Thread: Chicken Flipping: Official discussion thread

I personally think the terms of "flipping" and "flippers" should be phased out, it marginalizes a group of players who are just playing the game the way it's built

I suggest everyone just say "please don't pullet/release" as it's much friendlier

I'm an idiot and put my comment in the announcement forum.

I think flipping isn't okay, as it kind of feels like cheating in a way? All that hard work that someone else could have done to get the chicken, and they use it to gain elsewhere? Considering the eggs can be used for items like art, I personally see it as a no go, but this is only my opinion!

i honestly dont mind flipping but im not sure why people wouldnt just release the chick themselves to get the rewards. i understand if the chicken hasn't sold for a while or they don't want to fill the pullet pool, though. me personally, i wouldn't sell my own chickens at a price low enough for flipping, but if one of my chickens was released, i'd at least want them to have a name. unnamed bothers me, even if i have the setting off to where i can't see released chickens in the offspring bar.

all in all i suppose im poretty neutral as it goes LOL. i do agree with cheepcheep777 that i think people should probably use the term "flipping/flippers" less because it makes me thing of house flippers which, ineivtably, make the market more expensive for the layperson, and i don't consider people on chicken dot pet to be that evil

edit: i also agre with asprg that this probably shouldn't be something the site adresses officially, as it's a community issue

I don't flip chickens, but I'm a little surprised discussions have to be made if I'm being completely honest. I don't understand the logic in even selling a chicken at a price someone can immediately profit at if the idea of someone taking the opportunity to immediately profit bothers one so much

I do see "flip" used pretty commonly to refer to buying something and selling it at a higher price, so the word is accurate to describe the process? (this is just me having heard the word before ChickenPet and not having a negative association with it though)

"flippers" does seem too personalised to me too - it's ascribing this action to character traits and making an "identity" out of it, yeah.

@Raziel In my view, "cheating" is an overly strong way to put it as that makes it out to be a moral choice. To me, cheating requires that someone is gaining an unfair advantage over others by using exploits that not everyone has access to, but like bow_iie said, the person selling the chicken could also have released it for the reward themself so they had ample opportunity to do exactly what the buyer did. Not that it doesn't make the behaviour unpleasant to some, but that it's not a cheat (clarifying as this concerns one of the rules).

I'm with Crow on this. I think there's a lot of avenues to prevent it from happening? You can pullet the chickens, sell them for more, or if you really just want them available to new players, make a thread that says you're offering new players chickens but ask them to not be released. I don't necessarily agree with it/wouldn't want to resell a chicken I bought, but that's just people making currency. I've not been super active lately because of irl stuff but I keep seeing the whole "flippers/flipping" and it just makes the site feel a bit hateful? (Not calling anyone hateful, it just seems to be causing a bigger rift on a normally peaceful site than need be.) Especially when the reason it even happens is because someone didn't want a chicken anymore anyway. Ultimately when you decide to get rid of it, I think you lose a lot of the say in what someone does with it. Blocking people is a do what you want kind of scenario, but making a whole terminology for people and referring to it as solely negatively/derogatively and to some degree shaming people is really unfortunate to see and a bit uncomfortable in itself. More so than someone doing something that isn't breaking rules and might being done with no genuine ill will.

I understand why people dislike flipping - it sucks to see your lil chick get thrown away. When I first joined I admittedly flipped a few chickens (because it seemed easy), which resulted in many blocks (here and on discord, despite never talking to anyone on discord). which is their right, obviously! the block button exists for a reason. but now when I'm on forums and whatnot, there's so many blank spaces in the comments, as a constant reminder of a rookie mistake I made. its kinda discouraging. it's not like the chickens were labelled "do not release/pullet" + unless you're active on the discord server, you really wouldn't know how people felt about it (as I didn't).

so I feel like i'm on both sides of this. I get why people flip, it's easy eggs. but I also get why people are upset about that. it just feels unmotivating to be on either end of it.

personally, as someone who's given away recessive gene chicks (that ended up taking over a month to get) to flippers who immediately released to the fields for such a small amount of eggs makes me upset from a "this took a really long time to get and now that chick isnt available anymore" standpoint. if they wanted, what is it, 50 eggs? they literally couldve just asked me instead of wasting my time

I view this discussion a lot like the animal crossing time travel debate back in the day; if it's not against the rules why do you care? Which I'm sorry if it sounds rude. But I feel like giving players a feeling like they're doing something wrong even though they're not breaking the rules is incredibly mean-spirited. I also don't see how it could be considered cheating, because you aren't technically losing anything except your time. The chickens are born for free, and it's your choice of what to price them as.

@LvEx This I agree with. I probably just explained it badly, I'm not good with that. OTL

I'm personally against the idea of flipping chickens, I feel like for people with enough experience when it comes to notifications, people who've done it a few times will grow to realize others would notice, and people sell chickens to... sell chickens, not to release them, you know? It does give a feeling they don't care.

BUT, ON THE OTHER END,

I also don't see why people complain when they set the price to an "exploitable" level. I don't understand the threats of blocks. I admit, I initially blocked flippers in fear of something happening to the few chickens I tried to sell. Blocking is, what I understand, meant to be personal and a way to feel happy, not an "announce your departure" situation unless something is extremely messed up.

Both sides have bad eggs(no pun intended) and it's getting miserable to see this in real time.

I've ultimately decided to unblock anyone and just price at 60. :(

I agree that there's motivations on either side on reselling/buying to release, and on not doing it. I want to share my personal approach.

I sell my bred chicks on discord or on my forum thread where I can state my terms (don't release or resell, return for a refund if you don't want it anymore) and buyers can decide if they want to follow my rules or not. So there's communication to make sure expectations are understood.

As a (somewhat?) veteran player, I understand that one of the motivations for people who buy and release is to get eggs. I think the previous update to the release function has eased the perception of releasing (the chicken is going on a journey instead of dying). Players who want eggs can just breed release fodder (like exalt fodder on flight rising). I do that too as it's also congruent with my coop lore.

I want to encourage people who want eggs to consider or think about breeding chicks for release. It circumvents the whole 'flipping' issue and also helps to reduce server load as the chick is not stuck on a farmhouse listing for any period of time. (I personally have been buying chickens who have been in the farmhouse for a long while just to get them out of there).

In my personal opinion, I don't feel much, if anything at all, when people flip a chicken they've bought for at least something.

I only really dislike it when I see people re-selling/flipping chickens that were gifted/given to them for free out of kindness..... type situations?

While on one hand, I suppose it's ultimately the person gifting it that chose to do so, but it's made me not want to gift people chickens anymore.

It can be really disheartening and feels like kindness is being taken advantage of.

A small idea maybe, have a cooldown for sell prices if you grab chickens from the pullet pool/etc.?? Like you have to wait before selling them, makes it not as exclusive to flip them.

[Personally I sell my chickens on the pullet pool all the time so I don't care what happens to them, but I can understand if people sell them for higher eventually.]

Imo as long as its not against the rules idk why it shud be an issue? Idk, you sold/traded your chicken away, it no longer belongs to you. Meaning that user can do whatever they want with it. I don't think ppl should dictate what others do. Plus the seller could have kept it but they didnt and decided to sell/trade them. Also sometimes people don't want to buy or trade for your chickens that you have up for offers, so what else are they supposed to do if they need the eggs for a mod or purchase? also technically its not like you actively created a unique chicken which can be easily replicated with mods and splicers [not talking abt the ones w recessive traits]