About new Valentine collection

[Sanura Snowpaw]

The very first collection had one kitty that was rarer then others which were the V-Day kittys and the XOXO being the rarest of them. I had forgotten there wasn't a "rare" for a few of the other collections, thank you for reminding me[/align].

[Wickedeve Resident]

I don’t know about the random vendor….I question it. Is it really that random? Like many others, I invested so much money into it and yes out of my own free will. I opened so MANY boxes and nothing. You would think that after opening 50 boxes I would have gotten at least one rare one. It would have been cheaper to go out and buy an ambrosia from someone who was selling it.

I decided to test this lottery system out. I gave a friend of mine ( who doesn’t breed cats) enough lindens to buy 5 leopards for me. I wanted to see if maybe beginners luck would work. To my surprise, out of the 5 leopards purchased, both the light and dark ambrosia were amongst them. As you could imagine my joy and excitement, at the same time, it got me wondering as to how random the vendor really is. Is it really based of just luck? Were my results just coincidence?
I’m not saying that the KittyCatS company are trying to pull one over on us and I respect their hard work and long hours invested to bring us these cute little bundles of joy. They have the best customer service out of all the breedables.

I just think, the new collection release could have gone a different way. Maybe it would have been better if all the leopards carried the new shade. Or like someone else had mention…just sell the rare starter at 10k or so.

[KittyCat Princess]

hello all

first off we'd like to say THANK YOU for your honest and candid comments expressed in this thread. even those who have been upset and accusatory, we APPRECIATE your honesty. we value our community and again, appreciate you taking time to voice your praises, concerns as well as frustration and anger. it may seem odd to thank you for that, but there is no other way we'd know if we weren't told. so again, thank you.

our goal from day one before we began was to always try to foster a pleasant community & to serve our customers with excellence. we also want to support the secondary market as much as we can, without getting involved since our cats do reproduce, and we know people do sell them. so we are mindful of that as well.

we try hard to meet these goals while adding features and improvements to our cats and the whole KittyCatS! experience. we take it seriously and try to think through each decision while keeping in mind the diversity of how each person "plays" the "game". and of course, we always hope our decisions make people happy

so now, we'd like to take an opportunity to just touch on a few concerns that were brought up in this thread and hopefully clarify them from our perspective and also let you know what we've heard you saying.

The "random" distribution issue: what we hear is some of you like that, as we have done with our first collection, "Sweetcats" then "Devil Dolls", "Skelecats" & "Ice Babies". What we also hear is you do not like one cat having a special trait, as in the new "twinkle" shade for the Ambrosia cats.

This is the first time we have done that, and it came about because we didn't want the shade on all the colors (as it didn't look good on them all) so we thought "hey let's put it on the 'rainbow' cat!" it was that simple.

in the past with new "traits", the chances were the same as now with the "twinkle" trait, only this time the trait was visible and on one cat which made some want to buy till they got what they wanted and we didn't anticipate that. so it's an experience for us that we will take in mind next time.

it's opened up our eyes in some ways to how coveted new traits are to some, and honestly, we just hadn't seen the depth of how much before.

our customer base is diverse. some breed for fun, some don't breed at all, some love genesis cats, (i know hard to believe), some love a hard challenge and breed hard core, and i think now we can see even more diversity than we imagined. some LOVE collection cats, some could care less... some also don't care about "new" or "rare" just what pleases them. so again, this is really good for us to learn about our community.

we have always wanted to do each collection a bit different to keep things fun and with each one, we have had people like and not like what we have done. we know we can't please all, all the time, however that doesn't mean we don't try hard to do so.

so again thank you for your input on this topic with the Love Leopard shade trait. we think we have heard you and will take your comments very much into consideration for the future.

respectfully,

The KittyCatS Team

[Sanura Snowpaw]

Thank you to the KittyCatS team so much for replying. I greatly appreciate how much time and effort you put into the community as a whole. You can tell you listen and value the community as a whole.

I can see how it wasn't an issue you had thought of, and while it can't be "fixed" right now but knowing you are looking and hearing what we say for the future is wonderful.

[KittyCat Princess]

hi

the genders of the love letters can be seen by the pupil on the box. boys have large pupils, girls small.



on the love letters, boys have black spots girls white.

hope that helps

[Corey Somme]

Too many smilies, too little REAL addressing.. too much rambling. Sorry but that is how I see it - will this "vendor" be adjusted in the future?

[anna Acanthus]

Was'nt even one of the KC team aware of the effects that this same marketing procedure had in the Meero community ?

[Kayleigh McMillan]

(02-11-2012 12:41 AM)Sanura Snowpaw Wrote:  Thank you to the KittyCatS team so much for replying. I greatly appreciate how much time and effort you put into the community as a whole. You can tell you listen and value the community as a whole.

I can see how it wasn't an issue you had thought of, and while it can't be "fixed" right now but knowing you are looking and hearing what we say for the future is wonderful.

I could't have said it any better

[Khea Karas]

Thank you to KittyCats Team for your fast response on this matter.
The fact you responded to the issue immediately shows that you are listening to our thoughts and concerns.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that there are in fact real humans behind the cats, who can make mistakes just like any one of us. I for one appreciate your acknowledgement in not being perfect all the time (no matter how much we would all like to be ).

The fact it was simply an oversight, and not an evil ploy to take advantage of us, gives me full confidence that the issue will be resolved for future collection releases and a fairer system for all will be implemented.

[Nocshadue Balbozar]

Ok, gonna throw my 2 L$ in on this one =op
The customer base of KittyCatS is diverse I am sure. But what really needs to be looked at is what percentage of the customer base provides the greater percentage of your income. I once worked for a company where approximately 4% of the customer base accounted for over 80% of our profit. Now there were *LOTS* of customers...but the few that kept the company alive were our hard cores. They were the ones there and buying every day. If we lost them, I don't see how the company would remain solvent.

I do think that the intent behind the creators of KittyCatS is to provide a great experience. However, lets not fool ourselves..this is a business. And I am sure that decisions are made from a business standpoint if they were not, I do not think we would all still be here.

OK..so my partner Andre was one of the lucky ones and got at least one Ambrosia kitty. He is also a new breeder. A few others I know got one at least with a few tries, a reasonable amount. And yeah, I was happy that we got one at least. It will help a little if I am able to pull that shade out before toooo many other do. The market is pretty dead right now and will be for a while I think.

I think the better and more ethical way to go in the future would be make some traits gauranteed to be hidden and maybe something special like the shade a chance to be hidden. People will still buy, though maybe not quite as many because the more you have, the greater chance you have the possible hidden.

This is really all about balance. And it can be like walking a tightrope. Give it to everyone, it has little value. Give to a very few..its value is greatly exaggerated for a short time then quickly degrades til everyone has it. Make traits pop out easily and its not that special. Make it tooo hard and folks get discouraged. I think overall, we're doing pretty good.

I've been breeding almost since the start. I came in before Lazy Dasies and was hooked. We've come a long way since then. We've seen a lot of improvements and enhancements which I really love. So kudos there for sure. What KC folks need to ask themselves in developing new cats/traits is: How will this be received by our core customer? How could this affect the secondary market and our breeders bottom line? Aesthetics are important, but I find the explaination of the decision regarding the shade a bit disturbing.

This particular vendor did provide some interesting market research though. Some hit that vendor hard just to get an Ambrosia for immediate resale and others hoping like hell for one or a breeding pair to get that shade. The market is *highly* competitive. And for the most part it is breeders selling to other breeders. The special collections do bring in a trickle of new blood. But there are still way more kitties for sale than people interested in buying them. Some who are entirely new to kittycats..get a LM for the mainstore and unless they do a place search or eventually join the chat group, they have no clue there *is* a secondary market. (For that I'd suggest Markets promote outside the KC community as well as hold regular events to draw folks in)

So, lesson learned I hope? You know, I do understand that KC wants to stay "outside" the secondary market and with good reason. However...perhaps an occasional panel discussion with some long term breeders to bounce ideas around would not be a bad thing. I know you all read the forums..but we can't read your minds and a causal 'off the record' chat with a few breeders may prevent future headaches.

Peace,
Noc