KittyCatS! Community Forum

Happy Halloween,
Just wanted to say that over the years breeders have been requesting ,nicely, that KC stop the mass release of traits and new furs. As a community we would have liked to be able to trait up the furs while they were still perceived as valuable. When we had auctions we decorated the podiums. We didn't just throw boxes up there. We bought other people cats because we wanted them in their breeding program not because they wanted to suck up to someone. The popularity of KC has drawn many people in looking to profit from the secondary market. With new releases huge breeders were able to successfully pull new traits from starters in a short period of time. They flooded the secondary market with new traits that were soon devalued. This destroyed the market. A nine traited bengal black sell for 800 linden or less. The various markets were "team oriented" discouraging people from attending auctions at other sims. Now I hear theres a co-op. Callie has staff from the Scratchn Post living on her sim. Drive by Glitter sometime and see who rents there. To me that smacks of favoritism. Good luck with all that but I'm done.

Best Wishes for you all with the new releases! SS

Some people may be so scared of agreeing with Sam.... but with 95 views I am sure more than half agreed. tho silently.... there are TONS of favoritism in the KC community... which discourages alot of ppl from participating in contest... I was told not to enter the decorating contest because of favoritism,from a ton of ppl in the kc community. The secondary markets a flooded with 100L kitties 50L kitties I seen an Abby dark go for 700L..... really 700L? No new traits stop the desperation and lets get the market back in order... Cheers to u Sam everything u said was true and spot on... Find your yarn balls ladies and gents... who else agree?

(10-02-2014 02:08 PM)SAMSMlTH Resident Wrote: [ -> ]Happy Halloween,
Just wanted to say that over the years breeders have been requesting ,nicely, that KC stop the mass release of traits and new furs. As a community we would have liked to be able to trait up the furs while they were still perceived as valuable. When we had auctions we decorated the podiums. We didn't just throw boxes up there. We bought other people cats because we wanted them in their breeding program not because they wanted to suck up to someone. The popularity of KC has drawn many people in looking to profit from the secondary market. With new releases huge breeders were able to successfully pull new traits from starters in a short period of time. They flooded the secondary market with new traits that were soon devalued. This destroyed the market. A nine traited bengal black sell for 800 linden or less. The various markets were "team oriented" discouraging people from attending auctions at other sims. Now I hear theres a co-op. Callie has staff from the Scratchn Post living on her sim. Drive by Glitter sometime and see who rents there. To me that smacks of favoritism. Good luck with all that but I'm done.

Best Wishes for you all with the new releases! SS

Hello,

Thank you for you input. I'd like to take the time to answer your post and to make sure we clarify your comments.

We have heard part of the community at various times ask for "less traits" while at the same time another part asks for "more traits". We do our best to listen to the comments and suggestions and combine them with our own thoughts.

Over time we have handled the release of "new traits" in various ways. This summer in the RFL cats, due to the release being so close to the Spring Collection we released no traits in them. It was met with different responses, some feeling it was the perfect way to start a summer and others wishing we had put new traits in them. We know we can't control how the market acts or what individuals do and we try to accommodate the different thoughts people have. The too many/too little "new traits" is a situation that has been around since we launched as can be witnessed through the older posts in this forum.

As far as the comment about me (callie), renting some parcels to some people who are also KC customers I would like to stress that this is separate from the work i do with KittyCatS. I have rented land for about 8 years on a few sims.

Together with other team members, the KittyCatS management owns about 3.7% of all private sims in SL, so there is a big likely hood that several breeders are living on one of these sims. Nearly all these sims were around already before KittyCatS released.
Some parcel owners of course also got interested in our cats as well as some breeders getting interested in our land.

As far as our decorating contests, let me clarify. There is no way we can show favortism as we have a community vote and panel vote which was designed to balance votes as much as possible. The panel can't pick the winners, nor can the "popular vote". Both votes serve as a check to make sure things are as fair as possible. The panel vote is done by the KittyCatS team and people who have no cats at all.

It's important to make this known because we put a high value on making sure that no person in KittyCatS gets any special advantages. We value each person whether they have one cat or 100 cats and treat them all how we'd like to be treated.

I hope this clarifies your concerns. if not, I'd invite you to IM me in world and I'd be happy to chat with you.

Respectfully,

callie

In Response,
I acknowledge that KC is a business. The release of the collector series has been very profitable for KC. Unfortunately I believe that our dire predictions about the effect on the secondary market have come home to roost. I am personally very sad about the collapse of the secondary market. I am skeptical about the co-op because of the animosity people from different camps have displayed toward one another. With regard to the SP staff moving into the sim next to caLLiefornia, I think it is more than a coincidence that they all moved in within a week of one another. You may rent to whom ever you like but it does have the look of impropriety. Transparency is the best policy in business I think. Thanks for allowing me to express my opinion.

Best of luck,

SS

My personal feeling is that new menagerie cats could go a long way in helping with the 50L priced cat secondary market issues. I understand that the menagerie holds little value for KC because it doesn't really make them any money, but it is still important to help fuel the removal of cats from in world and catteries. I also know that my next suggestion will be unpopular, but it would be nice if KC offered the specialty Halloween/Christmas cats available for purchase with K dollars as well as regular lindens in order to give people more options to spend their K dollars. But my preference would still be for new menagerie cats. Pretty please?

(10-04-2014 10:56 AM)Jania Cleanslate Wrote: [ -> ]Find your yarn balls ladies and gents...

Yes I do sell Amway products! How very astute of you. SS

‘Winter Phoenix’ Wrote:Some people are into the KittyCatS scene for all the wrong reasons….KittyCatS is a labor of love. Go get a real job!

I didn’t want to get involved in this thread because I don’t agree with Samsmith about his version of shady interpersonal workings of the markets. I don’t think that there’s anything shady going on.
But.
There is an insinuation in this response that people who are complaining are greedy, “into the scene for the wrong reasons”. I think that that does happen, but I do think that most of the people who are complaining in this and the other active thread at the moment are actually talking about something more serious and are not greedy.

We know very well that KittyCatS won’t pay our monthly tier. It won’t pay for our catfood. It won’t pay for buying other people’s cats at auction. At this point, my personal sales just about cover the costs for rental booths I have at 3 markets.

You can argue that as a hobby, kitty sales shouldn’t have to cover anything at all. And you know what? That is completely valid.

But I think that we are reaching the point where we shouldn’t be calling Kitty Markets, "Kitty Markets" anymore.

I’m serious.

What percentage of kitties actually get sold? I know there’s this new Co.op organization, and I wish them well. And maybe they will come up some good “tools” as have been mentioned, that will bring buyer and seller together. I’m all for it. If they come up with a good sales database, I will be there.

But, as you point out, we’re in it for the love. We’re in it for the fun. We’re in it because the cats are adorable. People also have limited budgets, and yes many of us upload lindens from Real Jobs in order to have fun with the cats. And hang out with like-minded people. Figuring out hidden recessives - it’s a great game, a very fun puzzle game. Taking pictures of the cats - also fun. Having Megapuss races - Yay! Creating the perfect dream cat - an interesting challenge.

And perhaps it would make us all a far more honest community if we concentrated on these things and didn’t keep talking about selling cats.

Now maybe I’m full of shit. After all, I did sell a cat today. It was 9T gorgeous (in my opinion) Aby Cinn showing Soft Curl ears. I sold it for 250L. It was live and used and had about 30 days worth of breeding left in it. It is what it is. Supply and demand and that is what that cat was worth. Most of the cats don’t sell… they aren’t worth a linden.
We have a whole new year’s worth of people coming in from the latest Firestorm Kitty, asking so sweetly and naively how they should price their kittens. Sometimes it’s hard to predict what cat will appeal to somebody’s heart or breeding needs and the oddest cats will sell. Who knows?

And selling kittens is a fun game too. It is. And - all supposed greed aside - a few lindens helps with all the social grease. I buy your cat at auction; in a few weeks you might buy mine. “Markets” are social centers. Auctions are social centers. That really does contract when all we’re spending our lindens on is catfood. But we should, we really should, forge on ahead. Keep going with the things we love.
Maybe we shift more towards swaps instead of sells to keep the social involvement there. I don’t know.

But please don’t suggest that there’s not something wrong. There may be a variety of ways to fix what’s wrong, and some may not involve money at all. But the current state of things isn’t peachy.

I guess I'm nostalgic. It was a smaller community. Auctions were theater. Thee and Mya and Sanura, Ifoni. Adult people. No Polyanna Syndrome. Real bid wars. Cats sold for 30k. People didn't like each other. Just like real life. Lots of people had 400 or more cats. No profit there. It was cool. Yeah people have said repeatedly please change the business model to account for the secondary market. That didn't happen. Most people aren't looking to make a living selling cats. It was worth it then, but it's lost it's soul! SS

I think it is sad that Callie has been put in a position where she feels the need to defend her position regarding her land rentals. It's her land, she can rent to whoever she wants and really it shouldnt be anyone elses business but their own.

Callie is one of the nicest people you could meet, so of course she is going to have good friends within the community she helped to create.

And no, I don't rent from her although I would love to!