Gaia Online

You've heard from dozens of different reviewers up to this point so I'll just put in my two cents to really drive the point home hard.

I joined gaiaonline in 2006. It was a novel experience, they really cared about us back then. Sure there were a lot of "richer" people who made their gold out of buying and selling the monthly collectibles but we understood that these items were to keep gaiaonline afloat. I didn't mind paying for a game that constantly gave us new content and kept our user experience awesome.

For the past 2 years though (after zomg! Had died down a bit) gaiaonline started implementing changes that affected the site as a whole and it became steadily worse until the recent management change. This just ruined everything. Yes we like your recent avatar items. But having these items used to mean something.

When I got my first million on gaiaonline I was absolutely ecstatic. I had worked incredibly hard, from a time where I was selling tickets just to make up cash in order to buy a more expensive item, to a time where I could afford to complete my dream avi.

This sense of achievement is no longer present in the new gaiaonline. Ads are thrown at you left, right and center until you either submit or quit. Buy! Buy! Buy! Is all you see and this kind of attitude is permeating all games and things that could be cool if only there wasn't a paywall.

Freemium is becoming a problem. Let all us gamers and webies alike stand and fight this gross perversion.

What was once a great anime discussion/dress-up doll site from the early 2000s has now devolved into a wasteland of begging and lootboxes. The magic that this site once held has long since faded. Rampant inflation, multiple changes in management (each worse than the last) and the loss of a large percentage of its userbase has led to Gaia being on its last legs. Only the most hardcore fans and nostalgic users are still around any more.

Unfortunately, this has also lead to a dip in moderation and safety on the website. Gaia is a 13+ website, but it's well known that younger users frequent it. These two things, combined with the aging population of older users, has lead to some very obvious, very dangerous situations. Certain faster and less moderated forums will often see open sexual activities in large topics, with the offending posts drowned out from obvious view by a handful of users bumping the threads for money.

To call Gaia a breeding ground for pedophiles is to call carborane acidic. The only positive here is that the site itself with its dated appearance, hyperinflation and hostile forums will keep some of the more vulnerable users away. Still, it is definitely not a site that you should let your children access. Be extra careful if you see them using Gaiaonline.

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).

I use to love gaia. However once they sold the company that has changed. Its been going down hill bad. I have been a member for 11 years. I use to love fishing. I started during the time when it was single player only. Me and one of my friends would play it and have to talk to each other via yahoo messaging. Then they made it to were you could have multi player. That was exciting. You could chat with each other and everything! I loved how you could see what the other people were catching as well. All the braggers and liars got exposed haha. Then a year or so ago the capta broke and they haven't fixed it or created a new fishing game... They let it die just like ZOMG. For a while they said they were creating it from scratch, but they don't communicate with the USERS anymore so we have just been left in the dark. No communication from them for most things. Unless its cash shop related...

Oh and for Zomg... I loved that game too. I remember when me and a friend got picked to play it before it was actually released... made us feel special... I remember when it first launched it froze up so bad becouse of overload to the servers they had to shut it down a while... then the crew that was working on ZOMG left. And they let that game die... Gaia must have some crappy coders, and employees not to be able to keep such a simple game up and fix simple security issues.

If all they care about is money I'm sure they could come up with a way to make money off fishing and Zomg. I have some ideas, but they don't care about the USERS ideas unless its for MCs or Kindred.

Even though I am a user that joined in 2012, I have not tried all that GaiaOnline has to offer. With this, my viewpoint is biased, but nevertheless, the average user wouldn't be able to recite all the features either.
2012 was a fun year for me. GaiaOnline's mmo, zOMG!, gave me the opportunity to make friends and with those friends we dived into other games. I credited GaiaOnline for bringing us and connecting us together; It had done it's job as a social networking site.
In 2013 and under new management, GaiaOnline had released gold generators and sold them for real life money which created gold out of nowhere and lowered the value of gold. Instead of solving the hyperinflation, GaiaOnline instead opt to capitalize on the gold gens, despite all the demands to remove said items. In response, GaiaOnline held many gold sinks disguised as "kickstarters" with promises to those who donate but still sold gold gens in the meantime, rendering the events useless and counterproductive.
This was only the beginning. After leaving the Marketplace in shambles, GaiaOnline had bombarded users with adds and announcements of new cash shop items, most being recolors of already existing items. The quality of said items dropped with the quantity increased.
Though the avatars are just a part of GaiaOnline, the other features continued to get neglected and the emphasis on Gaia Cash has sent many people leaving. Now in 2014, GaiaOnline isn't changing its ways. The direction this site is heading is not to be taken.

Today is it they took 8$ from me after not paying back the 6$ they took 5 months ago this website is a thief STAY AWAY

Gaia. Gaia. Gaia.

Parents need to know that while this site may attract young teens with its lively graphics, games, and opportunities to socialize with other kids, if you don't turn the filter on, adult language and topics are common. There's no doubt that your teen will stumble upon threads discussing "masturbation myths and fads" and "WTF moments" in a matter of minutes. The site also pushes kids to buy buy buy with their Gaia Gold virtual currency. The positive side of that is it teaches kids about money -- and to save up for something they like.

Log on to GAIAONLINE.COM and play games (slots and jigsaw, among them), chat with other 13- to 18-year-old users, collect downloadable wallpaper for cell phones, and buy virtual items in virtual stores with Gaia Gold currency, which is earned with every session spent on the site. As with most virtual worlds, the first stop after your free sign-up is creating your avatar. Via the anime-style character -- whose hairstyles and clothing you can customize -- kids can chat in different rooms.

Though the site appears to be kid-friendly and moderators are supposed to be trolling the boards for inappropriate images, racist and sexist language, and adult content, if you don't use the word filter it's rampant with such fare. For example, on a recent visit, the following threads appeared: "Your best WTF moment was?" "What are your fave pick-up lines?" "Masturbation Myths and Fads" and "Poll: I wanna have sex with a boy." Perhaps the moderators were asleep at the wheel or their safety claim is just that -- a claim. Either way, it'd be good to sit down with the kids as they surf the site or just steer them away. There are plenty of others with cleaner content and just as robust audiences.

I recommend this website for Ages 1518.
--> www.gaiaonline.com <--

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.

Gaia was my home, community, place of creative writing, artistic expression, silly banter, and in-depth discussion.
It was my safe place in a violent storm of home life. I made the first real friends from all around the world, we would talk for days and nights. Spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars to support the site. From the humble beginning of letters in the mail to the current pledges and plea drives. And I did this at my detriment as poverty has been living only in later adulthood have I moved into the lowest of the middle class.

I hold centrist views, the left and right extremists which the site has become is too much and because I refused to be word policed in pursuit of discussion. People are becoming afraid to speak anywhere on the site unless they are lgbtq+ or any other popular sjw activist buzz word today.

They abuse the TOS's poor language, in such that it can easily be abused by for example. You don't like what a user said, it doesn't have to be directed at you or anyone, could be hypothetical thoughts or devils advocate or just a different opinion. BAM they mass report you for trolling or intentionally flaming.

That's right, your genuine opinion not even directed at anyone and in no way violent. A neutral opinion can be considered trolling and flaming.

But it's ok for 30+ threads from ED, GD, CB, SF, GCD, NF. All saying "$#*! whitey" "$#*! Cissy or cishet" "support the riots" "pronouns or gtfo" etc. Will be there everyday, supported.

So don't bother thinking you have roots there.
Don't spend any real money because you do not own any right to the exchange and can lose it to a hack or scam or ban anytime.
Moving items to another new account is considered ban evading and will lose you that account as well.
I had 3 completely separate accounts, 2 never said a word on them. Banned and deleted over the course of a day. They are investigating and tracing IPs. I even used a vpn.
Yet known pedophiles are protected and users face bans for investigating suspected users.

It's become a very dirty scammy $#*!ty place. No one gives a $#*! about you, especially the site and staff.

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.

I've been a member of Gaia Online for almost 10 years.

Pros:
It's the best avatar forum out there.
There are several others that are decent, but this one has the most creative opportunity with the avatar system. The forum community is fairly decent as well, and more populated than some of the other avatar based forums.

Cons:
There has been a somewhat recent change in senior management that. To be blunt, ruined the site.
Members are treated little better than cash cows. They are constantly spammed with announcements and advertisements to purchase a form of currency within the site that costs actual money. Since the staffing change, little to no attention is given to the free parts of the site. The parts of the site that cost actual money to enjoy continue to increase almost monthly.
But even the users who partake in the real-money currency, Gaia Cash, are treated poorly. Items will be sold for a "limited" time. And be released again within a week, thus severely decreasing the value of the item.
There has also been a recent trend of selling "gold generators", items that produce large quantities of the non-cash based currency--gold, for Gaia Cash.
This has caused an in-site economic inflation and devalued the average Gaian gold's worth.
New users to the site feel pressured, overwhelmed, and that they must spend money in order to progress on the site.
Almost all forms of customer complaint services have either been shut down for good (a thread titled Ask the Admin, self explanatory) or completely ignored (the designated Site Feedback forum goes completely ignored).

This site used to be purely community based, and was never meant to be a "pay-to-play" site.

Summary:
You would get a better bang for your buck if you bought a years subscription to World of Warcraft.

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.

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.

Gaia lost its way but started moving forward again.
I've been a member on Gaia since 2007. I've survived an unfair ban (never got an answer for why but I built a bridge), inflation, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, what not. I'll admit that for a few years Gaia went downhill. It almost caused me to quit and I had even started looking at other websites.
After the site was sold off (Lanzer leaving because the site wasn't making enough revenue), the members who decidedly stuck around found that they basically became cash cows. Cash sales and cash shop updates were shoved down the throats of every person who logged on. Every. Day. Without fail. Gaia changed with one wrong decision and things kept going downhill from there.
The forums turned into chaos. Outrage was unanimous with the community and things got so bad that some members even started threatening the lives of Gaia Staff, which is deplorable.
Not only that but the marketplace went bad too. Inflation is pretty terrible right now and it's very difficult to make gold. Unless you were already rich or buy gaia cash, which a lot of members aren't. It's still very difficult to make gold without buying gaia cash.
Staff did attempt to communicate with the community throughout all of this happening though. They held Ask The Staff, asked for feedback concerning different things. They also released a new game called Lake Kindred, which is essentially like Pokemon. Which you can play to earn money, it's also possible to earn money without spending Gaia Cash through that game. Which is what I personally use to make money.

Gaia did lose a lot of its members with the recent changes but those who stayed did get to see something good happen for once on Gaia. This past December, the Gaia community saw hope again. A light at the end of the tunnel. Lanzer returned to Gaia. And with his return, the management team who took over in 2014 left. There are still some things that need to be fixed but I'm confident that with Lanzer's return there will be progress.
This is enough for me to keep me going on this website.

"This is my family. I found it all on my own. It's little and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good."

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.

I was abused by both the staff and a role-play group on this site. The staff tried to tell me they, and this group role-play, weren't abusing me. Uhm. That's not what my psychologist said when I told her what was said about me and I think she would know more than the staff that was trying to mistreat me. No, this is not one of those "you deserved what they said, you just had a hard time admitting it" situations. I was tired of people telling me I wasn't bright enough to do anything. And to accuse me of not writing more than 6 sentences is an insult to my IQ. So I failed in school completely, according to them? So I didn't get an A on the some page essays I wrote in High-School or college English? Yes, I have writing credentials. That's BS. First, I didn't get any warnings. But they didn't handle a situation I brought to them like they should have and my psychologist has a thing or two to say about it. Mind you, I was very honest with my counselor at what was said and she replied with, 'so you were abused.' Telling me I can't write more than 6 sentences is an insult, it's condescension, and condescension is a form of emotional abuse and all of this can be proven. Then it's humiliation bringing that up in front of everyone. Not to mention, if you honestly think I don't understand what the reason was before you explained it, you really don't think I'm bright and that's disrespectful. If you're telling me things my abusers told me in the past, it's indeed abuse. I'm just choosing not to go into too many details on this review. But I'm willing to share on an individual level with people who want to know. People shouldn't have gained up on me like they did without knowing what really happened. I was tired of being told I wasn't bright enough to do stuff and I can prove that.

I have been a member on this site since 2005. Everything was doing amazing before 2014, which is when the site was sold to some scrub lord. But back then it was a place that made me feel at home and it still kinda does, just a bit more lurking like the creepy old time member I am xD But after 2014 The site went down hill and fast due to the new owner only caring about money.

But last year on December 13th, the old owner (Lanzer) gained owner ship of the site once again and is busting his $#*! trying to fix the mess as best as he can. And so far I have seen changes, the economy has it's ups and downs but it's slowly decreasing. (A trill was easier to get back in 2015 and early 2016, than it is now.)

But now after 12 years of love, hate, joy and sadness. I can say that if you give this site a chance. You can help bring it back up onto it's feet.And that's what I have been hoping to achieve by posting this review as silly as it may sound.

Think of it this way. Since zOMG is back and running better than before, it gives users a chance to make gold on there without spending money. Which in turn will allow people to spend more gold via marketplace and with the 5% tax add onto the sales, you get 1000 people spending 5 Billion, which the 5% takes out 250 Million of that which multiplied by a 1000 takes out 250 Billion out of the economy which greatly repairs the damage done. And if it's not zOMG pulling in the gold, it's the daily log in which grants a random item (Any item) through out the week. And the more you log in, the better item you get.

People are over looking the history and the features when it comes down to this. Give it a year since Lanzer has only been back for nearly six months. He's already dropped the average economy gold count down by one in six months.

Let alone bringing back events that you actually interact with and community driven story.

Seriously, give it a shot but keep in mind that it is slowly recovering from the damage of asshat back in 2014 to late 2016.

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.