CS$ Inflation

[Shado]

I also make CS$ at the end of ever event by selling my leftover tokens/pets, but its never enough to be able to buy multiple sets of store pets so that you have extra for trading. Even if you set a timer for every 20 minutes so that you can get another token as soon as you can, it's not enough. I have done this myself and had many sleepless nights over it bc I was trying to get every pet or gather enough tokens to make some extra cash so I could get that extra set of pets! I might be posting another unpopular opinion but I would rather the people who are already trading "digital currency" to get "the short end of the stick" than those of us paying with REAL MONEY.

Absolutely agreed. Why should the majority get the short end of the stick so those in the minority can... get more value out of the massive amounts of resources they already have?

I would also like to point out that you now need to spend 10USD to get a full set of store pets. This is a website with a child demographic, and changing the goal to get a full set of store pets from 5USD to 10USD feels really unfair to kids, where even 3USD can feel like a lot of money (that's two whole toys at the dollar store!). Children also don't really have the option of opening art shops and it's extremely hard to get c$ without overpaying for it by trading. Kids are also less likely to grasp the value of c$ and therefore will have a much harder time trading for it.

I got my first store pet set way back when by scrounging up 60c$ through trading (which I recently went through my old trades and I super overpaid for the c$) and I just barely made enough. I can imagine that it would be pretty much impossible for me to do the same now, having to get 167% more c$ for the same amount of pets.

THIS!

If I were to get my wildest dream granted and be able to turn back the clock with all of my current knowledge, to say 2007, right before CS became a thing, asking my mom for $20 every two months would have been a wish only a genie or God could grant. Today? Thank God I make my own money. I can only imagine how it would be for a literal CHILD to try and compete with no real grasp on real money OR virutal money. Espeically in an environment where people try to offer you lowballs or straight up scam you, whether intentional or not. Something needs to be done, but I don't think this is it. :/

[halloween3110]

Ummm, I dont want to interject too much! But a big part of CS is about trading, .... I mean as an example I happened to own a desired popular pet and sold it. I gave been able to purchase my store pets for the last 2 years and have gifted many to other members.
Please consider this.

[Shado]

I didn't notice the price went up until someone mentioned it. I did however notice that the bundle now has 4 pets instead of 5.
I'm glad the price of the bundle didn't go up. I'm someone who has/will never buy C$, so I trade for all that I have/will ever have. It's already hard enough for me to get 100 in 2 months (I got the last store pets within a few hours of role over), and it's going to get even harder with the prices going up.

I do agree that something has to be done about inflation. There's people on site that I've seen with 5-6 digits of C$. It also doesn't make sense the people I've seen say, "quitting! Everything for C$!" (Like, why do you need it if you're leaving?) (second part of that rant is besides the point)

I myself am guilty of buying from people who want to "liquidate" their account. However, at least I'm getting something of substantial "value" out of it such as a 2014 Store pet or so on... I absolutely understand wanting to get CS$ to be able to buy something off site such as art or Flight Rising or Neopets or whatever other people play now-a-days. I've been on this site since 2011/12 and most of the "wealth" I've accumulated has come from simply BEING here monthly.. There have to be better ways to assuage this inflation crisis than what is currently going on... Maybe make events such as the Dec 18 event bi-anual instead of anually? Once at the Winter Solstice and once at the Summer Solstice? Rerelease old store pets during said events, or even rerelease store pets in general, mayvbe as I posted before - create a hard cap for CS$, or any other good idea someone might post here!

Anything but making it harder on those who already struggle to make CS$ to get these store exclusive items. Not all of us can create art to sell or want to liquidate our accounts for more virual money. Again, I feel something needs to be done but this is not it :/

[Shado]

Ummm, I dont want to interject too much! But a big part of CS is about trading, .... I mean as an example I happened to own a desired popular pet and sold it. I gave been able to purchase my store pets for the last 2 years and have gifted many to other members.
Please consider this.

"I mean as an example I happened to own a desired popular pet and sold it." Not everyone is this lucky to get a "list" pet or something of "demand" many new players join, and then quickly quit due to how hard it is to trade sometimes! Heck, even people who joined in 2008 are quitting! You see it all over the fourms!

Forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4201775&hilit=quitting
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4661166&hilit=quitting
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4822322&hilit=quitting
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4900108&p=143020429&hilit=quitting#p143020429
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4901796
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4897682
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4886213

People are leaving this site! It is not very new user friendly, like it or not. This recent inflation does nothing to help it :/

[Snowwall]

The reason I don't participate in C$-related discussion is that I had only managed to scrounge up a tiny bit of it for the rare "OMG, I love it SOOO much!" pet/item. Once every two years, I believe, and that included hours of painful "selection of pets for sale" and "cleaning out of my other games'-based pockets by way of off-site trading".

From the point of view of site income, I'm pretty low in priority (at most 300 C$ in a few years is too little and even that was traded from other people). From the point of view of sinking that C$, I did my tiny bit :D

However, I must note that limited-edition stuff and price hikes seem to me a bit like "Well, all that planned obsolescence and easy-to-break stuff will force the billionaires of Earth to spend their money!"
1. The billionaires have too much money for that to make a dent. Even if they spent half of it, they're still a few orders of magnitude richer than the rest of the folk put together.
2. While the billionaires will manage to keep up with the limited releases, the "only can do it occasionally" people will be able to do it even less occasionally - but now see that they're missing out on so much more stuff. Where, say, litter swaps are out of the question.
3. The "full-of-surprises economy" will encourage people to pile up piles of money. Just in case. Being RICH and having a heap of riches will become a more wide-spread dream.

From my economics studies and whatever "common knowledge" I possess, all three points seem to be true for real-world billionaires. Except the "litter swap" thing. And adding point 2b: planned obsolescence is best avoided by the people who can afford the good stuff.

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

Another reason I don't usually speak about game economics is this: I don't have any answers and without them what's my contribution? On the other hand, the whole of humanity doesn't seem to have solved this particular economic problem in the large scale, either... and keeping silent just makes the more self-assured people be the only voice, instead of the louder voice... So, these were my 2 cents. Over and out.

[Shado]

Thank you for sharing your opinion on it! I would love to continue hearing from other people what they think on this matter.

[Alina_Mau]

I've noticed it recently because I used to be able to buy a specific amount and know it would last me two bundles, now I have to buy every time and for some reason my paypal refuses to let me purchase now that there's a drop I actually really want XD

I respect the shift if it's because more people are USING C$ but I think I'd prefer an overall wider selection of items/pets in the store instead tbh?
It's a more complex conversation just because microtransactions are something people are more comfortable with compared to when CS started. I think they know the shop needs change in how it works to fit that fact but they haven't figured out HOW all those changes work just yet. We've been seeing slow, subtle shifts of trying different things but I think it will continue to change until they find something everyone is happy with. The CS team has always done their best to do that in the past <3

[conarcoin]

Ummm, I dont want to interject too much! But a big part of CS is about trading, .... I mean as an example I happened to own a desired popular pet and sold it. I gave been able to purchase my store pets for the last 2 years and have gifted many to other members.
Please consider this.

"I mean as an example I happened to own a desired popular pet and sold it." Not everyone is this lucky to get a "list" pet or something of "demand" many new players join, and then quickly quit due to how hard it is to trade sometimes! Heck, even people who joined in 2008 are quitting! You see it all over the fourms!

Forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4201775&hilit=quitting
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4661166&hilit=quitting
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4822322&hilit=quitting
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4900108&p=143020429&hilit=quitting#p143020429
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4901796
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4897682
Forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4886213

People are leaving this site! It is not very new user friendly, like it or not. This recent inflation does nothing to help it

There are ALWAYS users leaving.

(And older players quitting and giving their pets away is an overall benefit to the economy as it puts those pets into active circulation.)

[preservedfawn]

I may be an outlier here but I fully support and understand the decision to raise the prices of store pets.

everything around the world is facing inflation and I’m sure the cost to run the site is much more expensive than it was 15 years ago when it first started. the last thing I want to see is CS not being able to keep functioning.

I don’t think it’s fair to say these newest additions aren’t special because they’re reused lineart + nothing special because quite frankly that’s just rude to the artists that put in time and effort to create the art/have nothing to do with pricing. it’s just the circumstances of reality.

[frogfan]

-snip-

everything around the world is facing inflation and I’m sure the cost to run the site is much more expensive than it was 15 years ago when it first started. the last thing I want to see is CS not being able to keep functioning.

-snip-

Just wanted to jump in and point out the price increase isn't because of real world inflation. Its solely about the on-site c$ inflation

here's a post from Seasonal confirming the reason, link: Forum/viewtopic.php?p=137811010#p137811010


Hi! C$ prices were raised based on community feedback regarding C$ inflation. Many users believe that C$ has lost some of its value over the years so we are trying to implement more C$ sinks, such as slightly increasing the price of store pets, adding more limited-time items, and adding rotating item sets to the store.

I do agree we shouldn't critique the price by citing the pets design. Designing a pet takes work, and it would make me feel bad to see people saying that the art I created doesn't justify the price