How Animal Crossing's Fake Industries Let Players Afford Real Rent Amid COVID-19

Nintendo announced last week that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold over 13.41 million copies in its first six weeks. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is about as far as you can get from a communications super-app geared toward in-app sales or collaboration. From a report: In fact, as a franchise originally made for children, it barely has a proper chat function. But as we watch real-world society grind to a painful halt, many players are now also using this game as an unexpected economic and creative lifeline. Here's the story of how this Nintendo Switch game has become an experimental playground for real-world businesses and creative experiences, letting players find new ways to mirror conventional culture with in-game resources.

in-app sales the big N will crack down like stream

[Joe_Dragon]

in-app sales the big N will crack down like stream did with the skins

Wait, what?

[thomn8r]

People are paying others to farm/harvest crap in a video game?

Re:

[phalse phace]

People are paying others to farm bells which is used as in-game currency [fandom.com] to buy stuff.

Re:

[Rockoon]

Any "game" with an official ability for player to exchange in-game items for cash will be used to launder money.

Thats what Valve discovered, and they didnt even have the full feature set available (3rd party "gambling sites" were where the cash was handled)

Re:

[SirAstral]

that is not what money laundering is...

Re: Wait, what?

[Way Smarter Than You]

Yeah but "video games used for money laundering" sounds way sexier than "a few out of work Americans join Chinese gold farmers in new video game".

In all the games I've played where gold farming was a thing, the publishers eventually cracked down and made it unprofitable for large scale gold farming to continue.

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[DonkeyG5]

Buying bells? That's ridiculous! You can get millions trading turnips!

Nook Miles Ticket, hybrid flowers and golden tools, on the other hand...

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[gurps_npc]

Yes. Been done for decades. Common practice. It's relatively cheap way to pay other people so that you do not have to play the game's boring parts.

Boring parts were put in for two reasons: 1) to stretch a short game into something you can get players to stay with for months/years.
2) to let people play for free while still having an incentive for people to pay the game maker money. If they make their paid version too expensive, some people try to undercut them.

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[Opportunist]

In any multiplayer game with a persistent economy, the most profitable parts are the ones that are boring.

Why should games be any different from reality? It's just like in real life, there are two things people pay money for. Either things they cannot or things they do not want to do themselves.

Re: Wait, what?

[t4eXanadu]

"Why should games be any different from reality?"

Because they are games and not reality. That's like asking, why shouldn't a fiction book be like reality? It can be, but it needn't be.

Re: Wait, what?

[eWarz]

Well no. The issue with Animal Crossing is that it tries to pace people by throttling them to real time unless you are willing to employ a workaround such as changing the time on your Switch, for example. I have never bought bells and never will, but the game definitely has a virtual treadmill that is rather bothersome at times.

Re:

[chispito]

People are paying others to farm/harvest crap in a video game?

I take it you've never been exposed much to MMOs?

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[Opportunist]

People are paying others to do what they cannot or don't want to do in real life, is it so far fetched to think they'd do the same in a virtual world?

Of course this raises the question "why play at all if you don't want to?" Because they DO want to play, just not the boring bits. Why do those bits exist? To prolong playing, of course. The idea is to keep people playing (and paying) without having to offer any additional content, that's essentially what grind is about. Games like these live from keeping peop

Re:

[Drahkir]

Welcome to 2012

Jungian marketing

[moxrespawn]

"Animal Crossing"...

As Queen says--don't hear the bell, but you answer the call. [discovermagazine.com]

Second Life is gonna be pissed!

[ArhcAngel]

Second Life has been trying to get this kinda exposure for decades. Perhaps if they had adapted to the mobile paradigm?

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[alvinrod]

I think Second Life was a lot more freeform and required some additional commitment on the part of the user to understand everything as well as to develop something in game that might serve a business purpose. Animal Crossing is way more limited in terms of what you can do, which makes it far more approachable. If it's being used for these other kinds of things I suspect that it has more to do with the game being new and having a large enough player base that a few things like this happen organically. I don

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[Calydor]

What I remember from my days in Second Life a decade and change ago is that unless you were a coder, AND a graphics artist, AND an animator, you were pretty much looked at as a consumer who should stick to consuming rather than trying to tinker with fun little things.

Re: Second Life is gonna be pissed!

[Way Smarter Than You]

You mean being really good at coding AND doing the art/animation for various sex organs.

Re:

[Calydor]

Wasn't that what I said? I did say it was for Second Life, right?

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[Merk42]

Second Life has been trying to get this kinda exposure for decades. Perhaps if they had adapted to the mobile paradigm?

Perhaps if they had been an established franchise and released their latest version in the midst of global pandemic...

Doesn't sound very widespread

[93 Escort Wagon]

The single person who was interviewed reports that demand has dropped significantly.

Which is a good sign, since the sort of people who'd consider buying "bells" in a game like Animal Crossing are likely afflicted with some sort of obsessive-compulsive mental disorder.