Gaia OnlineReviews 114

The site has taken a down turn in the last 9-10 months. The thoughtless admin policies and often invasive marketing techniques have demoralized an already unhappy community, and destroyed much of the basis for "game play" for a lot of people. The complex virtual economy, which used to be one of the most fun aspects of the site was intentionally ruined by the administration, the item quality and diversity has diminished significantly and prominent features that need updates are ignored because they cannot be monetized.

Though the staff assures the users that they value feedback, they rarely actually listen to the very active site feedback forum. When issues arise, the staff who still bother posting in the forums, usually side step the issue and attempt to play dumb without ever actually addressing the problem at hand.

In short, the site is a hot mess and the community has become frustrated and discouraged, and has lost much of what used to make it a fun place to be a part of.

I joined the site back on early '06, but I wasn't really active until October of 2009. That month and year is when the users held a small event called "OcTrollBer" where the point was to dress your avatar up as a mythological troll, it was tons of fun and I made many friends. This having been five years ago I can say that I loved my experience with Gaiaonline and I love the friends I made however, gaiaonline's time has passed, it is now owned by someone who does not care about the community, only about how much money he can squeeze out of us. Ignoring that the site is targeted towards children as young as 13 years old they push out item after item after item that is only sold in the cash shop for upwards of $25, they've even sold items for $100-$1000. As far as I'm concerned, this site - while once it was good, fun, and an enjoyable place to be - is now nothing but a scam. Do something they don't like? Doesn't matter if you spent $100 or more on the site, you're permanently banned. Didn't do anything at all? Guess what, doesn't matter, they can ban you anyway.

There are members of the site participating in a "walk-out" where they will not log in for two weeks to show their displeasure with how the site is. Gaiaonline, instead of acknowledging this as a protest, is banning those aligned with the walk out under the banner of it being "site harassment".

Five years ago, I would have recommended this site to everyone. Now? I'd shoot myself in the foot before I recommended this site to my worst enemy.

I have been a member of gaia since July of 2005. This website originally was a great place to make friends and meet people with similar interests, it was full of laughs and it literally had everything and anything for every kind of person out there.

Now, it's June 2014 and it's filled with greedy staff and greedy members and I am not kidding when I say that the entire website has completely been taken over by money. A few years ago, gaia introduced something called Gaia Cash where users can pay real money to get pixelated currency and buy items for their avatars.

Inflation started to become a problem, and originally average users had hundreds of thousands of gold and sometimes millions... now, almost everyone has billions of gold and there is absolutely no control over the economy on the website. The entire purpose is to have an avatar and dress it up. That's the only thing gaia has making it stand out from any other internet forum and they can't even control that.

If you absolutely love reading over site announcements, I'd recommend signing up. Gaia used to advertise their deals a few times a week, but now over ten messages are sent out daily telling you about cash offers and begging you to put $10, $20 and even up to $500 on pixels. If that's not enough, if you have issues purchasing gaia cash or have issues with items, it takes months for staff to respond to you.

I have been complaining openly to staff, and asking for changes. I was recently banned because I made a thread pointing out how terrible staff do their jobs and how what once was a beloved website has now turned to a complete pile of garbage.

Want my advice? Stay the hell away from gaiaonline. You're better off joining an up and coming forum or joining a community that actually listens to its users. I once had a friends list that was maxed out on gaia. Now, it's a graveyard and everyone has quit and left for better things. Don't get mixed up with gaia. It's not worth your time.

Absolutely terrible website. Use to have a great time there, but lately their virtual marketplace has been inflating like crazy, so now the only way to get the latest and greatest items to to pay up your own money in their "cash shop". Ticket system is terrible, I've tried e-mailing through *******@gaia.com with absolutely no response at all. Current administration team and CEO do not appear to be running the website with the interest of keeping it going long term. STAY AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE!

Good site with fun games to play and lots of nice people to meet. I also like the pixel art and the regular art from the artist & members. The only bad things is the inflation, customer support(filing tickets takes forever), and games not being updated or being worked on. Tip for noobies crying about inflation: make some mules(other accounts) and dumpster dive every 4 minutes. People are so rich that their dumping items worth millions. If you don't like the item sell it and buy the items you like. Also stop complaining about them being greedy. Gaia needs money to keep the site running and to pay their employees. I wish Playdom had sales like this, but they didn't and closed most of their games in less than a month.

This used to be a fun site to go on. Recently, things have changed dramatically. ZOMG, which used to be a game my friends and I played regularly, was forgotten and left an unfinished wasteland. Gaia has become too large. They used to offer cool items if you gave them a "donation" now, they simply demand cash. It's not worth getting involved in and will only go down from here. I feel they are currently doing what they can to make a quick dollar before shutting the whole operation down. Meaning, what was originally a fun, safe environment for the geek community, is now a scam.

Gaia Online is not a good site, nor a good business. Their bottom line in earning money is more important than their users, and while they do little things to try to improve that, not much changes.

New users: expect to have to pay for nice items, the questing system for earning gold in the marketplace is pointless because of gold generators, and the log-in page is incredibly misleading because zOMG! Is dead and the bare minimum is set for pretty much all the free features.

This is a disgrace. The MP here is so royally destroyed that unless you buy something that gives MORE gold into the economy, you can't afford anything. Not only that, but they simply refuse to give out gold sinks to take some of it out, which users have been requesting and throwing out brilliant ideas for now for months. And they have all gone IGNORED.

Item Example: Gogh Reed at it's cheapest part was 800k in 2013. In 2014, it is now 20 MILLION gold.

When I was hacked and I lost everything, I came back to an empty account and only a mil left on it, in which I was going to buy a few things back. It's now so far in the red I'll never see it all. Forget this site and supporting it's madhouse business handlings and supporting the way they handle and treat their artists, who they fire damn near twice a year. It was a nice site for fun and friends for years, and I used to love walking around towns and talking to old friends.

Now it's just another corporate pocket-grubber.

I've been a member since 2004. Besides a hiatus or two in 2006, I came back to find the website thriving in 2007. Evolving items were making it's way in. The Cash shop was respected and small. The forums buzzed with many topics, and little negative feedback. Admins and mods were active and helpful... And now skip to 2014. The site has turned into pay for premium. Gold has lost value, and any new user will have to spend money in order to get items. I would recommend any one to stay away from the website. There are far better forum sites and mmos that respect the user base, and inform them, more than this website. Do not join unless you want to be treated as a wallet and fail to strive in a fallen economy.

I've been on Gaia Online for a little over 10 years now. I used to love the site. And when I could I would give the site my money. Those who ran the site respected and cared about the site and it's users. Those who ran the site would take the time and listen to the user's want and needs. And best of all it was free to use. People could earn gold (virtual currency) without having to use real money. With enough hard work people could get any item they wanted.

But now it's all about real life money. With the constant push of cash items, gold generator releases, lack of respect, lack of communication and broken promises it's gone down hill.

Thanks to the constraint release of gold generators have made it next to impossible to buy anything from the marketplace. Those who can't use real life money have been left behind. They can't buy anything because inflation has gotten so high that it's impossible to earn enough gold.

There used to be a weekly thread where users could talk to the Admins of the site. Ask questions, get information or just talk and get to know the better. But now that has been replaced by a monthly blog. One that users cannot reply to. People have asked Gaia to try and fix the inflation problem they created with the release of gold generators and all they've done is release another gold generator.

Users on Gaia today feel mistreated and ignored. To us it feels like the current Gaia Online only sees it's users as cash cows and not people. As much as I hate to say it, it would be best to just stay away from Gaia Online.

Like many of the others, I was a part of the site for about 8 years. The staff used to be caring and really considerate of all of its members. It used to create new games, ideas, and items for the community. They would host holiday events every year and create monthly items you could get for contributing to the company. As of the new company takeover the site has turned into some greedy money hungry jerks. They create items you have to pay 50 dollars for which you could keep or sell in the marketplace, The broke promises to the community that they had created in the early years and created a false inflation in the marketplace where you'd need to spend real money to get anywhere in the game.

HANDS DOWN, this game has gone from one of the top games online to very close to the bottom.

After several years of faithful membership I have to face the facts. This site is a hellhole. The staff doesn't care at all about the users other than as wallets and seem to put unending effort into smashing the on-site virtual currency into irreparable pieces until users can only make purchases with hard cash, as the inflation is constantly fed.

Being an active user on this site is extremely stressful as the staff is constantly pushing one bad decision after the other while none of the staff member make any effort to communicate with user other that through public announcements. After the last staff member to communicate with users left the company by his own will, the site feedback forum has been left entirely for user to run as they like as no member of staff posts there any more.

Only visit the site if you really desire to be angry and frustrated with everything you experience.

I am a long time user of this website service, since 2004, and while I have been with this website for, 7 of those years, it is unfortunate for me to say that this website is not good for kids, or people with addictive personalities. Just the other day Gaia released a "dice" game casino style that for $, allowed users to gamble and win gold or items; if a user won gold then they had a choice of risking half the amount to "roll" the dice again and either win or lose more gold. This is NOT an appropriate website for younger teens below the age of 16. It has blatantly enabled and celebrated gaming addiction behavior since the tail-end quarter of 2013. The website seems like it's on its last legs and it seems like Gaia's investors are cashing out while they can by milking their users, since the website has seen little growth during the past 2 years. While the interface of the website tries to appeal to children and young teens, make no mistake - it is ripe with gaming and gambling addiction-enabling behavior, none of which are good, and both of which contribute to mental health issues like addiction and depression. If you speak to their users who use cash on the website, a lot confess to being addicted to Gaia's Random Item Generators. This website no longer promotes or produces anything of value to society after it switched hands in 2013. The worst part is that the company is not at all apologetic for their unscrupulous behavior and their morally questionable business practices (engaging in false advertising, cherry picking arguments with their users, making and breaking promises, stealing clothes concepts for their virtual goods from outside sources without crediting or compensating these sources, and a plethora of other issues).