Things had been hectic as we were all super busy getting the Halloween event and features ready, at the same time we are also planning on what to do for 2009. After all the dust are starting to settle, I can spend time to get back to sharing more about Gaia, and what we're doing today.
So what is Gaia set out to do? Gaia has the goal of making a fun site for everyone, but what does making "a fun site" mean? What makes Gaia fun, and how many people are needed to build a really fun site? Building the right features is one thing, but having the right teams to build the site is just as important. Gaia today is a large site with lots of users and lots of demands for features. To keep everyone happy means we need to do many things. To really simplify the many things we do on Gaia, these are some of the things that we're building or updating regularly:
1 - We need to make things that are fun
(zOMG, 5 holiday events, flash games, quests)
2 - We need to make the avatar/expression system better
(new inventory system, item database re-write, avatar system re-write)
3 - We need to make the community features better
(forum updates, posting engine, VJ, arenas, towns updates, moderator tools)
4 - We need to make the site run fast and scale
(Posting engine update, web and database server upgrades)
5 - We need to grow the Gaia member base
(OMG widget, nav changes)
6 - We need to be able to pay for our own staff members
(Cash Shop, EI, Bag of Win, sponsorships, etc)
The tough part is that, there are 110 staff members in Gaia headquarters, with 25 artists and only 40 or so programmers, and between all the programmers, we need to split them up to tackle every task. I listed only 6 major categories, but within each category there are dozens and dozens of features to work on. If we have one person working on one aspect on the site, we will need 60 programmers, and that doesn't account for any new features. That's why a lot of work is spent on deciding which features are being worked on first before another. That is actually a very painful process. If we focus all on community, then we won't be able to grow our team as fast, neither can we only focus on growing Gaia or just focus on making more money so we can hire more people. Nothing is a straight forward answer, and we constantly try to reach a balance while making Gaians happy.
How is Gaia doing? Is Gaia making millions and millions of dollars yet? Gaia does lose money, but Gaia is getting closer to break even, so we are not in any big trouble. Today, Gaia makes money from things like MC and EI, and the amount we sell do sound like a lot of money, but it does take a few million dollars to support Gaia as a business. The word million sounds like a big number, but when you look at supporting 3 billion page views a month, hundreds servers to upgrade, and a staff of 110 people, then it makes a lot of sense that Gaia cost this much to run. To put things in perspective, here's an article that talks about Facebook, and the fact that it cost 10 million a month just to support 750 staff members (we have about 110 staff), and 1 million a month just for electricity:
(Techcrunch article) Gaia is actually doing good as a company compared to many internet companies that are closing their doors due to the recent economy crisis. All of it is due to constant support from users like you.
Why are you trying to grow Gaia? Why should Gaians deal with all the noobs? Well, there are two main reasons why we're trying to grow Gaia. First reason is that we share a dream for Gaia to be a site that represents a great place to hang out and have fun on the Internet. Naturally, building something meaningful for most people on the internet (at least in the US) simply means building something that will benefit many millions of people. Secondly, as a company, we wish to be at the point where we can support ourselves and actually expand quickly. If we make 1 million from selling virtual goods today, then we should be able to make 2 million when the number of members double. If that happens, then we will be able to hire more people, and have all sorts of things build and done. We will then be able to continuously build quests, NPC profiles, more events, better games... The list goes on. Growing Gaia is important, and it is difficult that a larger community is harder to manage, and we wish to introduce better features to help older users hang out with other older users, and give space for newer users to learn the ropes. Remember that 5 years ago, we were all noobs on the site.
smile What about you? Me? Today I spend my focus mostly on thinking about what's right for Gaia. Aside from thinking and planning through the complexity of the whole picture and distilling the clear and simple directions for each team, I try to help organize the member services team to the best of my abilities, while still staying in touch with Gaians. A day usually contain 5 hours worth of meetings and the rest are spent in email and IM with others in the office. Topics vary from what bugs we need to fix, how to stop botters, what community tools we need, status on how current projects are going, to other areas like accounting, HR, and hiring. I get paid just like everyone else, infact, Gaia staff with good industry experience usually get paid more than I do. Though do note that as a founder of a company, there is a chance that I could end up earning a lot shall Gaia end up being a public company or something like that, but like the other founders (original admins), we're spending time working on Gaia because we believe in building a great site, and as long as this month's rent is paid off, I'm quite happy where I am.
