Sell Chicken Smoothie (Poll Has Been Reset!)

[RattyRat]

This thread immediately caught my eye when it went up, but I’ve been seriously debating whether or not I wanted to make a post. I thought it would be better to just stay out of it, but then I realized apart from slow updates to CS, a reoccurring idea is that Chickensmoothie is “dying” or becoming inactive.

What I’m about to say may be right or wrong, and I just want to say that I did not write this under the assumption that everything I am thinking makes sense.

I believe that the aforementioned issues with Chickensmoothie do contribute to its steady decline. However, I also feel that it is necessary to realize that the people do too. And with this, I am not saying that we as a community are causing it to crash and burn.

As the older members of the community become busier and find themselves lacking time, life outside the internet calls to them. It’s only a matter of time until they move on. But luckily, there will always be new users joining, right?

Perhaps, but I feel it is important to consider the fact that there are different generations of people.

The Internet came about in the 60s, a time when I definitely was not around. But back then, according to my tech history classes, Internet communication was directed more towards government and military purposes. The ability to transmit digital messages across the planet rather than go through the hassle of mailing letters was astounding.

Then came 1991, the year when the internet became available to the public. I want to remind you all about Internet Explorer, and how many were impressed by its abilities before Google came around in 1998. Now, my older brothers were extremely into the idea of video games, and the Internet was fascinating. I remember helping them search through game discs, and I remember begging to have a turn on it. Our PC was slow, but the idea that I could type and play on it fascinates my younger self.

Technology grew rapidly from there. With new, innovative ideas and creations, consumers all over the world quickly became drawn to the internet. There is an entire generation right there that grew up on computer games and virtual websites. Who needed a crappy iPhone 4 when there sat a search engine that could take you to hundreds of sites far more interesting than some of the apps on the appstore? Social media clearly existed, but I don’t remember it being as big when I was growing up.
So there you have two generations, at least, with the interest in websites you can log into whenever you want.

But then, Apple continued to release new IPads and IPhones. Remember when the iPod nano was released and everyone wanted one? Yeah. Try asking one of today’s 10 year olds what that is, they’ll probably just give you a confused look. I remember a few years ago, I went to see my 9 year old twin cousins for their 10th birthday. They caught me playing Chickensmoothie and were anything but interested in it. I shrugged it off and asked them what they wanted for their birthday. One handed me a list.
Hoverboard.
IPhone.
IPad Pro.
Laptop.

You’re probably reading this and wondering what my point is. How does this link back to Chickensmoothie’s activity?
Well, these newer generations grew up with some of the most modern technology. On top of that, social media has become a huge part of everyday life. What’s more interesting to an 8-year-old today: YouTube or a website where you can collect shiny, cute pixel pets?
You might think the answer would be obvious, but it’s not. There is a new generation of kids that are maturing faster than the previous ever did. They were not slowly exposed to the internet and new technology. It has always been there for them. They were born in a world of modern trends. That’s why you see controversial social media images/videos of kids wearing makeup, dancing to or singing suggestive songs, and wearing clothes that make it difficult to tell whether they’re 8 or 16. And to them, this is all normal; this is what they know.

Part of Chickensmoothie’s inactivity is simply caused by a dwindling lack of interest from kids/teens/adults as the years progress... or at least, that’s what I think. So I don’t think it’s fair to pin the idea of the site slowly dying entirely on the staff’s involvement/lack of involvement with the site. Virtual pet sites just might not be a highlight of internet entertainment anymore.

[Aizaka]

Just throwin' my two cents in... gotta agree a bit with @Ratsuyan.

[nickjr]

I got ninja'd a couple of times. I started typing when no one had replied to Ratsuyan yet

This thread immediately caught my eye when it went up, but I’ve been seriously debating whether or not I wanted to make a post. I thought it would be better to just stay out of it, but then I realized apart from slow updates to CS, a reoccurring idea is that Chickensmoothie is “dying” or becoming inactive.

What I’m about to say may be right or wrong, and I just want to say that I did not write this under the assumption that everything I am thinking makes sense.

I believe that the aforementioned issues with Chickensmoothie do contribute to its steady decline. However, I also feel that it is necessary to realize that the people do too. And with this, I am not saying that we as a community are causing it to crash and burn.

As the older members of the community become busier and find themselves lacking time, life outside the internet calls to them. It’s only a matter of time until they move on. But luckily, there will always be new users joining, right?

Perhaps, but I feel it is important to consider the fact that there are different generations of people.

The Internet came about in the 60s, a time when I definitely was not around. But back then, according to my tech history classes, Internet communication was directed more towards government and military purposes. The ability to transmit digital messages across the planet rather than go through the hassle of mailing letters was astounding.

Then came 1991, the year when the internet became available to the public. I want to remind you all about Internet Explorer, and how many were impressed by its abilities before Google came around in 1998. Now, my older brothers were extremely into the idea of video games, and the Internet was fascinating. I remember helping them search through game discs, and I remember begging to have a turn on it. Our PC was slow, but the idea that I could type and play on it fascinates my younger self.

Technology grew rapidly from there. With new, innovative ideas and creations, consumers all over the world quickly became drawn to the internet. There is an entire generation right there that grew up on computer games and virtual websites. Who needed a crappy iPhone 4 when there sat a search engine that could take you to hundreds of sites far more interesting than some of the apps on the appstore? Social media clearly existed, but I don’t remember it being as big when I was growing up.
So there you have two generations, at least, with the interest in websites you can log into whenever you want.

But then, Apple continued to release new IPads and IPhones. Remember when the iPod nano was released and everyone wanted one? Yeah. Try asking one of today’s 10 year olds what that is, they’ll probably just give you a confused look. I remember a few years ago, I went to see my 9 year old twin cousins for their 10th birthday. They caught me playing Chickensmoothie and were anything but interested in it. I shrugged it off and asked them what they wanted for their birthday. One handed me a list.
Hoverboard.
IPhone.
IPad Pro.
Laptop.

You’re probably reading this and wondering what my point is. How does this link back to Chickensmoothie’s activity?
Well, these newer generations grew up with some of the most modern technology. On top of that, social media has become a huge part of everyday life. What’s more interesting to an 8-year-old today: YouTube or a website where you can collect shiny, cute pixel pets?
You might think the answer would be obvious, but it’s not. There is a new generation of kids that are maturing faster than the previous ever did. They were not slowly exposed to the internet and new technology. It has always been there for them. They were born in a world of modern trends. That’s why you see controversial social media images/videos of kids wearing makeup, dancing to or singing suggestive songs, and wearing clothes that make it difficult to tell whether they’re 8 or 16. And to them, this is all normal; this is what they know.

Part of Chickensmoothie’s inactivity is simply caused by a dwindling lack of interest from kids/teens/adults as the years progress... or at least, that’s what I think. So I don’t think it’s fair to pin the idea of the site slowly dying entirely on the staff’s involvement/lack of involvement with the site. Virtual pet sites just might not be a highlight of internet entertainment anymore.

^ This has been on my mind for a while. I'm not particularly old, but I'm old enough that depending on your definition of how long a "generation" is, you could say the next generation after my generation is now old enough to go online without being subject to COPPA.

And we're not the only ones to think about this!

The first time I seriously thought about this was in a linguistics context, thanks to the book Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch, published in 2019 (overall a fantastic book and no I do not get anything from mentioning/advertising/etc it). The book talks about the different ways of writing (in English) on the Internet and how that evolved from the 1990's to 2019. To give the context of the evolution of writing on the Internet, the book also gives a brief history of internet usage and, based on a survey (subject to all of the concerns you normally have about surveys, of course, but as far as surveys go, I don't think it was particularly bad), hypothetically divided people into 5 groups of people, split across 3 internet waves.

I'm quoting and paraphrasing for the purpose of education! Just for the record. I'll try to keep things brief.

I asked [the participants of a survey conducted in 2017] to sort themselves by age range: thirteen to seventeen, eighteen to twenty-three, twenty-four to twenty-nine, and thereafter by decade: thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and over seventy. I then asked them to select a grouping of social platforms that best represented when they first started socializing with people online. There were four options.

• Usenet, forums, IRC, BBS, listservs, or similar
• AIM, MSN Messenger, blogs, LiveJournal, MySpace, or similar
• Facebook, Twitter, Gchat, YouTube, or similar
• Instagram, Snapchat, iMessage, WhatsApp, or similar

Both questions were optional and had a write-in box for other answers, but only 150 out of over 3,000 respondents either didn't answer or wrote in something else. This means that 95 percent [of the participants] felt themselves adequately described by these four clusters of social platforms. [...] The survey doesn't represent a random cross-section of the population, but it got at least a hundred responses in each group from teens to fifty-plus, and if it overcounts anyone, it probably overcounts people who spend a lot of time on the internet, which is essentially what I was looking for anyway.

While this doesn't address virtual pet sites or adoptables sites, we can still see how usage of the internet has apparently varied by (mini-)generation, based on the platforms listed and the fact that so many people who took the survey apparently felt just fine with one of the groups.

(Also, just for the record again, the author actually goes on to divide people into 5 groups of people, split across 3 internet waves, based not only on those four groups but also on age)

(To match up these platforms with time and Ratsuyan's post:

• "Then came 1991, the year when the internet became available to the public."
  
  "Usenet, forums, IRC, BBS, listservs, or similar"
  
  
• "There is an entire generation right there that grew up on computer games and virtual websites. [...] Social media clearly existed, but I don’t remember it being as big when I was growing up."
  
  between "AIM, MSN Messenger, blogs, LiveJournal, MySpace, or similar" and "Facebook, Twitter, Gchat, YouTube, or similar", but closer to the former
  
  
• "Well, these newer generations grew up with some of the most modern technology. On top of that, social media has become a huge part of everyday life. What’s more interesting to an 8-year-old today: YouTube or a website where you can collect shiny, cute pixel pets?
  "You might think the answer would be obvious, but it’s not. There is a new generation of kids that are maturing faster than the previous ever did. They were not slowly exposed to the internet and new technology. It has always been there for them."
  
  technically both "Facebook, Twitter, Gchat, YouTube, or similar" and "Instagram, Snapchat, iMessage, WhatsApp, or similar", but weighed more heavily toward the latter group

The following paragraph was edited once to be more accurate about 16 minutes after originally posting this

For me personally, even though I don't remember a time before the internet, I was still born early enough and started going online early enough that the second group ("AIM, MSN Messenger, blogs, LiveJournal, MySpace, or similar") is almost representative of when I went online--I technically fall between the second and third groups, but the third group hadn't quite gained traction when I first went online. Insight: By definition, everyone who joined in the early years of CS (2008 to 2009, maybe 2010) would have picked either the first or second group, maybe the third group if they were an early adopter of Facebook/Twitter/etc (unless they literally only went on CS back then and didn't explore the rest of the internet for many years after joining). "Social media" was barely a thing back then. Heck, phpBB installations actually come with fields for you to enter your AIM info and other now-obsolete chat/IM service information. (Nick disabled these early on, of course, because we got kiddies here.) But for people joining CS in 2020, they technically could be split across all four groups--notably including the last group. CS is older than some of our members. If CS were a person living in the US, then CS could break free of COPPA restrictions next year.

Okay I'm done word vomiting solidarity with Ratsuyan's post lol

The other thing I want to say, which is not directly related but still tangentially related, is that I still stand by what I said earlier in the thread:

There are different games for different people--just like how console games range from first-person shooters to Animal Crossing and mobile games could be gacha games or like old-school arcade games, browser games have a wide range, too. I think it's good that there's a variety and that games don't only exist in whichever mode is most popular, although less popular versions will have to work a little harder to stay afloat

[Shian]

Yeah. I grew up with chat rooms and forums. So the highlight of one's online existence at the time was solely your forum signature.
I wasn't even into MMOs at the time and social media was not a thing yet.

At that time though, the hottest and greatest thing WAS pet adoptables. Just small things you put in your signature to watch them grow. You'd get a forum code off a site and they'd grow from an egg into a creature. I tried finding my oldest ones, a goat and a dragon but since I can't find them, I guess Dragcave is the closest thing. Something like this:

Obviously with the advent of social media, there's better ways to establish yourself now but that doesn't mean that younger people who have far more entertainment options don't like pet site adoptables. We have a whole subboard for that after all and it does not look dead to me.

[Celozon]

I've been following this thread for a bit, and most of what I had to say was covered in the last page, so I don't have a lot to add on that topic. I agree that CS has seen an activity decline, but I don't think its 100% contributed to how the site is run like this thread would suggest. Its natural to see sites reach a popularity and for that popularity to eventually fade (ex. social media platforms). Thats not to say that the way the site is run is perfect (nothing is, and I'm very excited to see some of the improvements going forward) but I think saying that the site should be sold/passed on cause its going downhill is not looking at the big picture and everything that effects and changes CS. CS is the only pet site I've gone on for a long time now so I don't have other sites to compare it to, but I wouldn't be surprised if other sites also see the same decline in forum use that we do. We probably see it more than other pet sites just because we are specifically pointed at the younger generation, which is slowly becoming less interested in forum-based talk and more in instant messaging platforms.

Its not like instant messaging and social media didn't exist during the 'height' of CS (I know MySpace was a thing when I was younger though I never used it, and more recently Twitter and Facebook, and Skype existed). But those platforms just weren't used as heavily for my generation as it is for today's. Today's generation looks at forums in general and just aren't interested. Its too slow, too restricted, etc. And thats just a natural evolution that should be expected. The internet is still new relative to humankind, but we've already seen several 'cycles' like those mentioned in the last page. Thats not to say that we don't get new members, and that none of them are the 'target' audience. I see plenty of young kids on the forums still, but its just /less/ popular and it wouldn't matter who was in charge of CS, that wouldn't change. Does this mean CS is doomed? I don't think so. We may end up eventually seeing a more niche userbase that is smaller. I wouldn't really call that a bad thing but it depends more on your preference (I see older users often being nostalgic for the days when CS was very small and tight-knit).

Fixing this base issue is, unfortunately, is not something I can see happening anytime soon. At least from what I am aware (which is pretty much same as all you know), the code CS is built on is completely different from modern code for sites of this type would mean quite literally re-creating the entire site on new code. So, its unlikely to say the least. And I can't imagine even if that happened that CS would move to any kind of IMing format. It would still be forum-based and so, still eventually see the same decline as it currently does. I certainly wouldn't mind a more modern look and feel for CS, but just considering whats involved in that, right now its just not on the table.

ahh I said I didn't have much to add but I guess thats more than a little. My point is, yes there is a decline, yes there are certain things that need to be improved on and hopefully we can in the future, but in my opinion 'selling CS as a last resort' isn't going to solve the problem, and 'the site is dead cause staff don't care' just isn't true. I think the intent of this thread is good, and it is helping to see some good things forward, but the message itself just isn't accurate.

//Please note that this all comes from my experience and opinion as a user, not as a mod. Please don't take it as official, this is just my personal view c:

[Bilaz]

Ohhhh yeah a random thing I wanted to add based on what Celozon said! I just wanted to add that indeed declining activity does not spell doom. As some of you might know, Chickensmoothie started as a petz site and I found it through the petz community. Why am I saying this? Well the petz community has had it's hype and has fallen ages ago, but it's still their. It's small, it's niche and it's cosy, and the thing is. You only need a handful of passionate members to keep a place active and fun. As long as we're all here and as long as we all care about this community then it's not going anywhere.

[RevSpicy]

I have to agree wholeheartedly with what Celozon said as well:

As someone who's been on this website as long as I have, I feel it's quite disrespectful to ask the owners of the site to sell it to someone you feel would "take better care" of it and to accuse the staff's efforts of not being satisfactory.
I come and go as I see fit, but I always come back. I've played on FooPets, Neopets, Marapets, Webkinz, FlightRising and dozens of other websites who have all seen ups and downs in their playerbase. Things are simply changing as the new generation makes its presence known online. Websites grow quiet and perhaps even slower but they don't 'die' when this happens. A place as special-unique- as ChickenSmoothie will always have a home with its players and vice versa.
Every year we have several large-scale events to look for-I have December 18th on my Calendar. I interact with the playerbase primarily in the art threads. Things are quieter for sure, but that doesn't mean the site will disappear or is being neglected.

[Aurora Storm]

Celozon has put my frustrated thoughts about some conversations on this thread into civilized and well-thought-out words. I've been on CS for many years and taken long hiatuses during that time, but I always come back and one of my favourite things about the site is how easy it is to come back to. You don't feel lost and confused after taking a year off (or five in my case lol), and as a site that is based heavily around collecting, I think that's important. Even when I'm only semi-active I generally know when to come on for events, and that means I don't miss out despite having my own busy life. Perhaps in that sense CS is more catered towards the older generation than it used to be? Regardless of that, it upsets me to see the staff and admins getting blamed quite heavily for a "problem" that is on all of our shoulders, and Ratsuyan covered that topic quite well a few posts ago so I won't go into it again.

I think the increased communication on site updates is awesome, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds, but I for one don't think there is an issue with what CS is at it's core. It's kept me coming back for over a decade, now well into adulthood, so they must be doing something right.

[beldam.]

definitely echoing the same sentiments i'm seeing above me here - my activity in the community has fluctuated greatly over the years, but it's always been easy to check in and make my monthly adopts, maybe see if there's a fun event. honestly, it's been a homepage of mine for nearly the whole time i've been here, and over multiple computer changes - even in the times i wasn't doing much of anything

personally, i enjoy the simplicity of CS, and it's what keeps me coming back. i find a lot of other pet sites are hard to maintain - i might be captivated for a few weeks, maybe a few months, but after that? many of them get too overwhelming, and i end up returning not for enjoyment, but a sense of obligation - or fail to come back entirely.
i think the only thing i ever really have to worry about when returning from hiatus is how the community handles trading at this moment, since things evolve over time - and that's not really a problem that needs fixing so much as something i just have to observe and re-learn

i would definitely worry that selling CS would take away from what makes it so... i suppose, CS.
i think it would be wonderful to have more coders (heck, staff in general), so that no one gets burnt out, and i'm really enjoying the updates we're seeing now - but again, i don't think selling CS is the answer. i don't want an event for every month of the year, i don't want pet-collecting to change, i don't even want how we communicate to change - i just want to know that the staff aren't burning out beyond their capabilities.

edit: since i don't really want to try and make a full response to shian's post below me, but i seem to have been misinterpreted
i never said i don't want qol updates - in fact, i do have small things i would like changed, personally. i just don't think this is the right thread on which to air all those out
i just don't want everything we have here to change - and as someone who's personally seen sites change ownership, ownership which then made very drastic changes that were disliked by the community at large and only caused further breakdown, i don't want this to happen to CS.
we need to know we have a staff who is able to listen to our concerns without burning themselves out, and i don't think selling the site should be the top of the list option here.

[Shian]

Fixing this base issue is, unfortunately, is not something I can see happening anytime soon. At least from what I am aware (which is pretty much same as all you know), the code CS is built on is completely different from modern code for sites of this type would mean quite literally re-creating the entire site on new code.

What issue are you referring to?
As far as I'm aware, none of the issues listed in the OP calls for an entire site rehaul.
We're asking for SOME sort of movement on the suggestions board. Anything. Tell us why a suggestion will or will not work. This sub board has not been touched in literal years no matter how big or small the suggestion, no matter how much or how little support an idea has. Nothing.

But now it seems anyone just joining us has latched onto this idea and thinks "sell the site" means "We want a ChickenSmoothiev2 with new everything, twice the events, a sleeker site etc." and that's not the case at all.

I come and go as I see fit, but I always come back. I've played on FooPets, Neopets, Marapets, Webkinz, FlightRising and dozens of other websites who have all seen ups and downs in their playerbase

Which of those sites have you been on where the owner ghosts the community and hasn't participated sine 2013?

CS is the only pet site I've gone on for a long time now so I don't have other sites to compare it to, but I wouldn't be surprised if other sites also see the same decline in forum use that we do.

I've been on dozens. Hundreds. So many I don't even remember the names of half of them. Tygras. The Dragon Empire, Aramii, This Is Halloween, CelestialVale, DragAdopts, squidby, Unicreatures, Dragonopia, It's always the same for 90% of them.
Updates get less and less, owner is seen less and less frequently. First once a week, then once a month, then a couple of times a year, then stops coming altogether. The monthly releases stop.
The bugs and issues pile up and with no one around that can help, users get annoyed with the gamebreaking ones.
The forums get less activity because there's nothing new to talk about.
Then suddenly one day, the site just isn't accessible. Since the owner isn't around, the bills just stop being paid despite premium currency critters being sold up until the site's death day.

CS has highly active staff members, something the other sites didn't have. There's so many things that they can help with so I don't see this kind of drastic thing happening any time soon with CS.

There was a thread here on CS a while ago about advertisement. Would you recommend CS to someone else?
It's hard to say yes when the default pattern is the above. "Well, the owner isn't around and there are very few game updates but I'm sure that's just fine since we still have holidays and events".

Considering the above, in anyone else's mind, the next step is, "the site just goes away".

If we had updates? If something like the customizable wishlist or one of the dozens of QOL things dropped tomorrow? If there was some new and exciting feature to tell them about? That would be a great way to recruit more players and get them interested. CS could grow.

That's why I'm constantly unintentionally getting people into FR. There's just so many fun updates all the time that I can't help telling people about what's new.
I'm not saying CS needs some lastest and greatest but it would be nice to brag about this site and get other people interested in playing every once in a while beyond Dec 18th. Because that's what I used to do. I used to really appreciate how well things got fixed when they were broken. When systems were updated when the current system stopped working. I'd constantly brag to others about how much better this site was than the newer sites because it's OUTLIVED everything else because it's been updated, changing to meet issues but still having the same quiet, relaxed website where you don't have to feed or click things.

"beldam."

"Aurora Storm"

"TeaLeafe"

In 2013, we gained the ability to trade C$. Do you know how much of a pain that was to do before that happened? Where you'd buy items with C$ and the person who requested them changed their mind, leaving you with items and no C$. You don't find that at all useful?

Before 2010, there was no way to filter out wishlist pets when trading. You just had to click through each page and find the starred pets yourself. An update let us filter out pets that weren't on our partner's wishlist.

Now we're swimming in thousands and thousands of pets whenever you wanted to trade someone and you had to pick which pet out of 20,000 your trading partner might want. You don't want that updated so it's easier to trade?
You adamantly don't want a single QOL update at all?