I must admit that the platform gaia online, was one of those things in the realm of avatar based platforms, that I have never understood. Today I found out, that I haven’t got it in the past, due to a big misunderstanding.

Even if they have avatars and even if they are talking all the time about a ‘world’, gaia online is not a coherently virtual world, but much more an online community or as they call it ‘ online hangout’, which consist of many different components … and some of those are 2.5D rooms.

What is Gaia Online?

First of all - how do they describe their platform themselves:

Founded in 2003, Gaia Online is the leading online hangout on the web. More than five million visitors come to Gaia every month to make friends, play games, watch movies in Gaia Cinemas, Gaia’s virtual theaters, and participate in the world’s most active online community

When you sign-up for gaia you first of all create a small nice anime style avatar and then you get on their website, where you have access to tons of community like applications.

You have a fully customizable profile page like on MySpace. You have access to forums, you can play games with others, you can watch movies with others, you have access to different kind of content and there are several kind of events, contests - even quests - which you can participate in, to spent time on gaia.

So from this perspective gaia is a fairly large online community for teens, where they can not only make friend, but also find tons of things to do together.

But where is the world?

When I visited gaia the first time, I was just searching for the world and was totally frustrated, because I couldn’t find it. But now I got it: they are using the world metaphor and even use a map of it, to locate their services in a fictive world. But you can’t really enter a coherently world with your avatar, to walk around in it! (yet)

On the picture above for example you see one of their small towns on their world map and the forum is highlighted. When you click on it, you will get to their online forums on their website. In the moment I understood this, I was able to orientate myself and could really start to explore the platform.

And finally I found something, what I have expected!

Small 2.5D components and the virtual economy

Apart from the typical community website features I then found, what I expected in the beginning. Small 2.5D components. What you have is your own house, located in a small town (pictures above and below) and several other application on the site, i.e. the gaia cinemas, which are also using 2.5D rooms, to give you a presence and a three dimensional chat room.

And that’s also the point where gaias virtual economy comes into play. When I can really use my avatar to walk around (in small rooms or small outdoors world like the towns) and to chat with others, I want my avatar to be individual.

Therefore you have a lot of shops on gaia online, where you can buy items for your avatar and for your own home. You pay in this shops with gold and as I have understand it so far, you can earn gold on the platform, by making use of all the features - so as more active you are, as more money you earn - or you can even buy gold for real money.

But the shops are then again only web applications and no 2.5D rooms anymore. Again a bit disappointing for me. I must admit that for me it is a really confusing experience to be on gaia online, because you are always switching between website, pop-ups and small 2.5D rooms.

Movies on Gaia Online

What seems to be pretty big on gaia online are movies. You have “gaia cinmea” and “gaia VJ” - two features dedicated to watch movies together with others. In cinemas i.e. you have access to a library of movies you can watch and what is pretty nice (as seen in the picture above) is the fact, that you can always see, how many other people are already in the cinema watching it.

A few movies are free, for others you have to pay to watch them. What I also liked a lot regarding the cinema feature, is the kind of 2.5D and avatar integration directly on the website. (screenshot above) When you go to the cinema page, you have at the top of the page a small 2.5D room in which you see everybody who is on the site.

Therefore you see who else wants to watch a movie now and you can directly start chatting and interacting with them on the website. That is exactly the kind of scenario which I envision for a lot of other usage scenarios on corporate websites - imagine for example a web shop with that kind of feature.

Apart from the cinemas you also have the VJ feature, which gives you access to Youtube videos and allows you to create your own playlist. In both cases you are in the end in a small 2.5D room again, in which you can watch the movies with others and chat about what you see.

Real-life brands and advertising

And there are also RL brands and ‘normal’ advertisements on gaia online. As you see in the picture above, sometimes you just get normal web banners displayed on their website, but they also have so called “sponsored worlds” on gaia online.
 

One example is MTV’s Virtual Hollywood on gaia online. This sponsored world offers you:

• Get new items, redeemable at vMTV.com.
• Talk to Hollywood citizens to earn free Hills-inspired items for your avatar.
• Stroll the Boulevard to show off your outfit
• Hit the club for a taste of the Hollywood nightlife
• Join Virtual Hollywood’s hottest after-party in the rock star crib
• Get your Hills style in gear at the Hollywood shop
• Visit the theater to watch episodes of MTV’s The Hills!

Basically you have small 2.5D rooms - in this case it’s the Hollywood Boulevard - and again you have access to movies in special cinemas, showing episode of MTV’s TV show “The Hills”.

I watched one of the episodes with others in the cinema for a few minutes and it was quite funny, because you can get there special gadgets to throw with popcorn and to do other silly stuff in the cinema

Will there be a real virtual world some day?

So after I have understood the whole approach of gaia online, I started to like it and actually had fun to play around with it. It’s really impressive how much features and different aspect this community has and now it really doesn’t surprise me, that gaia is such a big success.

What gaia has already achieved - what a lot of those other 2.5D worlds still have to manage - is to grow a fairly big community, which is really active and is strongly connected with each other.

But I was always asking myself, why they don’t build an MMO or virtual world out of it. And - surprise surprise - they do!

In the end of my gaia adventure today I have found an announcement for an gaia online MMO and I think that this could be an awesome new feature and would change the gaia user experience massively.

So I am glad, that I now understand what is going on on gaia online and I hope I could help you a bit, with understanding it as well. As soon they release they MMO I will visit gaia again and write something about it.