Lather, Rinse, Repeat

[Nocshadue Balbozar]

OK, so I've been following some threads both new and old basically about the state of the market. Yes, I'm an old fart. Yes, I've been breeding a long time. Yes, I was a new breeder with a very small cattery too, not just way back when in the good ol' days, but more recently when I had to take a hiatus from breeding for several months.

Here's the thing. The market hasn't really ever changed in a permanent way. It goes through cycles. It ALWAYS has. Even the very first year, the sales were slower and prices began to drop over the summer. Even back then, I wandered the markets looking for bargains and bought some 50-100L cats.

The one things that is a bit different now is that there are more of us and more groups to spam in. There are more markets to sell in. There's not just 10 of the same cat out for sale, there are hundreds.

This is not really such a bad thing as I have seen it spark a new trend of more and more people giving up the chase of "the newest" or "the most recessive" and simply breeding what they like.

When Halloween rolls around again, the market will pick up a bit overall. Then slowly decline until we hit the summer lows.

There have been countless posts and as many opinions as to what the causes are. Some say that we have too many new traits and that is why they lose their value so quickly. Some counter there should be more so it would spark even more sales.

We are the ones who decide where we place value. It reminds me of my older brother and the VCR. He got one from some specialty high end electronics shop before they were really mass produced. He paid a small fortune, but he HAD to be the first to have one, among his friends at least. I guess it was about 6 months later they started to show up in stores, still expensive but no where near what he paid. So over time they kept getting smaller and better until they were replaced by most with DVD players.

That's kind of how we tend to breed and buy cats. When a new fur comes out, someone will pay a fortune for it even with all the other traits gen. Then over time, people buy, breed, add traits etc, until the next new fur comes out.

I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Hey if I had a budget that would allow it, I'd buy every new fur that came out. But I'm rambling again, sorry.

I agree with Ivy that menagerie is good, and should be encouraged by new rewards. I think the market only seems to be getting worse because there are more of us now. It's always picked up in fall and winter and then tanked in summer. So reduce the cats you have breeding or take a break over summer if you need to and don't worry because things will pick up again.

Have fun breeding, be good to each other, and most of all... worship the cats

[Jelly Supply]

Ha ha! High five! So true & yes I am now breeding for fun. Though as you said Noc... If I had lots of lindens......hummmm.... Lol

[JC Aferdita]

Breeding for fun is way more fun than chasing the new shiny. Breeding for fun means you create your own shiny sparkly diamonds of joy <3 And very well said! It's always the same every year, lots of threads with people going crazy over the summer and then during the winter they go crazy because it's just too much. It's the circle of an Addicts life!

[Jackson Verlack]

Here is my 2c to the topic,
I turned from a big sized cattery breeder to only few pairs breeder 2 months ago and I can say, summer comes handy for me to get my planed projects show result, make combos of traits id like.
I guess there is 3 kinds of breeders relevant to this so called problem, those that breed projects that not always include latest and most new, those that do aim for the new, and sim owners. I guess the last 2 categories are ones that feel high impact over summer, prices start to drop really fast, renters go on vacation or empty shops till autumn and this is where you feel lack of income. Summer is always gona come and go, people on holidays, student exams finishing ect ect.. and I think this is why we have no LE cats over summer, not many are around sl. If you follow numbers on -number of longed in peeps- during winter and summer, youll see 20%-30% less, my fair guess, but still only guess, its that's why we have not as many traits popping as we do over winter.
I can say, Im for traits over winter, and it gives me whole summer to get my projects done, to buy trait for less than 50k since I am no longer a big breeder, and to enjoy results when i see them.

[Kayla Woodrunner]

It's interesting to me how Kittycats actually follow RL cycles

New things (like the newmodel car) come out high, gradually drop in price, big drop when the next new thing comes out.

Also a lot of businesses need the extra boost from the Halloween to New Years season to make up for slower summer seasons

The nice thing about the break from the new -- is that taking in the new traits (when they've dropped to what I can afford) usually means taking them with some gen or mysterious/curious/plush/white traits. So this gives me a chance to get those traits off my kitties again. I can work on uptraiting the recessive eyes like grass or gerbera pink as the ones I got have dominant traits (probably because the people I bought them from had bred them a year or so ago). And the superrecessive traits that I have spread over several cats, I can try to narrow them down to one main breeder line so I can solve any mysteries that come my way. It's a chance to catch up, clean up and reorganize.

[Tad Carlucci]

Could KittyCats 'tweak' things a bit to temper the large swings? Sure.

Should they try? Probably not; if they do "Less is more" should be the watch phrase.

I've watched other breedables, seeing that 'new' boosts the markets, grind themselves to nubbins putting out more and more 'new', quicker and quicker, until they just couldn't do it any more. But, since, by then, the markets were all attuned to 'newer new, faster' when the inevitable burn-out arrived, everything died. Some survived, but most perished.