... judging by the continued extension of the "last chance" to buy discounted foodollars, things aren't working out quite the way Rivet may have expected based on the results of similar sales* in previous years - when members weren't forced to subscribe to ClubFoo, with its resultant glut of foobux, will them or nil them.
Aside from the fact that everyone most likely already has all they want, if they DO want more, why, they can just pop out a litter or two and sell them back to the site, right? Why buy another cow when the milk flows freely?
Isn't that what they had in mind when they set things up this way?
It isn't? We were supposed to spend just as much as before, with less to buy, no friends to buy it from, and after having our pockets forcibly picked? And we aren't?
Gee ... what a surprise.
(* - i don't know about anyone else, but prior to the pay-to-play conversion, not only was i subscribed to Super Saver on a dozen accounts (to the tune of $60 a month), I purchased FooDollars fairly regularly and took full advantage of the half-price sales on FooDollars, pets, and LLs ... all of which must have added up to several thousand a year - from ONE PERSON.
Now, from that same person, they barely get more per year than they used to per month - even without the extra purchases.)
Does anyone else see something peculiar here? this doesn't just stink from an ethical standpoint ... it doesn't make business sense either. Rivet - you want the site to run in the black? Put it back the way it was in late 2009/early 2010 ... and for pete's sake, do what all the other sites do and make USE of your members, instead of trying to make them over into mindless, voiceless cash cows. You are ignoring what should have been your most valuable resource - one that would not only GIVE you money, but MAKE you money.
Who knows - maybe it's still not too late.
hee hee...i guess they ARE still peeking - i see today (12/7/11, three days since the initial post) they finally tucked their tails between their legs and gave up...the sales banner isn't decorating our profiles anymore.
ADD - now THAT'S interesting - we just saw the sales banner come up on one - but ONLY one - profile. do us a favor, and let us know if you are or aren't seeing it, okay? just checked in at the bank, the discount offer is still posted there...
12/8/11...still in "now you see it, now you don't" mode - by accident or design, we wonder? could it be they're still peeking, and are trying to be their version of subtle?
About Me
- GOLD RUSH
- Tabby Road, New Furrsey, Foo S. A.
- i am a seven-year-old virtual Cream Persian FooCat (born on Little Christmas, 1/5/10), the mascot and spokesfurson for FooBA4U, the FooPets members' cooperative service site.
Foo subtle. In other words "Bull in a china shop". It keeps coming up when the spinner comes up. Which for me can be 3 times a day or not at all. I have been happily buying Christmas decorations with the surplus dollars I have saved not buying a blessed thing for the last year. I picked up an account that had left due to severe real life issues and disgust with Foo policies. Other than that not a real penny spent lately.
ReplyDeleteWell the sale banner was still there on my profiles until a few hours ago when the whole site apparently went down. Presumably they are making a cack-handed effort to insert the nice shiny new kitty -- but I don't see anything on their blog or twitter, and the place is very "server error" full.
ReplyDeleteAs for the sale thing though, yes it makes no sense to try and get us to buy FDs. I suppose brand new players may not be willing to wait for litters to be saleable, who can say -- but for me I see no purpose in buying FDs and nothing worth spending it on anyway. I never even felt the slightest twinge of anything other than irritation at the silly banner. I certainly did not fork over any cash for FDs and have no intention of so doing.
Before April, as well as a bunch of "free" accounts I had 32 accounts for each of which I paid a subscription, and I also bought FDs with real money. I have been gradually closing my accounts down into hibernating "arks" as and when their due date came up, as there is no purpose that I can see in having more than one subbed account, and no enjoyment in throwing money down the foo drain. I have found more useful things to do with that money.
And yes, Foo and Rivet know nothing about "subtle"
If you want an ironic twist, when I went to sign on to feed mine this morning I got the Mad Kitty and there at the top was the Buy Foo Dollar banner big as life. LOL If that is not a sign of ....well we have to be ladylike here. But what a crock! I should have known the cute new kitten was a fluke. What was I thinking? I feel like Alice down the rabbit hole sometimes. Much of my entertainment value is from watching what their new tactics will be. Sad as that is. Lucky I have real human friends and real animal friends to keep me grounded. Happy Christmas to all! And here is hoping for a very Happy New Year. It has got to be better than this one. Crossed paws.
ReplyDeleteas I said, "their version" of subtle - i.e. not at all in anyone's eyes but their own...and the cash ad trimuphing over a site crash surprises me not at all.
ReplyDeleteanother cat, eh? (feel free to fill me in, i've been disgracefully absent from the Forums and haven't received a FooPetter - did they indeed make it a closed site blog? - in ages) interesting, no dogs since the Disney husky - looks like between here and PetTales they finally figured out that the cat ladies were where the money was. pity it took them until all of us were totally disillusioned - and forced to view any unnecessary FooSpending with a cynical and jaundiced eye - to learn that important fact. (of course, that little factoid was and is available from dozens of research sites online...)
on a (semi) positive note, Canaan's holiday celebration has officially begun - first activity is available on Jelly's profile.
Back up again I see, with no mention of it at all on the forums. Very curious. Maybe by the time people were able to post they were too busy raving about the cat, who can say. There is an Announcement forum thread "It's Official" where Snacks announced a teaser for the cat 3 days ago. 32 hours ago McCats says on that thread "it's out", which is puzzling since that was half a day before the site went down, and I do not see any complaints about the site running badly (which it was) nor about lost bondings etc which you would expect after such a long autage. Have threads been deleted or what?
ReplyDeleteThe blog does NOW have an apology for the outage up.
Yes, they made the closed blog, so you may want to bookmark it http://thefoopetsblog.wordpress.com/
At Halloween they produced the "Bombay" black cat; the way they do it is, they show the animal and people guess what it is, and then Rivet chooses the name that they think will be best, or make people think that they have been clever about it; they did that with both the Bombay and the cat that they released yesterday. It is a very sweet long haired tabby, and the consensus was that it looked most like a Norwegian Forest Cat, so that is what it has been released as. I don't mind, it's a cute kitty. It is obviously built on the Maine Coon bones, as the eyes have the same issue when it blinks. You get to see these kitties by going to the adoption tab in the game, as it has not yet appeared on the Mart page as the "new pet".
LOL yes, Rivet are not good at market research, are they...
I'm so glad that there is a festive note in the Canaan air :) apologies for the lack of participation so far, I have been having problems which are on the way to being solved -- we battled through the worst storms in Scottish history to get my injection LOL
yes, they probably censored any static that got past the "Gee! Wow!" posts...i got some emails asking about it, but by the time i was home from work to answer them, all was well once more - at least as well as it gets around here, lol.
ReplyDeleteActually, their market research may be weak, but their site-spying is first-rate : the Bombay idea was swiped from PetAdoptables, and the Norwegian, down to some of the artwork, from Aywas...though if they bothered to sift through their Forum threads, they found a request for the NFC - along with myriad other good ideas. (and bad ones)
No worries with Canaan, we're just getting off the ground, as i have been working like a mad thing and have events running on two other sites as well. all on schedule now, though, and the second way of Christmas, in Charlie Chaplin's capable paws, is our Secret Santa effort. many more to come!
(now to see if i can cobble up a Santa suit for Gold Rush - Halloween went to his head, he wants to be properly outfitted for EVERY holiday now)
Gold Rush is a fashionista, eh? Good!
ReplyDeleteI haven't spent a Foodollah in ages. Well, I did to adopt a cat from SunLuvr that looked as much as possible like our most recent cat to go to Rainbow Bridge, Steve.
In my LiveJournal, I have as one of my pics my cat Nimitz's namesake, the treecat from the Honor Harrington novels. One pic has him with a Santa hat. My Nimmy won't tolerate fashion, I think. Honor will eat it.
Speaking of, anyone notice that the FG FooBoutique items have dwindled to nothing, leaving only FD boutique items? Irksome, but what else do we expect from Rivet? When I get a new cat, I just get very careful to not get the most expensive sunglasses. No Santa suit IIRC, but I'm sure you can do better than they can.
http://freyjaw.livejournal.com/ (Santa Nimitz is on the front page. Can't see his long fluffy tail or his six legs. Bleek.)