About Kittycats and their prices.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

I strongly believe we should breed what we think looks cool, we have so many traits to pick from.
It gives not only personal joy and satisfaction and less stress but likely others will like the kitty as well!
I absolutely disagree older traits don't sell I see way different by my own sales.
When a new fur hype is over people start to look at the regular kitties again especially the well traited and good looking:-)
We should not get disturbed by new furs and traits I believe, they are cool and soon effordable for everyone.
Sometimes I surrender and buy a new fur but most of the time I wait it out.
Why bring my current budget and cattery project out of balance because a new fur has been found?
I think in general it is important to stick to the hobby budget one has to be able to support the kitties regardless sales.

[anna Acanthus]

(03-30-2012 03:45 AM)Bernhard McIntyre Wrote:  Look Anna,
that is not MY problem, it is a problem of the Kittycats GENERALLY. It is not a question of my good breeding, it is a question of life, or death of the whole Kittycats.

Well we've been trying to show you that the situation is'nt in fact as black as you seem to feel, and it's probably been triggered by a general run of bad luck, but i guess you need a good gripe ...

Here we all are, gambling on an ephemeral commodity, hoping to get the one of the right configuration of pixels, or rather whatever a random script generator decides to chuck at us.

Virtual commodities are allways unstable, especially in RL as many have found to their cost.
In fact we are all living an increasingly denatured and virtual existence in pretty well most ways, especially economy wise, and still believing in the "economic growth" myth which logically has the same destiny as the dodo. It all totally sucks big time, rotten to the core, but the good news is it's fast falling to pieces, and no systemic marketing analysis will make the slightest difference.

Being aware of this i oughtn't even to be spending time in a rather tacky virtual world let alone spending money on pixels, and if ever have to go above a reasonable sum then i quit, thats all.
I mean millions don't even have the money or the means to eat every day, so when it gets bad i turn off the PC, go do something constructive and relativize pretty fast.

The fact is no breedable can have an indefinite life span, never has done and this one is still holding up pretty well compared to others, for many of us. The market will hold as long as it will hold, this is a past-time, a hobby, and as Lixy says, no one will become rich with breedables, or for that matter break even all the time, and if you don't get any fun or enjoyment out of it then it's really not worth playing.

[Igor Novikov]

People should menagerie more if they are serious about the breeding game. Good job on getting rid of the excess amount of cats, TS!!! *applause*

We breeders need to take MUCH more responsibility here! Everyone know how supply and demand works. Supply is our biggest enemy.
Menagerie is NOT a bad place, not for the cat and not for the market!
Menageried cats will also always stay in your pedigree so you can backtrack, which is VERY useful for a professional breeder.

The investment of expensive furs is that you get tools to make even more gracious cats, so never expect to sell that cat you bought, maybe not even the first or second generation offspring.
Simply use them as tools.
Actually, simply REFUSE to sell them for the market's sake!
To put it bluntly, "kill off" the parents once you get a better offspring. The more I menagerie, the more I save in all sorts of costs.
Don't force them onto an already exploding market!

Like Noc said; Don't hang out at the same places too much! In my humble experience, there is a HUGE differenence between different auction sites and hour of the day. Unfortunately, being in euro zone myself I try to join these early auctions as much as I can to support them, but the fact is that they rarely pull enough people. When that's the case, you need to really plan what kind of cat you bring there.
Different places actually does have different demands of cats!

Some furs never go out of fashion either, a good old russian for instance. Some furs come back in fashion when we haven't seen them in a while.
Stay focused and try to sense these things as they come along.
If I sense that one of my lines are producing cats that are worth less than +-1000L$, I simply get rid of it and keep the boxes for future use, because I know it wont pay off. It never does!
And with the boxes still in inventory I never feel I have lost anything.

Collection cats is a new exciting market. I have tp'ed around the whole grid looking for people that doesn't breed KC anymore but keeping the old collectible cats as pets or decoration, and I actually found several who has been willing to sell! Horse breeders usually keep a few. Be creative like this!

And another thing.. Don't give away really good cats, as this hurts the market as well. If you quit, please menagerie.
Being a moderator in KittyCats Swappers & Givers, I regularly see people giving away collection cats etc.
I prefer to menagerie the better ones to not overload the market.

My cat economy has overall been very good since start. I think I might be a bit more flexible than most.
I also try to make beautiful cats, I never dealed much with the newest furs. Nothing is more boring than that 1-traited siamese flame which exists in a million copies.
Experience tells us it wont sell after a few weeks, so don't!

This was just my take on this.

[Saga Felix]

I must say that I do not agree that KittyCatS are in any sort of danger of dying due to 2nd market prices declining - rather, this is something that happens ALL the time in ALL breedables, and every now and again someone will panic due to it and make fire-sales.
-And someone will think that they can take something that is currently worth 20k, breed it out, and still get 20k. No, that is not the way it works - it never has and it never will, not in KittyCats and not in any other breedable, ever.

If you want to get your money back, you need to take that 20k-cat and IMPROVE it - add traits, combine the nice fur with some nice eyes etc... THEN you get your money back.

If I had bought a tawny for 50k when they first came out and just bred it to another tawny, I would not have a lot of boxes with 3-4 traited tawnies, and I could only get like 500 for them today - and I would panic and yell "The Sky Is Falling!" because I could not get my investment back.
Instead, I started a loooong project with adding traits and eyes to my tawnies, and before I was done, the tawny-fur in itself is worth almost nothing... BUT because no one else apparently had the patience to breed 9-traited tawnies, mine are still in demand. I breed them carefully, and improve them ever so often by replacing parents with their better kittens etc.

Meanwhile, I started doing the same to Aby. Black Silver - and despite being extremely unlucky with my cats hiding Aby. Black Silver for a long time, they finally (at the age of 50 or so) made me a very nice little boy that is now growing up and is founding my new breed with that fur. -Will I make LOTS of money on that? No, I will not - before I am ready to sell these, "normal" Aby.Black Silvers will sell for 2k or something - but they will sell for decent prices way over what "just" the fur currently brings, people will appreciate them, and they will be extremely useful in breeding to whoever buys them. -And I get the satisfaction of being able to say that yes, this is a good cat, and yes, I earned whatever sale-price it brings me with months of work on this particular breed.

I would never have gotten to that point if I had invested 50k in 2 Aby. Black Silvers and just bred them together. It just doesn't work that way. If you do not IMPROVE what breeds you have, you will not make your investment back. -You can improve your breeds by sheer luck, or well-planned breeding. -I did both, and both are fun - but the well-planned stuff is the way to go in the long run.

I think the most I ever sold a cat for was 26k, around a year ago - and the most I ever bought one for is way less! I go for the mid-range market - the market where breeding is just too slow to really make the big cash, but where it pays in the long run anyway. -And seen from that side of things, KittyCatS are most definitely not dead, and neither is the 2nd market.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

(03-30-2012 10:26 AM)Piraiyah Novikov Wrote:  People should menagerie more if they are serious about the breeding game. Good job on getting rid of the excess amount of cats, TS!!! *applause*

We breeders need to take MUCH more responsibility here! Everyone know how supply and demand works. Supply is our biggest enemy.
Menagerie is NOT a bad place, not for the cat and not for the market!
Menageried cats will also always stay in your pedigree so you can backtrack, which is VERY useful for a professional breeder.

The investment of expensive furs is that you get tools to make even more gracious cats, so never expect to sell that cat you bought, maybe not even the first or second generation offspring.
Simply use them as tools.
Actually, simply REFUSE to sell them for the market's sake!
To put it bluntly, "kill off" the parents once you get a better offspring. The more I menagerie, the more I save in all sorts of costs.
Don't force them onto an already exploding market!

Like Noc said; Don't hang out at the same places too much! In my humble experience, there is a HUGE differenence between different auction sites and hour of the day. Unfortunately, being in euro zone myself I try to join these early auctions as much as I can to support them, but the fact is that they rarely pull enough people. When that's the case, you need to really plan what kind of cat you bring there.
Different places actually does have different demands of cats!

Some furs never go out of fashion either, a good old russian for instance. Some furs come back in fashion when we haven't seen them in a while.
Stay focused and try to sense these things as they come along.
If I sense that one of my lines are producing cats that are worth less than +-1000L$, I simply get rid of it and keep the boxes for future use, because I know it wont pay off. It never does!
And with the boxes still in inventory I never feel I have lost anything.

Collection cats is a new exciting market. I have tp'ed around the whole grid looking for people that doesn't breed KC anymore but keeping the old collectible cats as pets or decoration, and I actually found several who has been willing to sell! Horse breeders usually keep a few. Be creative like this!

And another thing.. Don't give away really good cats, as this hurts the market as well. If you quit, please menagerie.
Being a moderator in KittyCats Swappers & Givers, I regularly see people giving away collection cats etc.
I prefer to menagerie the better ones to not overload the market.

My cat economy has overall been very good since start. I think I might be a bit more flexible than most.
I also try to make beautiful cats, I never dealed much with the newest furs. Nothing is more boring than that 1-traited siamese flame which exists in a million copies.
Experience tells us it wont sell after a few weeks, so don't!

This was just my take on this.

I Totally agree with this post:-)
Cattery management by using menagerie wisely is so so so important if not crucial!
For the budget, for the market and keep better kittens over their less good parents seems wise and is what I do as well.
It is perfectly possible to breed with fun in a relative small cattery and make super kitties menagerie is our friend.
And we lose nothing by keeping projects boxed as we quit them for the time being and work on them in later instance.

---

(03-30-2012 11:15 AM)Saga Felix Wrote:  I must say that I do not agree that KittyCatS are in any sort of danger of dying due to 2nd market prices declining - rather, this is something that happens ALL the time in ALL breedables, and every now and again someone will panic due to it and make fire-sales.
-And someone will think that they can take something that is currently worth 20k, breed it out, and still get 20k. No, that is not the way it works - it never has and it never will, not in KittyCats and not in any other breedable, ever.

If you want to get your money back, you need to take that 20k-cat and IMPROVE it - add traits, combine the nice fur with some nice eyes etc... THEN you get your money back.

If I had bought a tawny for 50k when they first came out and just bred it to another tawny, I would not have a lot of boxes with 3-4 traited tawnies, and I could only get like 500 for them today - and I would panic and yell "The Sky Is Falling!" because I could not get my investment back.
Instead, I started a loooong project with adding traits and eyes to my tawnies, and before I was done, the tawny-fur in itself is worth almost nothing... BUT because no one else apparently had the patience to breed 9-traited tawnies, mine are still in demand. I breed them carefully, and improve them ever so often by replacing parents with their better kittens etc.

Meanwhile, I started doing the same to Aby. Black Silver - and despite being extremely unlucky with my cats hiding Aby. Black Silver for a long time, they finally (at the age of 50 or so) made me a very nice little boy that is now growing up and is founding my new breed with that fur. -Will I make LOTS of money on that? No, I will not - before I am ready to sell these, "normal" Aby.Black Silvers will sell for 2k or something - but they will sell for decent prices way over what "just" the fur currently brings, people will appreciate them, and they will be extremely useful in breeding to whoever buys them. -And I get the satisfaction of being able to say that yes, this is a good cat, and yes, I earned whatever sale-price it brings me with months of work on this particular breed.

I would never have gotten to that point if I had invested 50k in 2 Aby. Black Silvers and just bred them together. It just doesn't work that way. If you do not IMPROVE what breeds you have, you will not make your investment back. -You can improve your breeds by sheer luck, or well-planned breeding. -I did both, and both are fun - but the well-planned stuff is the way to go in the long run.

I think the most I ever sold a cat for was 26k, around a year ago - and the most I ever bought one for is way less! I go for the mid-range market - the market where breeding is just too slow to really make the big cash, but where it pays in the long run anyway. -And seen from that side of things, KittyCatS are most definitely not dead, and neither is the 2nd market.

This is what I do with my new furs as well improve them to the max instead of selling a one or two traiter right away.
I like it that way eventhough I miss the hype.
I don't care frankly I take pride in making good kitty's.
Such as the fact I have twinkle shade at the moment I could sell nice but I don't I want to put it on my favorite multi traiter first.
We don't have to hype.

[Sanura Snowpaw]

Also there are people who are panicking and they are so worried about selling their cats they dump the prices. Which is very damaging to the market, instead of selling that cat for 300L send it to menagerie or pick it up and tore it in your inventory and STOP breeding those parents. I have many cats I simply was done breeding for a while and I picked them up and a few months later I could use them so I pulled them out and unsicked them

I think breeding for what you love is always the best thing you can do. I don't breed for money I breed because I honestly ENJOY it the bonus is that they pay for themselves.

We are also coming into the slow period for SL of spring & summer there are simply less sales for everyone in these months so yes we are in a slight down time but it will improve and the sky isn't falling.

[Saga Felix]

-I very much agree with the point about menagerie'ing cats.

Sometimes when I bring a really nice cat to auction, people go all WAAAH! when they can see on the pedigree that I menagerie'd the parents. -But why would I keep parents that has a SLIGHT chance of breeding THAT kind of cat again, once I got kittens that do the job way better - and every time? -And why on earth would I SELL those parents, risking that someone else breed my "signature breed" from the cats I was forced to sell REALLY cheap because they show none of all the goodies they hide?? No way. They go to menagerie, live happily ever after, and are still accessible from my pedigree page when I look back in pedigrees. Win-win.

I very rarely sell the cats I breed - I breed for what I do, and once I reached the goal and have a "pure line", THEN I sell kittens. All the "halfway-cats" are in menagerie, never on fire sales. Only exception is when being flooded by one gender only

[neckcadaver Resident]

i think this needs a bump-----

[Kayleigh McMillan]

Business as usual
The markets and certainly the auctions are far from destroyed from my own experience.
Even the Christmas release had barely impact while I really expected that.
Somehow and I really don't know how it seems the market recovered from a long dip.

[Dario Maesar]

Personally, I think, a cat is always worth of as how bad someone wants that cat with those traits. That is something that can be regardless of how new the traits or fur is. I bought an Burmese Champagne Twinkle with Lemon eyes 8 Traits and I paid willingly 4 K. Which is high considering that you get a Burmese Champagne probably around the corner for 500 L.... I am not sure if with the traits I have but well... Personally, that cat totally worth every linden I paid for it and I picked it to enhance my Bengal Sorell breed with it. I want my Bengal Sorell with Lemon eyes and Twinkle shade...

I belong to that few people that are willing to pay a bit of something beyond some hundret linden to get a really good cat to enhance the own breeding. I think it's that way because I am doing my thing. I breed furs I like. I stopped hunting new traits. I know I will get a hand on them when their price is lower and I know I'll do my very own magic with them.

Personally... I make lost with this ....seing it on the calculation end of it... But I don't really mind... KittyCatS is my hobby. I am doing it not to make a big fortune with it. Surely the majority of people come to KittyCats to make money. Buy a new fur, breed it fast and sell it as high as before the price goes jopardy. If one does that, it's their very own risk... it, to my personal thinking... is not about having fun with the cats and play with the traits around that are given to us... it is then about money... Each has their own reason to do KittyCatS and I love thinking that many of us do it out of fun no matter if or if not we make any money with it. In good months I don't upload money and make a + - zero... in bad months I upload a lot money to feed my cats and such, but I never gained any money with it. All the money I get from KC sellings (if at all I sell anything) is going back to KittyCatS or is going into the rental of my parcel which holds my store and my home.

I don't dare to count the money I am not making with the cats. *laughs* But hey, I am not interested in knowing. All I care for is what new feature will KC bring me next up or what will be next years Valentines cats.... and how to get my Grey + White No.2s to freaking give me their hidden Tiger Curl Tail

I minimized my breeds... I stopped feeding milk and I live with getting boxes every 10 days. That's fine with me... I have a not so big breeding too, all is calculated so I can pay the cats with the money I earn with my SL-Job...sometimes I earn not enough, that's then when I upload money...

However, I love my cats and everyone who asks me... I recomand to breed the furs they love, make some magic with them and just enjoy... have an SL JOB.... be dancer or whatever... that pays off the cats so you can relaxedly lean back and care less about selling or not selling your breeded cats. I do it that way... I have my price set of what I think my cats are worth... I am not going to fire sale my breeds it was damn hard work to get to that point... no one has to buy them... and if I don't sell them, I don't care much... I think, someone that puts much time and afford in their own breeds, will not sell of their cats for a joke of a price and someone who sees the work in it and considers doing it themselves ends up seing that much food and time will go down the river before you have the same result. It makes the value of the cat and that can not be 500 L for 9 traits. I know I have some really interesting breedings going... and if I be the only one knowing that... so be it

If I invest a great sum of money to buy a cat... I see it as fun-investment. You'll never read me moaning about having bought a cat for much money... I would not go buy a cat for beyond 15K. I think that's my personal limit of what I am willing to pay... that way, I will never kick myself if I bought a cat for 100K and then see the price dropping... that in the first place won't happen to me because I'd not buy it for such a high price... and if I did... then I would buy the cat to own it and breed it to perfection, not to multiply it and sell it high priced and make money with it. My motive there is different and is probably the reason why I live much more relaxed than some others maybe.

I think every pet in SL is having a lot people that do them to make money with it. I happen to do Amaretto Horses for that reason. It was pretty much my almost first breedable in SL. But I didn't get happy with it. Because all I did was buying starter and good horses, breed and by the time I get to some result, price hit rock bottom and I didn't sell any. Money was something everyone else made when I bought their horses but it wasn't me...I had no connection to the breedable itself. It meant only money to me. It was what made me unhappy in the end. Of course, all of it was a great experience that taught me quite a lot. First I learned from it, I am not into horses, secondly, doing anything for money is not aimable to me. I enjoy the cats much more because I have a wide range of traits to make my perfect cat and the community is a bunch of mostly cat crazy people who are really really lovely and nice. <3

Okay just to the very end I want to say that I am not judging anyones reasons to why or howsoever they do KittyCatS. I was merely sharing my point of view and didn't mean to offend or hurt anyone.

Back to my breeding goals now *fg*