GaiaOnline has become possibly THE biggest scam on the internet. I'll have been a member (although I wouldn't exactly call myself a member NOW, since I rarely even log on anymore) for three years come January, so in comparison to a lot of the oldies and veterans, I'm still within a "newbie" stage.

However, from the time that I signed up, up until this point, I have given witness to the downfall of a once warm community. After Gary Schofield stepped into the CEO shoes, the site quickly began it's deterioration and it immediately became clear to us what the higher-ups' main focus was:

Money.

From releasing gold generators in exchange for real money (which ultimately ruined the website's virtual economy, making it nearly IMPOSSIBLE to afford anything worth while) to spamming it's users with 30+ cash related announcements a day, GaiaOnline was turned into nothing more than a farm for cash cows.

Key features that everyone enjoyed have been left to rot or were simply taken down altogether (zOMG! Would be a prime example) only because they didn't bring in nearly as much money as Gary Schofield and his greedy henchmen had hoped for.

Now, there is nothing left to do aside from browsing the forums (and even the FORUMS could use an update) and dressing up avatars with overly expensive, low quality pixels.

Users are ignored the majority of the time, and whenever the staff DOES interact with the community, they always feed them the same rehearsed and generic lies over and over again.

In short, don't waste your time on this dying website. There is nothing there of true value anymore. The only thing that awaits new users is harassing announcements begging for your money every five seconds and a community that is as dead and dry as a desert.