pattern with lots of businesses, the larger they grow, the worse it is for the average consumer, ('cept maybe ATT, they have excellent service). This pattern is also noticeable with countries.

So perhaps what we need to see is - bigger isn't better.

I agree with you, I think Gaia is becoming a typical growing company. Just wanting the money and using it's site for that while not caring about it's members, the cash shop is certainly proof of this, awarding people who go to the nearest target to buy a Gaia Cash Card to buy what frankly are items that SHOULD be monthly collectables or store items.

I mean when do we have store items released? Once every 2 to 3 months? And they're crap frankly, while although the Cash Shop items aren't fantastic they're better than the store items yet only a select few people can access the Gaia Cash store to buy the items.

I for one can't. Why? Because I'm not in America, which is something Gaia needs to SERIOUSLY work on, they focus everything upon America. Yes it is the home of their company, but Gaiaonline isn't an American ONLY site. I've met people on Gaia from:
UK
Australia
Europe
Canada
Brazil
And on the whole they seem to feel the same about the fairness of Gaia's offers, I mean sure you could mail order or use paypal.
But seriously. The age range on gaia is what?
12 - 16?
On a majority scale, I realize that there are more gaians who are older than this, but I'd say that age range is the rough normality of Gaians. So how many of them are going to have paypal?

If your not an American Gaian in statistical terms your fecked...

I mean I admit to doing what you said and buying items on the market place (evo items) and selling them on at a higher price when they're evolved (I say higher, I mean I buy it when it's cheap wait for it to get close to final evolution then sell it).

The fact is at the end of the day, Gaia is expanding and it's loyal Gaian's who have been members from the start or left for a reason or another, BUT came back. Or even n00bs (as much as I hate to admit it ¬¬) we're all being treated like pawns in Gaia's expansion which is despicable.

I agree they need to get rid of some of their features I think, it would help a lot possibly.
OH! And one thing they should get rid of immediately is
MTV ****ING HILLS!

SELL OUTS!