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Many had posted in the forum asking about why Gaia needs more money with all the sponsorships. Thought I'd make a small blurb about that.

Today Gaia generates money mostly through user support, though at the same time banner ads and merchandising also bring in some additional money. The money then goes to the bank and help pay for cost of running the site, and help pay everyone in the office for member support and site development. From developers, artists, admins, and others, Gaia has a really large staff count, and there is always this balance been the cost and how can we support it.

Sponsorship is an important part for Gaia mainly because it is our chance to be able to get more developers. It's the simple relationship where if we can earn more, we can hire more people.

That's the small blurb, now here's the big blurb. smile

Every week we sit down and look over all the features that we want to make, and all the features that we have to build. Most of us actually spend time fixing old code to make them run well when more people hit our site. For every website, there must be a set amount of people making sure it runs smoothly. Another big chunk of people are involved in the battle system, and with whatever developers left, we make sure that someone is making current features better, someone to improve ease of use, someone to work on events or quests, and someone to work on brand new projects. There are a lot more details such as planning and bug fixes that takes up time also.

Unfortunately, with most people placed in fixing code and on battle system, for each of the other categories, there can only be one or two guys. Reason is because our development team isn't that big, and how many people we can have depends on how much money we can earn.

There are a lot more features that we would love to make, and often it gets really frustrating knowing that there isn't nearly enough people to make things happen.

We actually spend a lot of time making sure that the sponsors we work with are companies with great products and services that most users like. While an equal amount of effort is spent making sure that nothing is intrusive. We go the extra mile making sure that things are done tastefully.

Our goal is to double the number of developers in a year or so. Sponsorship is definitely part of what will make this happen. I look forward to the day where we can release new features on a monthly basis, and be responsive to everyone's requests and suggestions. whee