c$ has been inflated for YEARS. things are only being done about it now BECAUSE
people were complaining about it. your "$5 worth" of c$ is not worth $5. the common rate is 1:20 now and not 1:16 like the $5 option gives you, and 1:50 and 1:100 on the art side of cs.
i sold my sunjewel for c$3000. from what i remember c$4000-5000 is a more "normal" price. it is stupidly inflated. that dog went for $375 going by the 1:16 factor, $300 for 1:20, and $60 for 1:100. that last one sounds much more reasonable to me, but thats definitely not what youre getting purchasing c$. its the same reason all those people are doing art for c$ (which definitely ISNT unreasonable; i think a lot of people seem to forget that cs's primary target audience are minors, and i have seen many, many artists younger than i am who are far more talented than me. doing art and trading for c$ is way easier than convincing your parents to let you spend money on a game). on the art side users will actively discourage new users from buying c$ its so inflated and, for the most part, easy to get. that last part is debatable, and now more than ever.
i dont think raising the prices of store pets was quite the way to go, because i know i personally will just wait to buy a set i like now rather than spend c$100 on one i dont like and doesnt have much worth trading anyway. when they were c$60 i was much more willing to buy store pets, even multiple sets, because its "not that much" even if i end up spending more c$ buying 2 sets than i am buying 1 new set. the classic sales marketing scheme. im glad they are trying to do something about it, but even watching the art boards or doing art myself i have noticed people have become much stingier, even if right now there really isnt too much of a difference in the inflation. people are afraid to lose their wealth. and if it isnt circulating then its also not being spent on store pets/items, the inflation will just get worse from people buying it and trading it, and then its never actually spent. but i dont have any experience developing games, much less ones with an economy.
supposedly staff get paid in c$, or at least artists do. i dont know if thats ever been confirmed, but if so that is a much bigger issue than people buying c$ with money. you cant just "make more money." the value and demand of items wont change, but the value of the money will. the currency becomes worth less. zimbabwe, venezuela, and germany have all tried it. it never worked. it was cheaper to burn bills than buy wood. cs is a much milder version of this situation. wages are not just "made," they come from existing pools of money. this is entirely theoretical of course -- as far as im aware there's no confirmation artists are compensated with c$. i wouldnt expect to get any related information any time soon either. in fact, id fully expect them to deny it even if IS true to prevent people from applying solely for c$.
additionally, as it was said, correlation =/= causation. cherrypicking posts that don't give any reason for their quitting does not help that either. people have been quitting for years. i have never seen someone quit due to the c$ inflation, but i also dont browse those forums. in 2019-2020 i knew a lot of people who quit due to having issues with staff and harassment (not necessarily together) and
not due to the trade economy. rules against offsite harassment are still very new. from what ive seen though, the majority of people quit because theyre just too busy with adult life, or have forgotten about the site entirely and thought itd be nice to give away their pets to active users.
there was even an
entire thread related to why people are quitting, and while the trade economy affected their decision for some, for the most part it relates back to, again, staff issues and the community itself. the trade economy IS an issue, and while the userbase is responsible for a good chunk of that, lack of staff intervention is also to blame. we only got this rarity update because of threads like this and people repeatedly pushing back over the past 5-ish years. we only received c$ sinks (bimonthly items + raised store pet pricing) because of these threads and community pushback. nothing can be done about c$ inflation without staff intervention, and if they
wont do anything without multiple threads over the years and the community becoming further and further restless then these issues will just worsen.
i have never seen a forum site without extreme inflation. cs is actually... pretty tame to most of them. off the top of my head goatlings is the worst one i know of. 100 000ss = c$1 from what i remember. 6 fr gems = c$1.
im sure i had more to say and somewhere to go with it but there are people talking around me and i have 3 lab reports and 2 midterms due this week i have better things to do.
