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My Thoughts on Gaia (now)... |
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Everything I write is completely my opinion on things, so if we don't meet eye-to-eye on this topic: I'm sorry, but I can't appease everyone. This is my two cents on the current scenario as of late...
So I'll be honest: I took a hiatus for couple years a little after I started on '09 because high school and college got tangled into my life. I get that I might not be the best representative to speak on what the current situation of this site's conundrum, but I know that this gold inflation issue has been around for a while now. As I've said before in a previous work log, if this were the snapshot of the world economic standpoint, we would be in the midst of a second Great Depression (that time when a loaf of bread in Germany would cost millions of Marks because everyone blamed the Germans for essentially everything after WWI?), but let's back up a bit because even though I'm seeing a lot of that happening, what I see is what happened to the American Stock Market crash in 1929.
For a little history for those who don't remember their US history, or those who are not as familiar, America was in a great period of the "Feel Good Times" where there was an abundance of wealth and prosperity (think The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald here). This is where the introduction of credit came in, so people would spend, spend, and spend on credit they don't even have in their bank accounts and then most of these people would just push them off until they have this money. Well, the US government decided it was a great idea to print A LOT of money and as a result, a lot of notes was entered into the circulation of the American economy...except that this caused a great depreciation in what-was-silver-backed-money and caused the stock market to crash in 1929, leading the world in shambles (because America was such a great trading power at the time). So how is this related to Gaia's history?
Well, it was either mid-to-late 2010 when I noticed these items were constantly given out if you did cash offers, which was cool, but because there was so much of it...the value depreciated (which is why now you need to do 100GC and 1 per account). However, the sell back mechanism allowed users to see these overabundant items for a higher price than it was in the marketplace: so there was a whole lot of Gold entering the system. Now, I know this is virtual currency but what happens here is not immune to what happens in reality and I noticed the next day: the value of that item dropped significantly and now gold is...well, worthless.
Now, another factor that played into this sudden depreciation was zOMG! and Booty Grab (which I have to say, I'm guilty playing my fair share of zOMG!). These methods of generating large sums of gold were basically abused as easy ways of getting gold, but I don't blame anyone: at this moment, the cost of a single gold has plummeted and the items of the marketplace skyrocketed to compensate. In order to reach that value, people generate a lot of gold to reach that gold, which causes a plummet in gold value and increases the price of the item: rinse, wash, repeat. So you see it's essentially a vigorous cycle that we, as users, have dug ourselves into.
Obviously, the higher ups in Gaia has seen this and are trying to help ease this inflation...in methods I would call...rather questionable. First off, they took out zOMG! which, as much as it caused a lot of generation of gold, lost a whole lot of a community that was rather close knit and excited. I made a lot of friends on Gaia through that, forcing me to talk to others and find connections I never thought was possible in a forum (since I'm not much of a forum user). But I like to mention that before I left for a couple years, the items were still rather...reasonable (what, like 999,999,999 gold for an Angelic Halo?). I come back around Easter and it's suddenly over 1 trillion...WHAT? While we're on this topic of gold generation, what's up with taking down zOMG! but not Booty Grab when they mentioned that this was another form of racking up gold (thus more to depreciate the value). I'm not against Booty Grab, but it's kind of unfair to take down one, but keep the other as such (if anything, the script for Booty Grab might need a fine tune up).
And the biggest thing I've seen since returning: OH MY LORDY, THE ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR CASH ITEMS AND GAIA CASH DISCOUNTS. I get it: you're trying to make a profit out of us to keep yourself running and having virtual transactions on an online website is not weird...running a website is not cheap, especially if you're housing over millions of data...BUT AREN'T YOU JUST MAKING THIS WORSE?
Think about it: You're adding more items into the marketplace and trying to find ways to have people use this gold to help this inflation issue (WHICH IS AWESOME). You're also increasing advertisements for users to use money for both being able to run this site and have perks on alleviating pressure in gold generation (WHICH IS GOOD)...but when you're having literally 7 announcements on GC discounts and (once rare) item recolors and Cash Shop items on average EACH DAY, in the wise words of my pre-health advisor: "You make yourself look a little too desperate for attention." I feel like your heart is in the right place, it's just not rubbing in the right direction for a lot of people, especially to younger audiences as young as 13 (clearly asking their parents for money for the cooler items in CS), college students as myself (who easily placed $100,000+ for 4 years in a degree and will be IN DEBT FOR YEARS TO COME) and even adults in the workforce (who worry about mortgages, taxes, and monthly bills, some of whom just skate by BARELY EACH MONTH). To be blasted with these announcements every day is kind of a low blow, and while you have offers to give us GC through sponsorships...yeah: half of them don't work (trust me, I've tried), misleading (because the description is not what it claims to be) or ask for personal information that people are just NOT COMFORTABLE IN GIVING (like really...? I don't put my credit card number anywhere).
Also, what's up with all these Cash Chance Items that can have a chance to win 1 TRILLION GOLD??? I feel like not only is adding MORE GOLD IN A DYING ECONOMY, but also exploiting users for their hard earned money. Adjusting the Daily Chance so that the output of gold is at most 1,500,000,000 Gold??? Even posting on forums and voting on polls have pushed itself into the 30,000+ range... And what: gold sinks that happen like...every couple of months? (granted, Loyal's Bazaar is a good idea since it is the gold shop that gets updated REGULARLY at high prices). But no matter how many items and how high the prices are, I don't think that will ever compensate for the trillions of trillions of trillions of gold being dumped in by all these Gaia Cash RGGs in between. I believe it's counterintuitive, but hey: I'm no economic analyst. I'm just a big dumdum with a university degree in understanding how human work and how we think.
And you know what? I feel as if the economy is in a sink in which no matter what Gaia does...it will never be able to pull itself out of it. At least, not at this rate. There is no one fix-it-all solution, but being money-obsessed, multi-trillion gold generating, recolor-item pumping swines isn't the answer either... If anything, focus more on Gold Sinks, focus on the Gaia Gold shops and focus on putting the heinous amounts out of the system by making users by gold items equivalent to what they pay...create a job system if you have to! Contrary to the initial GC advertising/bulk-up GC items theory, it doesn't look like it's working: if anything, the inflation has got worse in the course of 3 years. It was probably a good temporary fix a couple years ago, but it's not working anymore. Just because you're adding more items as GC items and hope that more gold trading transactions will happen, that's just illogical from the start: trading will only change the amounts of gold from one user to the other. It's not going to magically disappear from the overall system itself and heal this crisis.
A closing footnote: Most of the original users of '03 have probably moved on, doing actual jobs and tending for families of their own. Most of the newcomers will probably be shocked to find that it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to make it through this economy without some form of abusing the Marketplace and haggling Dumpster Drive for Philosopher's Cache, PRAYING it will produce a bag that will have items that are actually WORTH SOMETHING to sell (and even doing the research to understand these trends is a skill in itself). Most of the people who were here in the Golden Ages of Gaia to now the Great Depression feel rather...dissatisified upon returning. It's nothing like it used to be: items that can be obtained by actual hard work, an interesting lore to follow, and most importantly, fun. It has lost its spark, and newcomers will never understand what it was like then.
tl;dr: If Gaia doesn't figure out a way to alleviate the Great Depression in a logical and effective way without pissing off the vast majority of the users, people will eventually stop coming and everything will be lost. We have the historical evidence to prove it, so what will you do now?
 xx_Rose Bud1284_xx · Tue May 12, 2015 @ 08:07am · 0 Comments |
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