The big question arises – Is there any point in releasing catalogue rares?

Xmas Throne, Voodoo doll, Beanstalk; these are just some of the rares you will come across in the hotel, but most importantly, they are all ‘catalogue rares’ (rares that have been released into the Habbo community via the catalogue/shop.) Now, I’m sure that most of you would agree that the majority of recent catalogue rares look stylish and fairly appealing – but when it comes to trading, are they really that worthwhile?
 
A lot of the catalogue rares released before the merge did seem to show some sign of rising in value – mainly due to there being smaller communities in separate hotels e.g. 4,000 online daily on Habbo.sg (Singaporean Habbo), but of course this changed after the merge meaning that there are always 1000’s of users online the hotel at any 1 point… imagine how many of these users purchase rares over a consistent period of time?! Basically, due to there being a rapid increase of users on 1 hotel, more rares became available into the community. Yes, it may have been counteracted via the increase of players but a variety of these players are more likely to have more than 1 catalogue rare on them.
 
Value: Catalogue rares are sold at 25c per. – This seems like a fairly reasonable price and is only ever affected by quests (e.g. The Xmas Throne costing 25c and 30 snowflakes), but the price may not be that appealing when it comes to future trends. Nearly every single catalogue rare that has been released in the past 2 years has dropped in value. Some of them have even dropped in value by over 10 credits. The value of some of the rares can take months and sometimes years to even start bypassing the catalogue price – thus being rendered useless by traders looking to make a profit.
 
As we can see from the picture on the right, there are already a few examples to show the drop in value from catalogue prices of rares. Yes, the Christmas rares have only dropped by a small amount (potentially more in the future if the price continues declining – according to the marketplace, the values are still decreasing but at a slower rate) but as we can see from the ‘Beanstalk’, prices can drop to ridiculous levels causing huge amounts of loss for some users. The only catalogue rare (released after the merge) which has not lost value is the ‘Rare Balloon Machine’, which is currently worth 26c according the marketplace.
 
So, we shouldn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that they are entirely pointless, but we also shouldn’t think that they are a fairly worthwhile thing to purchase. To reach a suitable answer, we need to look at 2 different perspectives:
 
Room designers – The catalogue rares would probably be just as useful as all furniture ranges to them. They may require a specific piece of furniture (i.e. a rare) to make a room “work”, and would be delighted if they could purchase these rares at a much lower price.
 
Traders – Traders may have to start taking risks in terms of purchasing catalogue rares. Sometimes the values of the rares go up for a few days after release; this is the prime time to make a small amount of profit before the prices drop dramatically due to availability. It is also a matter of ‘the waiting game’ if traders decide to attempt to make a huge profit on catalogue rares – if the Beanstalk has dropped by 13c in value over 2 years, imagine how long it will take until it reaches the point where it starts to bypass the catalogue price.
 
Maybe Sulake need to start considering giving out rares so that they actually do remain rare. The Niko application is a good attempt at releasing more rares into the hotel and ensuring they remain at a high price, but it’s limited to people who use an Apple product… which is still an awful lot. Personally, I feel there needs to be more competitions where the prizes are un-released rares. The competition prizes have definitely improved but the standard could be improved greatly with a prize of un-released rares!

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