Thread: Chicken Flipping: Official discussion thread

a lot of people have mentioned being upset when they've given away a chicken just for it to be released/resold for more eggs. i feel like there should be a way to make it more obvious to newer players why people would be upset at them flipping, since wen youre new you dont realise how much effort can go into breeding for some chickens. i guess that could just be from people putting it in their own posts though? there's no point in the site having disclaimers against flipping if it's not actually against the rules as it might confuse people. this is defo a community thing unless the actual rules change. there could possibly be a guide for how to get eggs in different ways on the site so people flipping for the eggs can see different ways to get eggs, especially if they're new and don't know much yet

Yup, I think it has to be a community-based thing not a site-enforced thing.

Actually, since this issue has been brought into the open now, I think people will know to only list their chickens for less than release reward if they're okay with the chicken being resold or released, and some people (well... me at least) doing giveaways already do have stipulations about not pooling/releasing immediately. This should basically already prevent "non-consented" flipping while letting releasing for profit remain a valid playing style.

@selznick there is a guide - here! Maybe the link needs to be in a more conspicuous location.

don't have a strong opinion about flipping but wanted to put out my opinion on trade/release-locks - I would prefer if that wasn't implemented. I don't flip chickens but if I did, the time lock on flipping would make the entire game less enjoyable. I think flipping in general is a smart way for newer players to quickly build up enough eggs to play how they want and a time lock means it takes longer for them to catch up with everyone else :( I understand if the feature is implemented if the rest of the site feels strongly about it but still wanted to note my opinion LOL

I think adding a cooldown feature would go against the idea of the site being truely neutral on the issue, since even though it doesn't disallow flipping, it would be implemented with the intention of discouraging it

i have to agree with lampreii and eggbyte on this one

I lost 3 chickens to someone release-flipping purely because I forgot the exact date and chicken-time that the changes for the release reward would go into effect. 3 chickens that could have been beloved by someone or helped someone with a cool breeding project were GONE, just like that, because... I didn't think it would be a problem and didn't set a reminder for myself for an update going into effect on a chicken game. The only reason I ever did alerts in my listings after that was to make sure nobody else had to wake up (in my case literally, 12 am ingame is 8 am my time) to the disappointment of seeing that because they weren't 100% on top of every aspect of the game enough to know when they needed to change price. I've increased my pricing since then, which bugs me a bit since 50 was much easier to mentally add than 60 when I was working towards a goal to buy something, but for me, it was largely the shattering disappointment when some random guy waltzed into the game and immediately flipped several chickens practically first thing when they got an account. So I'm definitely against release-flipping, but acknowledge that it's been long enough for everyone to find out the updated price (although the listing screen showed 65 eggs instead of the actual 60 for the release reward, which scared me, hoping that was fixed/will be fixed soon?)
I did see some people mentioning their sale was at an anti-flip price and they'd be willing to lower it for someone who dm'd them, likely to make sure they know not to flip it, which seems like a good middle ground for pricing, but I still think a time limit on releasing chickens is a good idea. If you really wanna profit immediately, we have multiple games that give eggs and seeds as rewards, playable daily. The 3 day egg hatching and such kinda shows that this game isn't a get rich quick game anyway, so people who wanna flip could just try being patient and playing the game instead of stomping on everyone else's time and work for a quick metaphorical buck.
Buying at 50 and releasing for MAYBE 60 is a profit of 10 eggs, if they're lucky. If you're halfway decent at Where's The Chicken, you can get at least 20 eggs easy in a few taps, and there's other games on top of that. Clucky Clicker, if you play it 100% in a day, gives 5,000 seeds. At 10 seed per egg, you can trade 5,000 seed for 500 eggs! All without throwing away a stranger's work. Eggspedition and Heists are more of a gamble, but if you keep an eye on the map and plan right, you can get a decent bit of eggs THERE too! For those who think "but new people won't have old enough chickens to reduce heist risk!" it's called save up and buy an older chicken, 1 month old and heisting 30 eggs at a time will do pretty good as a start while they walk their chickens and train their thieves. Again, patience is better trying to speedrun a relaxed-paced chicken game and alienating half the community.

I generally think the best thing to do if you see a player committing a website-cultural taboo that is a) new or b) seems not to be active in the discord, the best thing you can do is send them a friendly message saying "hey, i notice you did xyz thing! a large part of our community calls this [chicken flipping], and many members frown upon it -- it may get you blocked from users as well! I am not telling you not to, but I wanted to be sure you were aware of it before you did it more!" This allows people to get a further understanding of the community culture before immediately being ostracized for it.

Completely separate from the morality of it, I think a lone player, new or not active enough to know better, who sees a chicken for a low cost as a chicken the owner really doesnt want, and maybe its a chance to gain some eggs! It's a bit harder to get eggs when you first start, and a newer player may not be fully aware of the previous economy, or how people feel about it. And, if they see a recessive gene chicken for so cheap, they might think it's not so hard to get a recessive gene chicken! Generally, if people don't get a chance to hear that an action might be upsetting to some, then they will probably keep doing it! The same for gifted chickens -- sometimes a chicken doesn't appeal to you, and if you didn't know that people cared, you might release it once you get better chickens, or in order to get more appealing chickens!

None of this to say I'm telling you what you HAVE to do. You're allowed to block as you please, but I will suggest a bit of patience and kindness to someone who might not know better yet. I do agree even adding "do not release my low price chicks!" would be kinder and more informing than "flippers get blocked." After all, shouldn't the goal there to be to decrease flipping?

Just to speak on the actual matter, while this discussion is at a fever pitch right now, I don't really foresee this being a chronic issue, now that opinions have been aired, so again any actual mechanical solutions are probably not necessary.

The biggest problem here has been the rapidly shifting culture as the user base grows; older users largely are in the Discord community because the site was much smaller when first publicly open, and have had more time to form a sense of community around their chickens, ergo are typically more attached and/or were already more familiar with one another. There were also far fewer chickens, so each individual chicken felt more valuable.

As the user base grows, and people not from the same initial circles join, they are unaware of any of that culture. Newer users also were not present for when circulation of chickens was much more difficult, so people used the Farmhouse also as a means of distributing cheaper chickens specifically for/to those who were -not- in the Discord, rather than as an actually impartial market. So there's a cultural/context clash between two user groups who are coming at the site in two different ways, and neither is specifically at fault, nor should be faulted for feeling hurt on the matter.

The real fact of the matter is the site has only been open for 4 months, so while a big rift like this can feel a little apocalyptic, it's really just going to have to iron itself out over time. Something like an unofficial, user-compiled community etiquette guide might do the trick so that the community can regulate itself, and new users can get a quicker feel for the culture. This would (hopefully) also eliminate the need for users to have to put warnings in their listing descriptions, which just isn't fun to have to do for either side. (I'm a bit busy with work atm but I'd be willing to help compile a guide like this when there's time, if anyone wants to share suggestions.)

My only opinions regarding the actual flipping itself are: If it's a chicken off the farmhouse and you're release-flipping it for a profit of 10 eggs or less... it mostly seems wasteful; someone else might have wanted that chicken and with a little patience there's many other ways to get that amount of eggs. If it is a -gifted- chicken, that is where things get hurtful, since like was mentioned here previously, that's like someone giving you a gift and you sell it the next day; not illegal, but generally against the social contract and considered hurtful. Basically, no matter how you feel about the individual chickens it's just symbolically rude aha. The best way to make a profit without potentially harming others is to simply breed your own chickens for release, if that's your game; it's not an instant solution, but it's a steady one.

But again, at least as far as the farmhouse situation, this, I think will work itself out as people decide how they want to utilize the resources in the way best suited to them and the site has more time to find some equilibrium.

Agreeing with lampreii, eggbyte, and bow_iie! I think adding a cool down/status is definitely taking a biased stance, and to some degree (perhaps only in my brain) sets the idea that farmhouse chicks aren't truly yours at first, when the whole thing with farmhouse is if you put a chicken there and it sells, it's not yours anymore. Players all have their playstyles but ultimately farmhouse is a marketplace and people buy chickens for whatever reason. If you have specific opinions on how a chicken is treated after being sold then I sincerely bump the idea of marketplace posts/sell and trade posts in the forum. Or alternativelyselling your chickens for what they're worth to you! You know they'll only get a good home or maybe you'll realize you need to hold on to them/find a different solution. I just think it would be pretty disappointing if i get a chicken and realize its not what i wanted i just have to wait three days. I can see the call for it, I know I've gotten rid of chickens that took a while and aren't what fit for me, or were important to me but needed to move on and they got released. Sure it might not feel the best, but ultimately I gave them up, and someone else was just playing the game in a way that it could be played. If i didn't want it to happen I would have done something else or just sold higher. But ultimately its a digital chicken that can be recreated at some point and is NOT worth being rude to people over playstyle disagreements.

I personally don't care if people release my chickens or not. I mean, it had to happen eventually, right? My only real gripe is that newer members who don't have a lot of eggs might not be able to grab chickens as quickly if the fear of flipping means that everybody is maintaining a certain price threshold above 50-60 eggs.

With that in mind, I'll be pricing all chicks hatched by myself in the market for 1 egg each from now on. Now that I have identified the source of my personal discomfort, I have decided that actually, I'm cool with it. Even if people flip those chicks, I can't really begrudge anybody for using the a site feature the way it was intended to be used. Part of me is actually kinda impressed? Like, that is a pretty mercenary way to make eggs. Couldn't be me but I respect it, honestly.

@Aurkan (As a side note, this doesn’t relate to breeding for eggs, releasing your own chicks you bred, or daily rewards imo! These are easy to do if you remember) I’m sorry, but I just want to state that people don’t have much time playing this game in the ways you recommend please try to be understanding! I get that it feels bad for beloved chickens to suddenly be gone, but everyone’s cases toward flipping or the reason why they do it is different. Easy, quick way, yes, but a lot of people can’t commit daily to games as well. Personally, I don’t flip, but I quite literally can’t play games often myself for a multitude of personal reasons. It makes it a bit harder. My progress with this many chickens were mainly from the help of my friends. Some people don’t have that luxury like I do toward those dream chickens or pretty chickens they like, whatever it may be!

People have different ways of approaching the game to catch up when it doesn’t look viable to go the standard route, and there’s a reason flipping is considered an in-game mechanic. It doesn’t make it any more invalid, but it does hurt feelings which I understand. I also slightly recommend to reword once you cooled down because the language used here seems a bit aggressive, I’m sorry again and I don’t mean to bare ill will toward anyone ;;

@Stellarbre Those people also won't have many options of friends helping them get dream chickens if they anger a noteable swath of the community by deleting people's chickens either, though. So in a way, they're kinda sabotaging themselves in the long run, whereas they could take it slow, make friends and check hatcheries to see if any of them match what they want, and then save up or bargain accordingly. As for time... Where's The Chicken and Eggspedition at least, are quick enough to be done while on a 15 minute break from work, or while on the toilet. In my experience at least, Chickenpet does not take very long to open and load up, even on my old device that's already been deemed too old to even use some of my other apps, so that's two very quick sources of income that can be squeezed in whenever, and are still more reliable than releasing low-priced chickens since the release reward ranges between two different numbers. Plus they're without the downside of people blocking them for it, the way people will block unwanted releasers. Nobody's ever blocked someone for being good at Where's The Chicken.

@Aurkan I mean, this discussion is based on the two sides of the community that either are for, or against flipping! So I’m fairly certain said flippers won’t have too much trouble finding friends, it’s not like they’re being ostracized from all of ChickenPet, it’ll just be a rough beginning if they have zero at first ^^ which is why it’s sort of a luxury for me to join ChickenPet with friends from the get-go! That’s what I mean

I get it’s viable to get those games done even on break at work, but honestly speaking, some people can’t commit daily to ChickenPet anyways like that, no matter if it’s 15 mins or not, and that’s ok!

@Metous yeah, I was reflecting on the idea of a release cool down yesterday during my time away, and realised that a cooldown mechanic would be the site specifying a way to play. It won't happen, I will let people carry on discussing.