@Zehith, Oh yeah! Dishonesty isn't good at all, I'm just saying that trade fodder in general isn't a bad thing ^^
So I'm mostly just asking this to see what kind of answers I get, and also it seemed like a fun question.
For me, I'm honestly just kind of... Confused by the point of them if that makes sense? A lot of them are pretty cute, I admit that, but I don't think I could ever own a CS design since I myself like to have a lot of freedom with my characters, and not having full rights over a design would feel really constricting, no matter how small any restrictions are. Of course that's just my own opinion, and who knows, maybe someone can enlighten me to what makes CS so popular and loved, ha ha! ^^
artificially restricting peoples creativity because someone wants to feel important, also causes a lot of totally avoidable drama. personally dont see the point in making a species and then making it closed, especially not when people act so toxic about it. there are some good ones though.
I personally both love and dislike CS. Like, I love super unique CS with a lot of time and effort and love and thought put into it, but like people who are like "no this is my original closed species of wolf/shark hybrids. Nobody else can make one EVER" like.... Calm down. You can't own a hybrid of two different animals. Those who take it to extremes kinda ruin it. And personally I'm SUPER picky about what kind of CS I'd have. I used to not want to bother with ANY (because I like to have full control over my character's backstory), but now I've found a few species where I'm actually interested in the lore. OR in the case of some species, like angel dragons, I'm not required to have my AD follow all the lore. It can just be there, as long as I follow the design rules.
The only closed species characters I own right now are Tarma and Loppa. And even then, I never use either of them because I don't really want to research all the lore (or sometimes it's not available for some species).
Only other CS character I have is Slinky, the first of my own closed species, the Slynki. And basically their lore consists of "they were either made robotically or magically. They can be any animal and they have springs in certain places connecting body parts" so their lore is extremely open ended.
Edit: and as far as my opinion on super popular expensive CS, to me, it's like, why am I going to fork over $100 for a humanoid with a slightly elongated torso, or a humanoid with a tail, or a slight twist on an already free to use species in popular culture/mythos/etc? Especially since it comes with rules and a set amount of traits you can use usually, and lore you sometimes have to follow. My rule of thumb is if I can come up with the idea myself without ever seeing the species, I'm not spending money to be part of the club. (Not that I'd ever rip off a closed species, but let's be real, people make designs of fantasy creatures, monsters, etc all the time that mimic other people's species without ever having seen it. I mean, two big CS I really like are Grem2 and Nebular Nomads, and they're practically identical. Doesn't mean either is a ripoff. Just means even unique species aren't always that unique. That's why I tend to avoid actively looking for CS, because I'd rather just work on organic characters, and if I like the idea I came up with on my own, who needs to find other people's ideas that are similar to mind and pay them money for the rights to make one?)
I don't have much knowledge about cs since I've never gone out of my way to see what they're all about until recently when I bought a cs adoptable. My experience has been great so far I guess it just depends who you're buying from 😄 I have total creative freedom over the adopt and I can do what I want with it so long as I give credit, that's all the owner asked for, although I really like the design so I doubt I'm ever going to change it. The lore behind it was cute too I just had to buy the adopt.
I don't like the idea of closed species in most cases. I don't care for most original species that aren't from like a game or book or show most of the time, overall.
They are nice if you have to buy one to be a part of an arpg. That makes sense, it's like you are buying a video game, in a way. But it would be nice to allow fanmade ones that aren't official and can't be in the group and to not have people attack you because you happen to have a character look a little similar. It might seem pointless, "oh you can just make your own character for your own project don't buy them", but I could say the same about games. "Oh, you can just roleplay by yourself and tell your own story or play a game in another way" (might not make sense but eh). Species, like Wyngro, could be a way to make friends and work towards something.
Although, to my knowledge, not many species do have arpg elements. They are just pricy designs. Buying adopts are just not my thing due to how entitled artists are. I could buy one and then be forced to give it up due to my work making you uncomfortable the next month and refuse to refund me. Like, what the fuck? You gave me the rights to them. You can't take them away unless you told me you have the rights to in your terms of service and if so, why did I even adopt from you in the first place? I probably would have avoided you like the plague. You seem like the extremely toxic people I've met over the years.
At least closed species are a nice way to make money.
I don't like them because;
most of the time, they come with restrictions and rules that you can potentially have the character taken from you if you break.
when I buy a character, it's because I want to do my own thing with it. there's no point in buying a character that I'm obliged to only use a certain way.
they're usually overpriced, and I can get a character design just as quality + no restrictions for half the price or even less.
they are just status symbols/trophies. people buy them to show off and a lot of them just end up being traded/resold around indefinitely instead of being used as actual characters.
I like to look at some closed species, some are really interesting-looking (though that's a minority), and I like to draw them.
But I don't own any of them.
There's closed species I really dislike, and they're most of these "humanoid with weird ears, weird balley tail and skin patterns". They all look the same to me, they really just have slight tail shape differences, but even the art-style look somewhat the same? This makes me really uncomfortable.
Beside this, I wouldn't own this kind of designs because I would have no idea what to do with them. I like my humans to be humans, if they start to have weird shapes and skin patterns, then I'm unable to develop them nor to give them a backstory. I just have no idea how to make this kind of character work in a normal world.
When it comes to anthro species, I'm more open, as I don't mine my anthros have various shapes and colours. But most anthro species I've came accross have some highly fantasy features, such as magical gem horns, floating rings, or this kind of things, and here again, while they can be really fun to draw, that's not something I can write about.
Something I don't get when it comes to most anthro/feral species are the mutations. Like, you have an animal that have a dog muzzle, and then, paf, one of them gets mutated and get an eagle beak?! I'm sorry, but that's not how mutations work, ahah. I know it's not supposed to be realistic at all, but it just doesn't make sense to me, and the thing can't look like "the same species" if one have a dog nose and the other an eagle beak, or some suddenly grow bird wings additionally to their normal limbs.
When it comes to lore, it can be really interesting for species to have a unique lore. Actually, I think the lore is way more important than the design. You can have a species with a somewhat basic appearance, but an interesting lore, or an interesting roleplay community. Tokotas or Shedus are a good examples of this to me. Tokotas are really just dogs, but the community is enough to make them a really interesting species. Way more interesting in my opinion than a super complex monster with a super unique design.
Still, I don't much like to work with pre-made lores. I need full liberty when working with my characters, even though most of them actually just live in a very normal and realistic world. I don't want to have to deal with someone's made-up mythology, customs and societal rules, especially when the species have a relatively set personality to follow.
I hardly connect with characters I didn't create anyway. I prefer my overly basic characters, who have nothing original in terms of designs nor background, over a really creative and well-made character that just isn't mine.
To summarise, I have nothing against closed species, some of them can be really well made and fun to draw, but when it comes to writing, they just aren't my cup of tea.