Does anyone else feel like Demand is killing CS?

[Aurora Storm]

I don't know is this has been mentioned or not, but what if when you purchase a set of store pets, there's a very low chance that you'll get an additional random store pet from a previous release? For example, when you adopt horses, there's a low chance that you'll receive a zebra. There would be a slightly higher probability, though. Even better, however, this would increase the amount of new store pets. People would start buying store pets more vigorously, and thus introduce a larger quantity of store pets to the site, making them easier to find. Additionally, the demand for C$ would increase, and people would begin buying it more. In doing so, it would further help the site grow.

If there was any method of re-releasing store pets in the future, this is the only idea I've seen that I think is fair and plausible.

[fakelamb]

I don't want to weight in on whether or not store pets should be released, but I don't see why it would have to be done in a pound-like system. The December 18th adoptables (as well as the monthlies) probably function on a probability-based system, with weights presumably given to each pet depending on its rarity and something like a random number generator used to decide which pets a user receives (??? speculation, don't know if this is true, but it this would make sense). This system is in all likelihood calibrated to make sure rarities don't swing too much. I don't see why a similar system couldn't be implemented in the case of store-pet rereleases. As long as you set the probability of adopting a store pet really, really, really low (again, rarity-based weights maybe?) the impact on rarity shouldn't be too big. This would also avoid a first-come first-serve system, which would indeed be unfair to users in non-CS timezones or with unreliable connections.

That concept doesn't sit well with many people because it's very close to a lootbox. It's fine with the re-release because they're free, but the moment you pay for something, I really think you should know exactly what you get. Buying a re-release store box in the hopes of getting a good thing outta some mystery box is too close to gambling for my liking, even if you're always guaranteed to get a store pet.
I don't feel like we ought to encourage people to spend money on a blind bag item on a kids site.^^

I don't know is this has been mentioned or not, but what if when you purchase a set of store pets, there's a very low chance that you'll get an additional random store pet from a previous release? For example, when you adopt horses, there's a low chance that you'll receive a zebra. There would be a slightly higher probability, though. Even better, however, this would increase the amount of new store pets. People would start buying store pets more vigorously, and thus introduce a larger quantity of store pets to the site, making them easier to find. Additionally, the demand for C$ would increase, and people would begin buying it more. In doing so, it would further help the site grow.

the issue i see with that is people would probably end up spam buying store pets, making the more recent ones less valuable. for example: our most recent store dog litter, some people bought hundreds of them. i know they're stores and that they'll never go below rare but they could end up being more common than the event/token rares for a while. when they flood the market and everyone has them, nobody needs to trade for them.

and rather than real life currency being paid-in to support the site, i think that would just make the current chicken dollars that exist in the game, dry up. many of the players here seem to be children/minors (since this game is aimed mostly towards that audience) who can't spend real life money on the in-game currency. i know there are lots of players who buy C$ with cash, but i still don't think there'd end up being enough chicken dollars in circulation if that were to be implemented.

i also feel as though it would still be unfair to those who invested money back in the day. i was just doing some off-site conversions for flight rising, and old store pets go for the equivalent of hundreds of real life dollars in other game currencies. the orange cerberus is going for upwards of $500.00 USD worth of flight rising gems right now: and in my opinion there's no way to make taking that value away, fair.

starting out on chicken smoothie definitely isn't easy but you've gotta adapt and work hard if you're determined to make it here, just because people are upset about stores never being re-released doesn't mean that those users who supported and helped tess build this site to keep it running until today, should have to lose out on the investments they made all those years ago.

it's basically like sitting on a trust fund, that's the whole reason some people purchase them. it's also how the site is able to still be here today: those players laid down the foundation funding for this game to be further developed. they provided means to tess for her to continue working on it, and get it to where it is now.

i have no hard feelings towards newer players, i just want them to know how much real money people are sitting on because of some of these store pets, so they understand why not a lot of players want them being re-released.

if people happen to read this, and if any part of what i said didn't make sense: please let me know! i can try to reiterate, my brain is out of think juice right now since it's 2:59 am for me.

[Seasonal]

I find that idea very similar to loot boxes, something that I personally feel has no place on CS. In short, it's gambling. If you know that there's a small chance of getting an extremely valuable pet when you adopt store pets, you'll want to buy more. C$ is primarily bought with real money (or trading for it, but it had to be purchased by someone at some point). Loot boxes in many video games are also bought with real money and you have a very small chance of getting something rare. Considering that children and teenagers make up a large sum of CS users, that doesn't sit right with me.

I cannot think of a fair and unproblematic way to re-release old store pets and I don't think it is going to happen. I think the fairest way to re-release them while maintaining their value would be to include them in the December 18th re-release, but that is still very unfair to the people who originally bought the pets.

[Imbion]

The most unfortunate part of all of this is that there's no easy solution for anyone, or the site. I despise lootboxes with every fiber of my being, and have personally been a victim of their deceptive practices in the past. Under no circumstances do I wish upon such a system in CS, because it is truily horrible. Rich kids are not the people buying most of the stuff, it's just impulsive people. Which is why I simply refuse to get invested in any game that makes use of lootboxes nowadays.

I can point at the problem and go "Hey, store pets might be messing up the CS economy", but there might not actually be a valid solution that creates an even worse issue in its wake. Pointing out a problem is one thing, knowing how to fix it is another. It is typical for any sort of system to have a flaw. Even the most perfect systems in the world probably have one, because perfection is impossible.

There's really no good solution here. Maybe there is; I don't know everything there is to know about this all. We should definitely try to find one, and if the conclusion turns up that there is no good solution - that sucks, but at least we tried to find one.

[Asvoria]

It seems like after all we just have to agree on the fact that Store Pets are something exclusive and should not be taken into account towards a full CS collection.That's not a new thought and I think it has been mentioned multiple times before as well.

The very existence of these pets has a very different underlying cause than the regularily and freely adoptable pets that are made available every month and there would be no way to compensate for the money spend in the past if those Stores were shared for free. Maybe that's just a fact that we all have to accept.

You might as well be a founding member on any other site and support it via buying exclusive pixels there. If you manage to wait and succeed as many years as those people did here on CS, you'll eventually have amassed a similar fortune of ingame pixels, so I don't see why this is a special occasion or an unusual happening on CS.

[Shinryu]

You might as well be a founding member on any other site and support it via buying exclusive pixels there. If you manage to wait and succeed as many years as those people did here on CS, you'll eventually have amassed a similar fortune of ingame pixels, so I don't see why this is a special occasion or an unusual happening on CS.

The store pets on CS do sometimes remind me of stuff like the kickstarter familiars and the original flight festival items on Flight Rising.
There are no re-releases for any of them, and those KS/Festival items are now worth a fortune. The familiars are actively needed for a site achievement, and there's a whole market for swapping around the existing ones so that people can take turns completing their Bestiary and "awakening" the familiars on their accounts.

Just like FR had kickstarter rewards, I kinda feel like the old store pets especially are our equivalent of them. Because without the funds from the store, the site wouldn't exist any more.
Tess said from the very beginning that she would not consider store pets as part of a full collection. Of course people can include them if they want, just like there are people on FR who do try to get Boolean, Skycat and co for their familiar collections.
But limited-time, perma-retired content for supporters isn't really all that unusual.

Funnily enough I also just remembered how people on FR were extremely upset when they decided to re-release the flight festival bear familiars after tons of users had invested in them under the assumption that they would be permanently retired.

[veria]

Poking my head into this once again, I've said it before and it still lays as my biggest concern about the idea of re-releasing store pets; what about those who've traded arm, leg and their first born for that one 2009/2010 store pet only for it to suddenly get re-released for dirt cheap or free?

I for example have traded and overpaid way more than I should've to get older store pets and honestly I'd be mad if they suddenly were re-released for fraction of what I've paid for one.

I understand that the demand for them is way out of hand and this is going to be one of those forever lasting arguments over who is it more unfair to; a newer user who has extremely small chance of getting skelebun out the gate or user who's been around longer but has traded a lot to get that skelebun?

That’s I really good point. I traded dang near close to my soul away for the full set of store llamas, and I would be very angry and very sad if suddenly something I had traded nearly half my rares away for became rereleased, and much easier to get. Dec.18 works because you didn’t invest real money into those pets.

[Genba]

As someone who bought the store pets back when they were first released with ACTUAL money (on my old account) I would be absolutely mad if they were rereleased for free on dec 18.
People getting (more or less) exclusive content because they paid money or simply because they joined the site earlier than others has been a thing forever in online games.

[Loelya]

periodically I’ll check back in on this thread and the discussion has circled back to rereleasing store pets. again.

The staff have said they are not going to rerelease store pets. speculating about potentially fair ways to do it is an interesting conversation but ultimately theoretical as it would never become reality.

No one should feel like they have to steer away from this topic if they are interested in the hypotheticals of the discussion of course, but I personally would be really interested in seeing if anyone has any further thoughts about the original topic, which seems to boil down to: is it better to have a widely-accepted view of the value of certain pets so that when trading, there’s a certain value that players typically pay without having to bend to outrageous “demand,” or is the freedom and flexibility of people deciding their own demand for each pet better in the long run?

[Pumpkinheart]

I agree so much! Thoughts on:
Items should be worth more. Because people aren't as interested in them, so they just sit and rot. I think that it might be a good idea to get a rarity system for items so that they don't just rot away and people would actively trade them.
Pets Shouldn't be ruled by demand. They should be traded for rarity, not how much you want them. Way too many people take advantage of other users by making them pay more for dreamies. THAT'S NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE.

Also, on the subject of re-releasing, one of my friends unknowingly traded away the 2008 bone PPS for a couple of commons! She was really mad when she found out that person had scammed her. (It was off-topic but true)