What is a virtual cattery
First of all: Tiitiäinen (Tiitiäinen is a name of this cattery) is my SIM game- or virtual cattery (it depens on how you want to say it). This virtual cattery is only in Finnish, because most of its visitors are from Finland. On this page you'll find basics about Tiitiäinen and other Finnish virtual cats and -catteries. I have written this for everyone who wants to know more about these things, but does not understand Finnish. This page is mostly about my Tiitiäinen, but other Finnish virtual- and sim game catteries are very similar.A virtual cattery is a game played on the Internet. In this game the players can make their own imaginary catteries and cats. There are not any real rules for this "game", so every player can do what they want with their catteries and cats. All cats and everything else exist only on the internet, in the virtual world. Of course there are pictures of REAL cats which exist in real life, but you must remember, that the photos and information have absolutely nothing in common. Cats in the photos live in real life, and texts on these sites aren't connected with them.
Now you might think, what's the point in creating non-real cats when we could have real ones. To some people like me this is just an entertaining hobby, I have three real cats, but still I like to play with virtual ones. There is also people who can't have real cats for some reason. In virtual world you can be what ever you want. If you want to be a breeder, you can be one. If you just want to take care of one cat, you can do it, even if you are allergic to cats in real life. In the virtual world we have cat shows and many other competitions and activities, breeders, associations... In virtual world you can do almost everything, and even more you could do in real life. And you can't be allergic to virtual cats!
This hobby is also a great way to learn how to use a computer and the internet. I have learnt (by myself) to make websites, use html and my writing skills have developed too! I have also learnt more about cats :)
Organizations and shows
The Finnish sim game cat world can roughly be divided into two parts, unorganized and organized sim game worlds. The first part is the one where most of the sim game players have started their hobby. There are beginners who don't yet know about organizations and associations and also those, who do not want to be part of the organized part. It's usually those beginners who use illegal materials, since they don't know much about copyright laws. However, there are also good points in that part. There players are usually less ambitious, they just want to have fun. They play with their cats and they write stories about the cats they are taking care of.
The organized part of the sim game world is the one Tiitiäinen is in. We have KRN, virtuaalinen Kissojen Rekisteri ja Näyttelyjärjestö (Register- and Show organization for virtual cats) which is our equivalent to FIFe or SRK, though it has many differences. KRN organizes shows, offers services for breeders, maintains the cat register, and helps new players. We also have various kinds of smaller competition organizations for example for cat agility competitions. Usually the people in this organized cat world are more ambitious with their hobby. There are less stories and more competitions.
There are also same kinds of organizations and virtual worlds for other animals on the internet. You may have heard about virtual/ sim game horses? If not, you should read this page. There you can find useful information about SIM game horses. Sim game cats are pretty much similar with sim game horses and -dogs. All sim games and virtual animals in Finland work pretty same way, but in other countries it might be different.
Problems and illegal material
Sim games also have problems. Most of virtual animal owners are really nice people. They don't use any pictures or other material without permission of the owner of the material. They just want to have fun with their hobby and maybe meet some new friends on the Internet. Still there's always someone who does something stupid, for example uses photos or other material illegally. Many of these players are very young and/or beginners with this hobby and they don't know yet what's right and what's wrong and sometimes if they want to (for example) ask permission to use your pictures there may happen misunderstandings because they either can't write good English or don't understand your answer. Unfortunately these kinds of players give all the players a bad name, even though nobody does it on purpose.
Because of them, the "older players" may get into trouble with real life cat owners. They won't let us use their pictures, because they are afraid that their material will be used illegally. We are really ready to do everything we can to clear the virtual players' name, but sadly, we can't do much. "Older-players" can give the other players advice and ask them to remove the illegal material, but there's no way we could force them to so so. It's up to them. The copyright holder can ask if the web hosting provider could remove illegal material from the user's site, if the user will not do so even if asked to.
Sometimes the real cat owners don't want us to use their pictures, because they just don't want their cats to be a part of this game. Some people are also afraid of misunderstandings since many virtual catteries say absolutely nothing about them being virtual. People might believe that the information on a sim game cat's page is real and that may cause problems for the owner of the real cat. A couple of years before, I received an email, where the sender asked me if I could sell him a kitten. He thought that Tiitiainen was a real cattery. After that I wanted to make sure there would be no more misunderstandings.
Because of these problems, we understand if people don't want to give us permission to use their pictures. Many times I have gotten "no" as an answer. Most of them were politely written and I was told the reasons why they refused to give me the permission. That's ok, and I respect that. I have, however, received also a few angry emails from real life cat owners. Instead of saying politely and clearly no, they were so rude that it made me feel bad for even asking. That kind of situation does not encourage people to ask permissions, and that causes all of us even more problems with illegal material.
Tiitiäinen
Tiitiäinen is a cattery (founded in 2005) which breeds British shorthairs. I do not have any real life experience on cat breeding, so the facts might not always be right. Some of my older cats don't even have pictures of British shorthairs on their pages because at that point I did not have the right pictures. This is an entertaining hobby for me and I do not want to take this too seriously. I chose British shorthair, because they are so beautiful!
I have spent many years making Tiitiäinen what it is today, and I hope you all respect my work and do not copy texts, pictures or other material from these pages. I have permissions to use every photo that you'll find on this website. Some of the pictures are taken or made by me. On every page you can see the copyrights at the end of the page and/or under the pictures. I want to thank all the people who have helped me with Tiitiäinen and who have given me permission to use their photos!
©
Text © Marjaana
Layout; Eveliina & Marjaana
Photo in layout © Heikki Siltala
Lyrics from index page © Bryan Adams & Dreamworks (Here I am, spirit version)