Why are old rares valued more than new ones?

[TenMillionFireflies]

Hopefully someone who knows more about CS could help me understand!

I've read about how rarities are based on the number of active accounts that own the pet. Which would mean older, inactive accounts that have older rares on them don't count towards the rarity percentage. These accounts also wouldn't have new rares on them, because, well, they're inactive. Should any of these old users return to CS, the total number of copies of their pets wouldn't change, but the percent owned by active users would. Logically, brand new rares are owned by ONLY active users, which means the total number of the new rare pets would presumably be close to the number of the old rares that are still in circulation. Older pets have also had more opportunities for December 18 rereleases than newer ones. Wouldn't that make older rares LESS valuable than new ones? Why is it believed there are LESS copies of older rares than new ones? Please help, this has been hurting my brain

[Celozon]

Just from general experience, older rares are a lot harder to find available for trade than newer rares. For most people on CS, the 'gameplay' of the site is going to be in collecting pets, either to get all pets, just ones they like, or just hoarding particular pets, generally when someone gets ahold of a pet they want in their collection it goes into a locked group and they do not trade them. Those pets can be on active accounts and be counted towards the current number of 'available' pets, but they aren't being actively traded. The count for pets on active accounts to determine how rare a pet is does not look at what groups a pet is in, so pets in locked groups are counted same as unlocked groups. So in that way there can be the same number of an older rare on active accounts as a newer one, but the newer ones are a lot easier to trade for because they haven't had 10+ years to end up locked away in various collections, hoards, etc, yet.

To a less extent maybe, but older rares also tend to get concentrated on smaller numbers of accounts, (such as those that were active when those rares were released) and thus harder to find for trade even if they are in open groups just because a lower percentage of the userbase has them in open groups, as opposed to a rare from an event that just ended in which a lot more people are likely to still have a few extras in their open groups. Part of the 'worth' can come from just how accessible they are to find and trade for even if the same number of them exist in open groups as a newer rare.

Keep in mind that specific numbers and rates have never been released for pets so we don't have any hard details on these things, the above is just my own observations from my years trading and things I've noticed in how people collect and trade here. There have been some discussions on these things in the past and disagreements, etc, so my own opinions aren't the only possible answer, just what I've considered most likely. It has been argued before that older rares should be worth the same as newer rares, and its totally possible that the value of older rares has been inflated, but my own observation has been that the majority of users agrees that older rares do have some additional value over newer rares (even if there is disagreement on how big that difference in value should be).

[Maddy]

one way to think of it is this: far fewer people were part of CS in 2008 than now. Even if EVERY person on CS back in the first year all got one rare pet, so many of them are inactive now, and the rerelease pool is always growing, so that the chance of getting one of those first-year dogs is extremely rare. The wider the pool of rereleases gets, the smaller the chance to get one of those first-year pets becomes.

And then because it's so difficult, a lot of people don't want to trade them away when they get them, making it even harder. So rare pets keep being rare, until they're VERY rare to get a hold of.

If everyone who ever joined was active, rare old pets would probably be a lot easier to get (: Not EASY but there would be more in circulation.

So yeah, there ARE less copies of older rares because there were less people on CS back then, and the number of old players still around is even smaller.

[BlueEyedKite]

If you would like a training exercise. Pick a random old pet. Like my bunny. Add 1 to the number at the end of the url. So 2158816, then 2158817, 2158818 etc. Click on the owner of those pets. Are they active? If they are active, is that pet in an unlocked group? You could spend hours (I have) going through pet IDs and maybe find one or two old pets, on active accounts, and also that pet is in an unlocked trade group.

You do the same exercise with a new rare and you will find far far more active accounts and those rares in unlocked trade groups

It's always a shock to me how many oldies we have lost when I go ID hunting :c

[TenMillionFireflies]

If you would like a training exercise. Pick a random old pet. Like my bunny. Add 1 to the number at the end of the url. So 2158816, then 2158817, 2158818 etc. Click on the owner of those pets. Are they active? If they are active, is that pet in an unlocked group? You could spend hours (I have) going through pet IDs and maybe find one or two old pets, on active accounts, and also that pet is in an unlocked trade group.

You do the same exercise with a new rare and you will find far far more active accounts and those rares in unlocked trade groups

It's always a shock to me how many oldies we have lost when I go ID hunting :c

Man, the CS economy really be unbalanced! Thanks for explaining everyone, it makes a little more sense now <3