Who says you have to be smart to work at Gaia?
SUPER DELUXE DOUBLE-SECRET!
Sure, I'll tell you guys something very cool, but later in the journal. This is the part where I create suspense and force you to read through several paragraphs before we get to the good part.
What's in a name?
Roughly 2 million users have asked me my opinions on the username restrictions, or asked me why we're doing it, or threatened to destroy everything and everyone I love unless I personally undo this horrible thing I did to Gaia users.
A few quickie responses:
1. I wasn't directly involved in this change. There are plenty of valid, justifiable reasons to destroy everything I love -- but this particular change is not one of them.
2. I agree with most of the changes, except for getting rid of users' spaces. When the first hints of this started coming about, the reason I heard that most interested me was that it was a security measure. There were too many users becoming things like:
- MOD accountperson`Lingadmin narutofan23981sucky pants *
Some people like to say "if users r that stupid they dezerve to have there accounts hacked!" To you I say: get off your high horse and consider that currently we don't make it particularly clear who really runs this joint. We don't tell users upfront "Yo, these is the guys what you should be trusting" - many of you only know because you've been here so long.
So this change will go a long way towards preventing impostors.
3. Everyone's been jumping all over the "WE DIDN'T ASK FOR E-MAIL" bandwagon, and seriously, what Lanzer said about e-mail was more an example of what is impossible for us at this point. Gaia has basically shut its users accounts off from the Internet at large.
For example, if we ever wanted to make a Gaia instant messaging application similar to AIM -- but we wanted to focus more on Battle System than dedicating resources to another thing we have no experience doing before -- then it would make more sense for us to partner with someone who already makes a chat program. OH CRAP! OUR USERNAMES DON'T WORK ON THEIR NETWORK! NO CHAT FOR POOR GAIA!
Just an example of the kind of issues we could potentially have with our usernames.
I can't stress this enough:
The example I just gave and the examples Lanzer gave are just EXAMPLES. They are not in development. There are worms in my brain, get them out!
4. Things always work best in threes, but since this is a super deluxe edition, I'm adding a number four for that extra "wow" factor.
History of the World Part 3
So, when I was 11 years old and I first signed on to the Internet at my friend's house, my initial reaction was "HOLY CRAP, THERE'S SOMEONE ON THE OTHER SIDE!". The Web, in particular, fascinated me - regular people were putting information in a place where anybody could see it worldwide. Before the Web, how could you write something and make it available to ANYONE? You couldn't.
The youngest generation of Gaians will always take for granted how immensely mind-blowing the concept of the Internet is, just like how I've always taken for granted the television, the radio, or the George Foreman Grill.
The Internet age is a peculiar, exciting, and terrifying time in the history of humanity and sometime at the end of last week, Gaia contributed to the horrific dystopia that lies ahead of us by being the first forum on the Web to reach a billion posts.
As a bright-eyed kid who first experienced the Web all those years ago and knew he wanted to be a part of it, I'm proud to say that I coincidentally happened to work at a company that made Web history, even if I had nothing to do with it!
SUPER DELUXE DOUBLE-SECRET! ACT TWO!
No, this isn't the part where I tell you the super deluxe double-secret. This is the part where I tell you ahead of time that I'm going to tell you something I think is cool, but that it's not a promise, and stuff does go wrong, and "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry".
But still, I'll tell you anyway, even though it will inevitably bite me in the a**.
Meeting the Folks
One nice little feature that we'd been hoping to do for a long a** time (I said "a**" twice now. Now that we've kicked off all the kids under 13, I can say a** all I want. a** a** a**!) was some sort of "meet the staff" kind of feature where we spotlit more Gaia staffers.
A lot of users tell me they like when I tell them what's going on in the Gaia office, and in a recent newsletter we gathered a bunch of responses from people around the office.
I'm hoping that this (like MC hints) becomes a regular tradition.
Gaia Life
In the vein of the previous section, I'm going to talk about some cool things that happen around the office from time to time, things you may not have known before, and things that will make you wish even more you were already done with college and could get a job here rofl
Laughter Aids Digestion: At lunchtime everyone in the company gets together to hang out, laugh, and most importantly for this developer: watch the Simpsons. It's not all we watch on our lunchroom television -- we've watched the Kids in the Hall, Cowboy Bebop, Dead Leaves, and more -- but we're progressively making our way now through the golden years of what was at one time the show to watch. Lunch time? Cartoon time.
Also, don't think we don't have a Wii there, too wink
Candy Spoiled: Snacktopia sounds like heaven, but one of the side effects is that there are so many candies and treats that you become desensitized to their awesomeness. We recently added Pop Tarts, Apple Jacks, AMP'd energy drinks, mini candy bars of all varieties, Pita chips, mint milanos, rich Hershey fudge cookies, and a gazillion other delights. You know the problem with making a wish? You just might get what you want.
A bloated, candy-filled dev is a happy dev!
I'M CHARGIN' MAH LASERS: Now it may sound like we just spend your MC money on frivolities, which is far from the case. One of our biggest costs is the great people who work at Gaia. We work hard. We love what we do. Most of us still have our souls in tact. It may sound like a dream job, but really, all that stuff is just to offset how much blood, sweat, and tears (gross!) goes into all the work we do.
So sometimes we just have to take breathers and have chats. One of the cool things about Gaia is that even though it's segmented between artists, devs, etc. everyone generally gets along. So earlier today, in my cube, we were having a rousing discussion about alien powers we wouldn't want to have to contend with. We generally agreed that aliens with laser eyes would be bad news. I personally was afraid of aliens with mantis arms, but everyone thought I was crazy.
CAN YOU IMAGINE A GIANT MANTIS ATTACKING YOU!? WHAT WOULD YOU DO!?
I'm not crazy, I swear!
What Working at Gaia is REALLY Like, REALLY
I started this journal when I first started working here because I knew Gaia users really dug what was going on behind-the-scenes. In the older days of Gaia, the admins were just regular users, mixing it up with all you Gaians.
Times change and so do demands. Gaia grew bigger, the admins grew busier, and the cost to run the site skyrocketed forcing all kinds of changes that Gaians don't agree with.
The reality about working at Gaia is that it's very hard, very satisfying work. I would say that your average Gaia employee works significantly harder than your conventional employee. During crazier release schedules, I've put in long hours, stayed past midnight several days in a row, and gave up my weekends. I'm not the worst, either -- I still have time to get my work done AND chat with you guys -- many other devs don't have that luxury.
Gaian demands have gotten a lot higher - so while we're very gratified with what we do, generally, it can get very depressing when you slip up and suddenly you have several dozen thousand people screaming about how stupid you are to do what you did. It's never the majority of Gaians, but it can feel that way since the negative people often tend to be the most vocal.
Gaia is still very much a fledgling company, and we're learning from our missteps, and doing things for the first time. We may seem huge compared to what we were even a year ago, but we still have a lot of people who put a lot of heart into every feature they release, just like always.
Gaia's gotten a lot bigger, so there are a lot more meetings (because more people need to know what's going on), and with botters trying to profit from the popularity of Gaia and hackers trying to exploit this very large site, there's a lot more work that has to go into every feature going forward. On top of that, we have to go back and re-optimize older features. On top of that, users want us making new stuff AND not making new stuff just so we can fix old features. It's a very hectic work-life, and you have to be a particular kind of crazy to work here.
At the same time, you're surrounded by very cool people who want to create cool things for an audience they want to impress. Sometimes we have to do uncool things that are necessary, and we recognize that, but we try to make up for it with other cool. But working with people you like on projects you like sometimes makes up for all the stress, time, and browbeating-from-users that you have to put up with.
So yeah, all in all, best job I've ever had.
SUPER DELUXE DOUBLE-SECRET! IS HE JOKING? IS HE?
Okay, some very important notes, like before:
STUFF GOES WRONG
ANYTHING I SAY SHOULD BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF SALT
THIS IS NOT, NOT, NOT A PROMISE
Buuuuuttt... I have deadlines to release 2 non-sponsorship, Gaia-specific quests in May.
HAPPY NOW, YOU WHINERS?!
P.S., "a**". heart
It's a Love/Hate relationship with Gaia.
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