What is everyone here doing about the UC trade market?

[Maneki Neko]

No idea, if I was TNT I'd make them $50!

Yeah, I'm willing to pay that much if it means getting money rolling on Neopets and reviving this dead website. I want them to fix what is broken (and has been broken for years), and release new plots! As well as bring back fun side games like Habitarium, Key Quest, etc.
I can dream... Seriously though, there are so many parts of Neopets that need attention, I'm more than happy to throw money at them if it means guaranteed change.

THE NEO RENAISSANCE

[Ghast]

everybody's replies make a lot of sense! i guess i did not think about the fact that obviously people have left the site / are waiting for slots, games, etc to come back, so of course market activity would go down from that. in general i am just curious to see how the on-site trade market changes, alongside ck's market of course. who knows, maybe it will cause for a big boom in both markets i am sure tnt will create a system that differs 'real' ucs from created ones so that should help the market, however so far there does not seem to be any difference when it comes to tnt's 'replacement' ucs they are granting users in reversals aside from pet age (which ... is a big thing in and of itself. i am surprised they started doing that).

[Miri]

I see 3 main factors: Cost, risk/reward, New vs Old UC system if implemented.

Let's say the new UC will cost $50, and there's a differentiator vs old/new. The only people that would really care about Old UCs are those with legit ones that are happy to show them off to everyone. Those of us that have purchased illegit UCs aren't really going to show them off imo. I wouldn't. I feel a lot of us now are also at a time in our lives where we want these pets to just enjoy privately, perceived status isn't as important now.

Ties into risk/reward. There's not many options left on the VWN side for Old UCs. When I browse especially on the neopoint websites all I see is DN, BN etc. I personally wouldnt spend $75 on peeper2005 the UC Darigan Krawk for example when for $50 I can make my current WN pet one and not run the risk of freezing. Same goes with $50 for my own Plushie Techo vs $125 for some DN/BN one.

Then theres the cheaper UCs. A lot of mutants-darigans etc are $15-20. What would happen to the price of those in the black market? Someone who likes mutants would be able to snap up a few VWN/VN ones for around $50. There's the freezing risk, but there's significant cost savings vs making them each the legit way.

Some users will complain about the NC Mall cost. $50 for some might be a lot... but they don't see it's either pay $50 to TNT, pay $ to a black market seller, or spend months and months on the PC Chat trying to trade.

It'll be interesting to see which way things will go. TNT has a lot of factors to work out to keep things balanced. If anything instead of a flat $ cost, TNT could price different colors on a tier basis.. then there's also the issue of what happens upon transfer/pounding and side accounts.

[Ghast]

for sure! it will definitely be interesting to see what TNT does to balance it. i am curious to see if it ends up being worthwhile - depending on how it is implemented it might be worth it to continue to trade offsite as we do - especially if the system ends up having restrictions. i think that it will help in the introduction of illegit/bought ucs to the pc IF there is no big differentiation between ‘og’ UCs and the NC ones. i think quite a few of us probably have some pets they want to move but it is hard to determine when a good time would be considering all of these site changes. all we can do is wait for now…

[Gorilla]

I see 3 main factors: Cost, risk/reward, New vs Old UC system if implemented.

Let's say the new UC will cost $50, and there's a differentiator vs old/new. The only people that would really care about Old UCs are those with legit ones that are happy to show them off to everyone. Those of us that have purchased illegit UCs aren't really going to show them off imo. I wouldn't. I feel a lot of us now are also at a time in our lives where we want these pets to just enjoy privately, perceived status isn't as important now.

Ties into risk/reward. There's not many options left on the VWN side for Old UCs. When I browse especially on the neopoint websites all I see is DN, BN etc. I personally wouldnt spend $75 on peeper2005 the UC Darigan Krawk for example when for $50 I can make my current WN pet one and not run the risk of freezing. Same goes with $50 for my own Plushie Techo vs $125 for some DN/BN one.

Then theres the cheaper UCs. A lot of mutants-darigans etc are $15-20. What would happen to the price of those in the black market? Someone who likes mutants would be able to snap up a few VWN/VN ones for around $50. There's the freezing risk, but there's significant cost savings vs making them each the legit way.

Some users will complain about the NC Mall cost. $50 for some might be a lot... but they don't see it's either pay $50 to TNT, pay $ to a black market seller, or spend months and months on the PC Chat trying to trade.

It'll be interesting to see which way things will go. TNT has a lot of factors to work out to keep things balanced. If anything instead of a flat $ cost, TNT could price different colors on a tier basis.. then there's also the issue of what happens upon transfer/pounding and side accounts.

This take definitely makes a lot of sense, but I've been here long enough to know that TNT doesn't make decisions based on common sense. Some of it is because they have their hands tied behind their backs by the archaic coding, but a lot of it is they just don't understand what drives their playerbase at all. I would be incredulous if this thing ends up rolling out in a timely fashion that doesn't end up breaking everything or pissing off the majority of people.

I don't mean to be a negative nancy but I remember they said in 2018 that they were bringing KeyQuest to mobile and a year and a bit later they said just kidding, can't do it. I'd hate for that to happen here but I think it's a very real possibility. So there is a Time/certainty factor as well; people who want their dream pets can just buy them and enjoy them now without banking on an unreliable promise that was made in response to an exploit they couldn't fix.

[Marius]

The idea of making UCs buyable is already tanking their value.
If TNT makes them too accessible, people will buy their dream pets and the market will die forever.

Economics on Neopets are tied to Nostalgia and Rarity

[zany]

I’m getting uc PRDK offers on rw/rn/3L that had at best gone for T6-7 offers previously.

[Stss]

Is this why paint brush prices on plushies and fairies are going up lol. I went on a hiatus and just came back to all this...

[Solitaire]

I’ve been back from a 10 year hiatus for about a year now. If anything the rerelease of UCs has incentivised me to buy more RNs and 4Ls hahaha

[Abyss]

With the confirmation existing pets will be able to be unconverted, I see a lot of potential good happening for the overall economy. Assuming you need to have the pet already painted a color, like a Maraquan Krawk, well, that will be incentive for people to restock at Magic for those MPs. Paint brushes will get swiped up, which means more people coming to do dailies or gamble with nerks to bring more PBs into circulation. To get more nerks in, more people might be willing to sign up for Premium (also the new pet slot perk helps entice people, despite the NFT shit). People will scramble to get Petpets for their new pets and NP wearables, and now with L&L prizes tradeable, that only improves it. Getting more people to come and play and stay is what Neo needs to survive.

Basically, I see this as a long-term gain for Neo. And if a UC is at $50 a pop, that already is more affordable than buying an existing VWN RG Bunny.
That said, the black market is going to shift into RWs/RNs, or even aged pets, so it's not going to go away. Existing UCs will still have a place too, they are a piece of history that some users would prefer to say they have than something like a UC skin from the mall.