Gaia OnlineReviews 114

Now, let me tell you a little story--

When I was around 11 (I'm 19 now) I would pay the site for cool items to impress all of my friends with. I had a lot of cool stuff, in fact, if I had those items today I could sell it on the site for a lot of (on site) money. Problem is, I, like many other users, was hacked and stolen from. I had nothing left, had to go through a lot of hoops to get my account back, and then filed a report to get my stuff back.

THEY. NEVER. RESPONDED.

You couldn't give a kid the satisfaction of getting her VIRTUAL items back? Seriously? What a bunch of slimy, greedy, scammers.
I had forgiven them for it and tried to sign in into a new account so I could sell my art on the site, but then I was put back into the reality that Gaia Online is a JOKE.

Literally ONE day after sign in I had someone try to hack into my account from San Jose. Now, this isn't my personal email account because I knew that Gaia had really bad security problems so it's not too bad, but they could still hack into my other accounts.

ANOTHER problem I have with this site is the absolute lack of customer service. All you can do to report a problem is to send a specific ticket. A TICKET! Does this site have human minds functioning behind it? Or a bunch of heartless robots? I needed to complain to gaia, yet again, to have the chance of getting my old items back, but they don't even have legit customer service. Why? Because they're a bunch of greedy weasels, waiting to prey on kids who, out of ignorance for the dangers of the internet, buy items with their own money only to experience gaia scamming them out of their trust for the site.

Seriously gaia, you need to be put down.

As a member of Gaia since 2004 I have been a loyal Gaian even during the 3 years span where the site took a temporary turn for the worst. Recently, the site founders have usurped the position of management, as the previous responsible for the disaster has been removed. All Gaians are joyus at this moment as they plan to make responsible changes to correct any issues and concerns that Gaians previously had. This site will soon again be safe and fun for users of all ages. There runs the possibility of seeing zOMG back in action, time will tell if it is possible. Future Gaians, current Gaians, past Gaians, look forward to a wonderful experience on this site that I have called home for the past 13 years!

Would give it negative stars if possible. I tried going back to visit old friends. I'm not sure why. For some reason, my account was deactivated... due to time away, or hacking attempts or some such. (because I changed my password, due to not remembering the old one?) I'm not sure. I think got stuck into this quantum loop of "Please report a ticket" leading to a "Please log in" pages... it kept going back and forth between them. There is no resolution. I suspect truly diabolical minds indeed.

A second account was deactivated due to being away... and asks that I complete a captcha that doesn't pop up.

Honestly... crap crap crap. Not sure why I was wandering back anyway.

I finally got completely disgusted and left. This site has a loyal following of thousands of users who visit Gaia to hang out with their friends, play games, buy and sell in the marketplace and post in the forums. The founders and previous management who ran the site seemed to focus on making things more fun and building new games and features to attract users. They also sold cash shop items for a few dollars for people who wanted to support the site, but that was not their main priority. Their main priority was making Gaia a fun place to hang out on the Internet.

All that's gone down the drain. The new management who took over earlier this year is just taking advantage of this site and milking the users for everything they're worth, including selling rare items for HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS. And many of the buyers are teens who don't know any better than to throw their money around on worthless pixels. They've fired most of the competent Devs and many of the artists and are down to a bare-bones crew that just churns out new cash items and does little or nothing to maintain the site. Anything they work on has to "pay for itself." There are no standards anymore. Anything and everything is for sale, including collectible items that were never supposed to be released again. The new management is also destroying the economy by releasing gold generators that are causing hyper-inflation. Anything to make a buck. None of this will probably make much sense to people who haven't been members of this site, but it's like a virtual world with avis that you dress up using various items (pixels). Some of the items are rare and expensive, and people over the years have "invested" in these items which are now being sold indiscriminately to make more profit. People who are still on the site are clearly being taken advantage of, and it's sad to see how many of them are still throwing money at these people, hoping things will change. They are addicted to the items and can't stop buying them -- allowing themselves to be used and abused by these greedmongers. People need to wake up and stop sending money to these people. This site is operating in a very unethical way and I'm surprised they haven't been sued.

The site used to be a lot of fun, but with the removal of direct feedback to those who run the site, constant sales that cost hundreds of dollars, terrible inflation from gold generators the site keeps releasing, and absolutely zero communication with users and their feedback, it's since turned into a terrible place to be. There's so much wrong that it's hard to get down. Just steer clear. This place probably won't last another two years.

Used to be fun, now it's impossible to get nice items or do much of anything without spending a lot of real money. They broke several promises that they had made to their users and don't give a crap how we feel. Monthly collectables, which were promised to us would NEVER be re-released, have been re-released in huge quantities for hundreds of dollars (one of them is $1000 -- that is REAL MONEY, not virtual gold), backwings which were promised to ALL USERS have been made exclusive only to the uber rich, etc. They've also released items that generate a TON of gold, probably on purpose to wreck the gold economy and force users to spend real money if they want anything.

Furthermore, the staff WILL NOT LISTEN to user feedback. They recently shut down "Ask the Admin" which was a way for users to interact with admins and mods and talk about the site. The "Site Feedback" forum is now nothing but users screaming, crying and complaining about the state of the site and the economy. The admins obviously couldn't care less and I doubt they even look at that forum. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually got removed.

Don't waste your time. There is nothing fun or enjoyable about Gaia anymore.

This site went to $#*! after all the founders left and the executives board was replaced with money greedy corporate $#*!s. Donation items from 10 years ago that were granted to those who donated a mere $2.50 to support the site in their initial days as a "Thank You" are now being re-released and sold for $100 ~ $1000 dollars for anyone who is willing to pay. The Site Feedback section of the site is pretty much yelling at a brick wall. Not a single $#*! is being given about the users. Their main focus is milking all their remaining cash cows -- who are also their most loyal users. Absolutely disgusting.

This company, in its current state, needs to be reported to the Better Business Bureau.

They're gone total greed as of the summer of '13. Have fun starting out a new player because if you don't spend money you're not getting anywhere. There's been no new features, events are now Pay-to-Win, the economy is in shreds (not the mention that they're constantly making it worse by the week with all of their pay-to-win gold generators), and there's little to no hope that there will be any changes anytime soon. Staff obviously doesn't listen to feedback (even though the entire Feedback forum is in uproar) and I doubt they will soon. Steer clear of this trainwreck site.

Honestly, if I could, I would give it a negative rating. Everything's gone down the drain since the new CEO took over. There's a great lack of creativity or appreciation of users anymore. I'm pretty sure that it's being used directly as a cash cow with no concern of bettering the site. In fact, most loyal users - who have been on the site for over several years - are leaving because of this horrible way of running things. For the 'free to play' side of it, gold is rapidly inflating, meaning that you need more gold to buy things that had once been very cheap.

Been with Gaia a long time and after seeing Gaia develop and then abandon game after game and the forums/guilds not change much for years the site has just gone from an innovative site in 2003/2004 to unimpressive. Furthermore, the virtual currency has been demolished by hyperinflation by Gaiaonline allowing users to pay real money to buy massive amounts virtual currency (gold) which is used to purchase items your avatar can wear. Furthermore, new features to the site are required to pay for themselves, so updates are few and far-between or promised and never delivered. I also purchased virtual currency for use for a now-removed Heralds of Chaos game and never got a refund for money unspent when the game was removed. So yeah, purchase gaia cash at your own risk.

This site used to be fun, but now it's horrible, don't bother registering. Ever.

It went from a fun and caring community, to a money-grubbing capitalist machine. The Admins now randomly ban people for no apparent reason, and so on and so forth. The original direction of the site is no longer there what-so-ever.
Not to mention the recent survey they released, it was extremely offensive especially to young insecure teens. As many have said in their reviews, they claim to have a PG-13 rating, but the forums are RAMPANT with sexual content, offensive language, and disgusting images, some of which are outright pornography.

Some people have said though, that the Moderators/Admins regulate what is posted. They DON'T. Very few of the offensive forums are ever taken down, let alone acknowledged.

Don't bother.

I would have given this site a 5-Star rating if they had continued to go the route that they had been. However, within the recent months, I have come to realize that Gaia has become a full-on greedy company that no longer is PG-13 as they claim to be. Free to play? Yes. But the items being wanted are no longer reachable when wanting to purchase something with the virtual money because everything is VERY expensive. Gaia pushes constant sales with real money so that you can get an item you're looking for. The worse part is that the items that are on 'sale' for $50 USD are usually items that were sold for $5 years ago. You no longer feel comfortable because the route they take feels like peer-pressure. The PG-13 is a complete lie because when entering the forums, you can clearly see people with posts consisting of sexual activity, violence, high profanity, and etc. Even though Gaia does not allow nudity and other inappropriate images to surface in user's posts and profiles, they still allow conversations on the subject to continue. The Gaia staff use to be wonderful up until the new CEO had jumped in. Not saying that he is bad, but it happened a little after he showed up. Staff members have been laid off and many ignore the complaints that go on in the site. If you take a look at the Site Feedback forum on GaiaOnline, it is FULL of complaints and it is not complaints of bugs. They're complaints of the constant sales and the nasty prank that was pulled by a staff member on a survey for another site they want to create. They falsely advertise their site as PG-13. Parents, do not allow your children to go on this site! This isn't a site for young children. The site consist of people within the ages of 16 years of age to 30 years of age.

I've been with this website for a long time! There are a few scams that circulate and spam in some of the threads, but that only happens from time-to-time. Maybe once or twice a year you'll have 7 people randomly posting gory pictures in every forum and thread. It's obnoxious and sometimes disturbing, but that's only a minor thing.
The website responds very quickly and removes those posts and takes care of deactivating those accounts.

All in all, I love this website!

This site has a PG-13 user rating and I will state that if you have kids on this site please keep a careful eye on the use. There is Gaia cash being pushed left and right meaning keep your credit cards safe from the computer. With a few number inputs and a name a user can purchase up to 100$ at a time for Gaia cash to buy virtual items that are being advertised and selling for 10-500$. Basically getting kids to purchase things impulsively or go without. Most nice items are in Gaia cash only or for large amounts of the sites main non-cash currency "Gaia Gold". Which if your child or you want to obtain items of worth expect to have to make dozens of mule accounts and play zOMG "The sites main still free game" in order to earn gold. Or vend, all ways involve massive amounts of time, effort, and becoming a potato in front of the computer.

The admin are rude and this year have posted body shaming surveys and surveys with trigger words and pictures for impressionable teens that already have poor self esteem. The vast amount of users of the site are older and tend to speak about "r. A. p. E.", "Sex", "Masturbation" And such topics a good amount of the time to make it an issue. A vast majority of the users spend time trolling other users or trying to hack accounts by asking young kids for their passwords and usernames in the promises of getting rich fast but instead being robbed.

Many features are dying on the site due to not making a profit and the sites economy is currently very inflated while games quality, site satisfaction are plummeting.

I say if you want to avoid a real hot virtual economic mess, trolls, inappropriate language, insensitive money mongering Gaia admin and a dying site to stay well away from Gaia online. If you are already on the site I say good luck and make sure to voice your opinions at every "Ask the Admin" to try and combat the corporate greed and better help the welfare of the Gaian economy and user situation.

It's an alright site, a lot of the forums dip a little too deeply towards inappropriate for a PG-13 rating--but it's mostly because the site moderators haven't gotten around to removing that thread or post yet.
Their rules are very firm and they do everything in their power to protect against cyber bullying and harassment. If you are unsure about this site as a parent--check it out FIRST before you let your kids play, and make sure you turn their filters on (they have a curse-word filter in settings that you can turn on or off, turn it on and keep it on!)
Also warn your kids about cyber predators and other general internet safety tips.

It's a good site especially for older teens and adults with LOTS of income--spending money in their cash shop is the only way to get the "good" and exclusive items--sadly everything nice is too expensive to buy with their virtual currency.

As a now ex user of nearly 8 years, I can say it's a good site, but, I had to leave it because I was tired to my wallet being drained every month--there are things I'd rather spend my money on now.