Introducing avatar pets & a new way to unlock avatar items! Pets include cats, dogs, birds and tigers. We know getting all those ++'s can take some time, so while all avatar items are just as reachable for free by earning ++'s from rants and comments, we now allow items to be purchased in-app based on the difference in ++'s you have to the ++ unlock value of the item. (To purchase, you'll need the latest app version)

Paying for avatar items helps us keep the devRant servers up and running and also is extra motivation to add more fun avatar items. If you have any questions or find a bug, please let me or @dfox know. Happy ranting!

Next step: Accessories like rings, hat, bug repellant, the holy sword Excalibyte

@Awlex ha yeah on the fence how fantastical we want to go

@trogus well...How do we pay for it?

@Treighton it's only on the latest versions of iOS and Andriod releases. If you don't see avatar purchasing referenced in release notes for your store version yet, sometimes it can take a few hours for new releases to propagate through the system

Gotcha, will keep an eye out for the update

$48.99 for white tiger without the ++.

Would be cool to bundle avatar options in app with purchases from the store. Would probably get me to finally checkout my $200+ abandoned swag cart.

Nice update, thanks!

@darkcode There are a few people w over 20,000++ so not unattainable. For the rest, gotta give something to strive for!

And the stickers for the laptop? :3

@Awlex we never know, devRant may become an RPG one day!!🤔😉

@cod3doc ha we've talked about slipping in some dev themed mini-games

Is this an early April fools?

How nice of them to offer these things for sale. What an altruistic organisation.

@phuzisham That was snarky as fuck. You can't blame a company for wanting a to get some compensation for providing a platform like this. I just can't see blowing money on fake pets for an avatar that no one cares about but you.

Awesome!

@Letmecode I'm a bit worried about the payment as well. But it also makes sense that they need those for their servers.

But soon we will see shitloads of people with this avatars. Just like stickers and stress balls.

@Letmecode Posting quality content that gets upvotes or spending money to help pay our growing server costs and free swag giveaways, both are legitimate contributions to the community. Just because someone bought a cute dog for their avatar doesn't mean your posts and comments are any less valued and appreciated.

@Letmecode we've pretty much always put a monetary value on anything you can earn on devRant.

You can earn stickers and a stress ball and we also sell those items and have for a very long time (though there was a point when we didn't sell them).

The avatar items are pretty much the exact same concept. We're not selling points, we're selling specific items. If you could pay to inflate your score, that would be bad. Because in the future there's the potential to use the point system for other, IMO much more important things like content ranking, sorting, etc.

And I definitely understand that users who worked hard to earn a lot of points in pursuit of avatar stuff wouldn't be a fan of this, but I think we'll be looking for other ways to make earned points (your user score) more meaningful that goes way beyond avatar items. Ideas on that are always welcome.

I think another good example of what I'm talking about and what @trogus and I have thought about for a while is user badges which we think could maybe be fun. Badges specifically represent accomplishments, hence can't be purchased. On the other hand, avatar items never were specific accomplishments and were always meant to be more customizable and at some point, purchasable.

@trogus
I've always wanted to have pets in my avatar. Woo!

Side note, is the pug meant to be 200 points more than the other dogs?

@linux-colonel it was :)
I think because @trogus thought it was the cutest lol.

More tattoos!!! I have tattoos all over my arms irl but can only put ugly tribal ones in devrant :(

I want a tortoise as pet (ง°▼°)ง

I like how all the cats are super fat.

Any update on a token 'unnatural' hair color?

Actually, now that I see some of the cats I kind of want one. They are really cute.

Great work! I love the animals :) my desk still needs dual monitors though.

@trogus really cool. As mentioned in another comment I would pay for cyborg parts like terminator eye etc... 🤑

@TheSilent tortoise is a good one, I'll add it to the list

@starless Colored hair is still in the backlog. It requires outputing all hair styles in that color scheme, so unfortunately a lot more work than a single item. I need to figure out some better process automation

@trogus, it will probably add complexity on your data model but what about a white shape with transparency and a color tint to apply? That's the way it's usually solved on 2D games.

Also would like to see maybe a fish bowl as a desk item/pet.

Awesome!
And to add to that debate before;
maybe add an item, just one item, for lets say 25k or something, that you will not be able to buy. People with low amount of ++s, who are buying, will (hopefully) not feel too left out, as it is only one item, while it will make feel those people who worked hard on their rants feel special.
And also, I really like the fact that you only have to pay difference in price.

@redstonetehnik Special earned-only items could be interesting, good idea!

Blue Heeler please :-D

@biscuit lot more dog breeds coming, I'll try to get one close for you

@trogus cheers mate, doesn't need the toy pig... Although...

I real need another pet as my pet is being a jackass xhuing all my cables and dont know to play fare , he scatch and bite sometimes

I'm actually a bit conflicted. I really like DevRant and I like to earn stuff with points. But I also want to support you guys.
Buying a stress ball is nice because one can never have too many, however when you pay unlock your favourite animal you can't earn it anymore.
Unfortunately the stress ball costs you money (as you mentioned it else costs to much to ship over seas) so that hurts instead of helps.

So this kinda boils down to:
1. What is your businessmodel?
2. How can we sustain this community​ and development without you having to monetize on our personal data?

Need a Cat on the Keyboard as Pet ^^