Sell Chicken Smoothie (Poll Has Been Reset!)

[JustAMurkrow]

this site was made with the intention to completely avoid pay to play themes, and a good amount will quit even more. i feel like it’ll do more harm than good

I've only been returning off and on in between years, because I know this isn't pay to play. When I was younger, yeah, I bought C$, and I might buy C$ again for store pets. But I would cold-turkey quit if I'd start having to pay just to play on CS.

[yharnam boy]

I can't pay online because I did shut down my online pay options because of paranoia. So for me it's not even a question of having money or not, it's a question of simply not being able to pay, even if stuff is extremely cheap. I don't want to set up additional paranoia fuel again since I struggle enough with other things already.

[Celozon]

The admins have never shown any indication that they plan on doing any kind of subscription for CS, even if they did I honestly doubt it would be pay-to-play, the current owners obviously aren't interested in that business model. I'd imagine even if there were a paid subscription, it wouldn't offer anything, like pets or items, that were exclusive, and it would just be a way to show support for the site, or something along those lines.

Just to be clear, I personally have never heard anything to suggest something like that was ever going to happen. So there is nothing here to be outraged or angry about (not that anyone here is, but I'm getting the feeling its not far off). It seems like we are straying a bit from the point of this thread. It was brought up by a single user as a suggestion for the site, obviously the majority here do not agree, and there isn't anything substantial being added through continued discussion on it.

[onion]

agree with cel, thats a very good point about the owners' intentions for the site!

[ZeroToInfinity]

I'm gonna slam down a mark. I found this thread and lost it after my Chromebook died but I wanna share my opinions, I just need to form them first.

[Mischief Smoothie]

This site is definitely dying.

I joined CS sometime in 2010 and played regularly through about 2015, with long hiatuses and random visits since then. I remember having quite a few friends that I would interact with on a daily basis, and a lot of them haven't even logged on in years.

I've had an adoption center in some form or another for most of my time here and I have to say that while the trade forums are still relatively active, they're not nearly as active as they were a few years ago. I used to get anywhere between 10 to 30 trade requests in a day, and now I get maybe one or two a day if I remember to bump the thread. The free adoptions forum is littered with threads of users quitting. If the trade forums are considered active, I worry about the rest of the forums, which I don't really visit.

I don't know what the state of the roleplay forums are these days, but I was a regular poster in the RP forums before they got moved to their own section. I started RPing seriously on CS when FooPets deleted all of their RP forums and eventually became subscription-only. I joined a lot of RP threads and made friends that way (and some enemies, but we don't need to talk about that). I could spend hours on CS in one sitting, and nowadays I spend maybe five to ten minutes a day, if I log in at all. I'm glad the new RP rules were put in place, they seem to be working well.

I don't think that CS should be sold because the new owners would probably try to make a profit from CS. This would invariably subject Chicken Smoothie to the fate of FooPets: forgotten by the sands of time because someone tried to squeeze money out of children. I do think that some adding new features is a good idea so the site can attract new members. This probably means hiring more coders and other staff. Adding staff would also mean that actual harmful content could be moderated, such as racism and other prejudices. It would certainly be nice if CS could come to a harder stance on preventing harmful prejudice in a space primarily occupied by minors.

I was on quite a few online games back in the day, including Wajas, Mweor, FooPets, Webkinz, Neopets, DragonAdopters, Howrse, and AdventureQuest. The websites that are still around since I was active 5+ years ago are the ones who added features (like Wajas, Howrse, and AdventureQuest), kept up with user needs (like Wajas and Howrse), or were just huge (looking at you Neopets). The unsuccessful ones died because they tried to charge money (FooPets) or the site lost too many users due to poor administration (DragonAdopters).

It's okay if Chicken Smoothie's admins want to retire - we just need a clear designation of who the new admins are going to be. CS is a great place, and one of the last somewhat active forum sites that I know of. I'd hate to see CS go the way of FooPets or DragonAdopters.

[VerySmashing]

Hi, I just fully read this post. I joined back in 2016, and I am starting to realize myself that this site is slowly dying. I wouldn't mind if the site were to be passed on, and new staff be added, but the thing is I don't know WHO. It would be bad if this site was passed onto someone greedy that DID turn it into pay to play. I try my best to personally recommend CS to my friends, but without larger advertisement and perhaps some new content, I don't see how this site will be able to continue on forever. I'm here because of nostalgia, not because it is super new. And to be honest, I don't want the site to completely re-vamp, but certain events would be interesting.

[KaiDraws]

tbh I fully agree to a point. I don't think that CS should be sold as it could get into hands of someone who will make and cause complete havoc to the site. Do I feel like this should be passed on? Yes. As long as they are passed on into the right hands. someone who will care for the site and nurture it. Make it active and pretty again. We all know that we are losing members and potentially losing "customers" for our shops.

As this site is dying I feel like some users are leaving this site for ones like Wolfplay, Neopets, Horse Eden Eventing, Lioden, Wolvden (Still in early access), Furry Paws (also kinda dying). I only use this site for art. As much as I love the pets I don't have the time to admire them. They just sit in categories collecting dust. Honestly it's sad. All these amazing sites are dying. They were so popular 2-3 years ago!

[barbwirebrat]

ive edited this a few times because i have a hard time properly expressing my feelings through words but please let it be known that this is all just my opinion and i do not have anything against the community or staff. i simply believe the website could use some improvements
i agree with everything thats been said and im honestly surprised i havent found this thread sooner.
ive been playing since 2012 (2011 if you count my old account) and i really haven't noticed any significant changes in the 8 years that ive been playing. ive taken so many hiatuses because of this, i used to only come online for december 18th. i always am online more around event times (summer, christmas, halloween etc) but the stretches of time between events are just stagnant and boring. as much as i hate to admit it, the cs community is definitely dying and it's dying fast. i know its always been a relatively smaller community and has always been run for free by a part of this community but no matter what you say or do there really is no denying, cs is dying.

another online sim/pet/etc game that i find myself enjoying a lot more is lioden and i feel like cs could take a few notes from them. mini games, an active community of staff and players, the creator of the game updates frequently and is always adding new things and asking for the communitys opinion, theres real objectives that make the game fun and refreshing. they even just released their partner game wolvden which ill be definitely checking out as soon as registration is open. and before anybody says anything i know theyre both very different in their own ways, but theres also a lot of things that make them similar. cs is just outdated, old and bland, has a dying community and really doesnt have anything exciting going for it. lioden on the other hand, while it may be a little old as well, has always been fresh and frequently updated, has an active live chat with lots of sub-chats AND forums, they have events every month that make gameplay more exciting, they add new things all the time, have a very busy and constantly expanding community- the creator of the game even released an update the other day stating they're going to be rehauling the entire website and updating the format completely and making tweaks to the gameplay to better match wolvden.

ill admit, its nice to not have to worry about competitive gameplay, its nice how relaxed and simple the game can be (if you can even really call it a game), its fun to adopt pets every month and see what the outcomes are, but thats really all it is. it needs more.

while i agree selling cs may be the best route to take, they would have to be extremely careful with who they sell it to. something you could relate it to could be club penguin for example. it had its charm and disney definitely upgraded it and made it more exciting but their moneygrabbing scheme eventually became its downfall and they got rid of it all together. i like the base concept of cs, but 12 years of the same thing is just too much, or i suppose not enough. and ill also add that the way some staff moderate the game is really.. strange and seems choosy to their independent beliefs i guess. it just doesnt feel right. i personally feel like the way the game is moderated can be a bit all over the place sometimes but thats a whole other topic.
thats all i have to say right now, i saw this topic and just had to put in my two cents aha im glad they havent taken this down. ill be keeping an eye on it for sure. thank u for being brave enough to come out and be honest about all of this because i really think this needed to be said.

EDIT: i feel like i should also mention that i was a bit appalled by the way tess and the staff handled addressing blm, i even had a mod give me a warning for having acab in my bio- i dont really care what their stance is on acab but if this site allows people to have literal confederate flags in their signatures i dont think itll hurt anyone to say acab on my page that is viewed by little to no people. i understand having a stance on more political things and whether you view acab as political or simply human rights is really up to the individual i suppose.
idk again thats just my two cents, i hope this doesnt get deleted 😳
EDIT 2: thats not to say there are no good mods/staff. i appreciate everything that the staff does and often times they go out of their way to help! but there are always a few bad apples in a bunch. i garner no hate towards the staff and i am very thankful for the efforts they put in to be more open and communicative for the community.

[axelandria]

-snip-

EDIT: i feel like i should also mention that i was genuinely appalled at the way tess and the staff handled addressing blm, i even had a mod give me a warning for having acab in my bio- i dont really care what their stance is on acab but if this site allows people to have literal confederate flags in their signatures i dont think itll hurt anyone to say acab on my page that is viewed by little to no people. im not one to point a finger and call somebody a racist but it just feels iffy that they felt the need to tell me to remove that from my bio. idk again thats just my two cents, i hope this doesnt get deleted 😳
EDIT 2: thats not to say there are no good mods/staff. i appreciate everything that the staff does and often times they go out of their way to help! but there are always a few bad apples in a bunch.

this is ONLY addressing the first "EDIT" you have, nothing else in your post.

i believe it is likely that "acab" was asked to be removed because one of the letters stands for a curse word.
also, confederate flags are not allowed anywhere on cs.

In acknowledgement for these issues we have created a new rule: Confederate Flag images/themes are no longer allowed. While many have viewed this flag as a symbol of southern pride, it is also representative of a historical movement to maintain black slavery and white supremacy. We wish to remind users that Nazi themes and imagery are also not allowed. It’s important to understand and acknowledge mistakes from history, but we don’t wish to honor these views with representation on CS today.