Balinese, and the secondary market. Can we *avoid* having a round 2 of this?

[Ethereal Hurricane]

Hello everyone! I'm posting this as a preemptive to the next fur release, whenever it might be, for KittyCatS.

As everyone knows, the Balinese cats are crazy popular, and they really are so pretty, they should be! I just have a few problems with how they were released, or rather their place in recessive list. The majority of them, and we might as well just assume all of them, are super recessive. All under Abyssinian Black Silvers in dominance order. I mean, yay for more recessive traits, but I think this actually made things worse for the secondary market.

I remember clearly when Seal Lynx was discovered, and how crazy everything got. People were paying 120k per cat, then doing anything they could to pull the fur and make their money back. Heck, I bought 2 myself, although I chose to try to trait mine, but eventually I started selling just like everyone else.

Lilac Lynx was soon after discovered. So the same thing, everyone wanted it, turned out to be more recessive than Black Silver also, but just under Seal Lynx. Well, okay, 2 very recessive furs at the same time. I guess that was okay. I mean we know there are going to be more Balinese furs, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Next came Chocolate Lynx. Oh...it too is more recessive than Black Silver? Ugh, my really pretty and traited Black Silvers just keep getting less and less valuable on that secondary market...Now we have 2 more Lynx, Flame and Cream, which, one can really just assume they are also going to be around Black Silvers in recessive order, hopefully they aren't, but lets just assume they are.

I've sat around and thought about this for a while, and have watched the trend, and it has really ruined the secondary market. What we have now, is people buying these highly recessive furs, needing to make their money back, and selling 10 to 15 opened boxes at their cat stall, for so cheap, driving the market on these furs down, and on top of that, making every fur under them devalued as well. People 'shopping cat pedigrees to try to prove their furs are more recessive. People mass breeding to make that Phat Ca$h not even bothering to try to pull traits, just mashing 2 cats together to get another pulled fur, and selling it to the highest bidder, which these days, isn't very high. Almost everyone has a Balinese of some sort. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but they shouldn't have all gotten them at the same time, that's for sure. I mean in my cattery we're using Balinese to pull furs from starters at this point, just because we have so many that aren't traited enough for us to bother selling. I'm not bragging, I'm actually annoyed by this.

->To get to the point, the next round of new furs, can we please spread them out a bit in terms of dominance orders? You guys did a wonderful job with the Abyssinian, and all of the other cats before that, why not keep doing that? People to this day still highly value an Aby Lilac, and it isn't the most recessive of fur.

I'm not saying Balinese aren't a good fur, they are amazing. They are very pretty, but so is every cat honestly. Callie works very hard on every cat, making them as real as she can. Pink and White #1, Siamese Seal, all of them are nice. They don't need to always be the most recessive though.

I'd really love to hear what other people think about this situation and see if anyone else feels the same way I do. I'm not the best of writers, so hopefully my point didn't get lost in my walls of text.

Quote:TL:DR
Please, on your next release, don't make every single cat the most recessive, spread them kids out!

On a side note/rant:

I know you cant stop the money game of KittyCatS. Some people are here just to make money. One could make that claim about me even. But now we have people selling their new Balinese furs for IRL money, just because they got lucky, and not even bothering to put the money back into the community. It's sickening. I'm not here to tell you what to do with your money, go do whatever you want, but I'm sick of these people who are here just to make a quick buck and get their booty kissed all day, not because they did anything skillful, or did some nice breeding, no, just because they got lucky. You aren't a wonderful breeder because you bought 2 cats, combined them, and got a 9 traited cat. You aren't a wonderful breeder because you bought a cat for 200k, and did something everyone else would have done to pull the fur, and sold it. You aren't a master of KittyCatS, just because you got lucky, this is a community, no one is the star, get off your high horses and have a wonderful day! <3

[Sanura Snowpaw]

I wish the Balinese were a bit more spread out with how recessive they are as well.

[Bea Shamrock]

Though new to breeding, I wish they were too.

I'm just getting to know the market, so can't say much about it, but I wish there were a broader middle range. I see kitties being sold like plywood cubes and advertised like objects (yes ,I know they are, but what's the point of making the object a kitty if it's not to feel it is a kitty? ). At the other end, I see exorbitant prices for collection kitties that cost many times less than that when they were out, or for kitties with a very recessive new trait and very little else.

I hope I see the market like this just because I'm new and I still have to discover more about it. Personally, I'm into breeding because I love kitties and I'm curious. There came a point at which I wanted to share my kitties (not many though -they always seem to be able to help solve a mystery in another kitty or vice versa or simply they're my babies). From my shop I expect to meet other people interested in breeding, learn more about my kitties' through the offspring others had more patience to breed (not all traits are equally interesting to me) and maybe help to pay for kitty kibble.

(06-16-2012 11:05 PM)Sanura Snowpaw Wrote:  I wish the Balinese were a bit more spread out with how recessive they are as well.

[Malicia Python]

Hi, thx for opening this thread.
This is not the first time it happened, the Ocicats suffered the same fate - and the same mechanisms of the market. Certain people get crazy for any new fur, buy them for tons of money and set a benchmark. When they sell, and the fur is really recessive it is likely there arent any more cats of this breed around and they sell for almost as much as the first one.

When having bred this trait to death - or the market is saturated, these ppl move on to the next breed. The saddest thing is the masses complain but follow. Trashing their investments to compete with the declining prices. And not bothering to buy any more cats while they are sliding down in value. A snowball system par exellence.

Consequently, the well bred, nicely traited cats are harder to find as it just doesnt pay anymore. Have a simple backbreed and out it goes - time is money in Kittyland! Thus, I feel the secondary market has never been lying lower because the rush after the most recessive breed devaluated almost every other cat.

But remember, the market is us , me, you and you! It is out decision what we buy and what not and if I learned anything from the past is is not to buy furs that are momentarily monopolized by some sellers.

[Noia Yoshikawa]

i don‘t say you are wrong, but i don't agree.
i haven‘t fun when i breed 2 cats and find any not recessive fur, it is very easy and not exciting at all but i feel great when after many attempts, and after months i get any new and very recessive fur or eyes.
why should we find cats like grey and white chateau? after 2 week no one wants them anymore. are they useful to the market?

[Saga Felix]

To me, it all comes down to what I said before...

PLEASE make good breeding matter, and plain blind luck matter less.... Pleeeease...!

Ways to do this has been suggested elsewhere on these forums numerous times.
Like: Don't release new traits/furs ALL the time, give us a chance to breed out what we have, first.
-And then there's also the suggestion to let kittens breed at 7 days - which would be another way to make it easier for breeders to keep up instead of falling hopelessly behind while blind luck rules the market.
-And then of course - give us a chance to combine recessive traits before the NEXT even even MORE recessive comes out.

I myself had this dream of combining super-recessive traits into a super-useful cat. It is a project that would take MANY Generations to complete, but hey... all in all I am patient. But no more. I gave up completely now, and so did others I know who had the same thought. It is simply impossible with the way new and more recessive things are shot at us with such speed that often, we even give up on identifying which collection-kitty it's from this time.

All this being said, I must also - as usual - disagree that the market is ruined.
The market is not ruined. No more than it was last time someone said so - or the time before, or one of the other thousands of times people have yelled this. The market is just so much in flux that few of us can keep up with the rise & fall of prices in new, semi-new and old traits and all possible combos of them.
But it is not ruined, it never has been, and it most likely never will be. The market is as it is because this is how breedables + free market works, whether we can keep up with it or not. -Which, admittedly, is extremely hard, and I for one can't do it either....

-Saga

[Ethereal Hurricane]

Every cat has a use. If you think of it in terms of common vs rare, dominant cats serve to increase the value of recessive furs. This is kinda the problem with the Balinese, they aren't rare at all, and yet they are the most recessive furs. You go to an auction and theres a good chance at least 2 will be on special panels, heck, 3 isn't even surprising. That's a problem, especially after months of this.

[Khea Karas]

Actually its making me really annoyed (to put it politely) that the recessive order is not thought over a bit more when releasing. Its a never ending cycle or rather trap...you breed your projects on your recessive fur, trait them up with your favorite traits, get it to 9T..then BAM! ohh look! A brand new fur. Thanks for ruining any hope I had in getting a small return on my breeding projects. There goes months of hard work on your project, lots of $ down the drain in trying to show some skill in breeding, as the fur is now practically worthless. Who wants a 9T ocicat chocolate, now we have another more recessive ocicat? No one!

The Balinese line will just be another siamese flame or aby silv in the next month, able to be found at any backyard market for 1-2k. We already see this happening to the seal, which you are able to get under 5K. Its one of the reasons I no longer invest in the latest traits.

This game sadly is more about who gets lucky on starters or who pays lots of money up front to get the latest. The appreciation for a well bred cat is no longer there, if it doesnt have the latest/best/or some stupid combination of traits that someone was lucky enough to pull from 2 starters. Forget trying to sell it.

Kittycats say they dont get involved in the secondary market, well maybe they should. Start to consider your consumer and research the impact this new fur will have on the market and whether or not it can actually sustain a new fur at all. Making the newest fur release the most recessive is damaging beyond belief and if the secondary market dies, then all those paying for food will leave with it.

[Deer Thistle]

My only issue with this was I think the Balinese craze was extremely heightened by the influx of different Balinese types, people didn't much care which they got, as long as they got in on the Balinese craze and people started paying more attention to starters after noticing the trend of each Balinese holding a very recessive place on our handy dandy charts. Would that person be the next to win the golden ticket to Balinese discovery with their starter? I mean obviously a new Balinese = the most recessive if discovered because it's really not been a surprise thus far.

As the first person who purchased an actual Balinese Seal Lynx, I've watched people after me buy the Seal Lynx and simply sell before I ever did, those people still have the same known traits on their lynxes that were sold to them, obviously looking to make a quick buck after a massive investment, there's absolutely no progression or change in their line besides maybe a dominant trait the cat they initially bred with donated. That's their business however, if they wish to use their Balinese as a means of making money without any goals in mind as far as traits, I really don't have any right to say anything about it but it does say something about the Balinese craze and people's primary objectives, even months later.

However it was a bit disheartening seeing everyone obtain a Balinese and re-sell right after their first breeding, of the three original Balinese flavors, then have people message me saying they didn't really care about the traits I put onto my line during the time I sold my original few traited offspring, it was only the fur and getting in on the Balinese craze that mattered to them. It's quite disheartening to read that then be offered a price equal to the traitless Balinese sold as described above, especially after I held off for quite a while before selling or auctioning save for one of the wrong gender every few weeks while people who jumped on the Balinese hype train after me just sold everything.

We can't control people's goals, their objectives in KittyCatS nor make them mesh with ours if it's simply not shared ideals however we can suggest that KittyCatS introduce new kitties that aren't all back-to-back in terms of recessiveness on the chart in the future, similarly to the Fawn hugging the Siamese Flame (I can't remember if this is still the case but it was at the time) on the chart while Blacksilver rested at the bottom, just to spread it out ever so slightly than how it is now and give those kitties between the two at the very least some more value to them. Not everyone is going to be able to find the golden ticket in their starter, sing and rejoice in the chats about their new Lynx find, or be able to afford one so why not help those people out who do have kitties between Fawn and Blacksilver or heck, even above? Putting every Lynx at the bottom of the chart has drastically reduced the value of other kitties further than normal.

Here's to hoping we can have a multitude of new furs in the future that are as lovely as this one, but hopefully spread a bit in terms of recessiveness. Not only is it insane to see the craze to obtain one of the Balinese furs due to their recessive place on the chart, but seeing every lynx at the bottom is boring! All people (this is especially the trend in newcomers) learn is that Balinese = most recessive and 'better' than the other cats in their massive abundance at the bottom of the chart! Starters have turned into nothing more than Veruca Salt's massive Wonka bar unwrapping ceremony where people just mass buy in hopes of finding anything that says Balinese because hey, it has to be the most recessive if it says Balinese anywhere on it. Let's make things more interesting for the future.



Ode to a lesser-known Disney scene that describes how I feel sometimes about this matter:



Dragon whiskers, dragon toes, a dragon tooth and a dragon nose...

Every little piece
Every little piece
We could make a million by slicing him, dicing him!

We could sell every little shell
There's enough of him to go around
Money, money, money by the pound!

Every little piece
Every little piece
Dragon, you're my wagon to destiny; you're the key
Every little shred moving me ahead
Every dream of mine will be fulfilled
What a dragon business we can build!

Lead us to the dragon
We'll buy him up, tie him up
Drag him from the cave
Show him that we're brave!

Watch the profits come rolling in
Watch the profits come rolling in!



Hugs,
Deer

[Ethereal Hurricane]

MONEY MONEY MONEY, BY THE POUND

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(06-17-2012 06:31 AM)Khea Karas Wrote:  Kittycats say they dont get involved in the secondary market, well maybe they should. Start to consider your consumer and research the impact this new fur will have on the market and whether or not it can actually sustain a new fur at all. Making the newest fur release the most recessive is damaging beyond belief and if the secondary market dies, then all those paying for food will leave with it.

They wouldn't even need to do hardly any work to research, most of it is done on this very forum. Open up the for sale forum, see 300 posts about Balinese for sale. There is probably an issue...

Another side note:

I'm sorry, but I think it is retarded to not be involved in the secondary market. The secondary market is, I'm sure, 9 times out of 10 what is bringing in your new customer base anyway (I have no proof of this, but word of mouth, I'm sure, is your biggest advertiser). The secondary market heavily promotes the use of these forums as well, so we have a place to actually be a community, rather than just small groups. I personally don't post that much anymore on the forums as I tend to be more rude, or blunt, than most people, and say what I feel. I don't care if I get my posts deleted, but it gets annoying when the same idiots make the same posts, spreading false information, and allowed to do so, because they are protected by the mods. They hurt the secondary market, you know, that thing that's buying all that cat food every day?

I'm sorry, for whatever dumb reason, I care about KittyCatS, I will make posts saying an idea is bad, even if its against the overall feel of the community. I'm not always right, but I will challenge anything that might be harmful, and all I ask is you prove me wrong.