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The Animal Crossing world also makes no sense. The main business in the game builds you a house on a loan with no deposit, no mandatory repayments, and no inter

The Animal Crossing world also makes no sense. The main business in the game builds you a house on a loan with no deposit, no mandatory repayments, and no interest. You repay the loan by selling sea shells and common weeds back to this same business. None of the other villagers are ever depicted working, they just wander around and chat. Even as a game, it doesn't fulfill the same kind of enjoyment as the tycoon games. It's fun no doubt, but its not the same kind of fun. There is no struggle or risk in AC, only idle grind. Part of what makes economy games fun is watching the charts, seeing them turn downwards, and trying everything you can to turn those charts back around. Taking risks, having them either propel you to success or ruin your business.

djur 3y ago
The economic elements of Animal Crossing can be understood as a solution to a natural problem of a game featuring item collection: what do you do with excess collected items? How do you ensure the player feels like the main gameplay activities are still worthwhile even when they're not adding new fish, bugs, etc. to their compendium? The game wouldn't play much differently if shop items were free and house upgrades were unlocked over time or by collecting enough unique items, but money adds a very familiar way of measuring progress, which is psychologically much different.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  AC makes sense as a video game trying to be fun, but it can't at all be taken as some kind of system that could be used in reality. Having someone build you a house which takes thousands of hours in exchange for some foraged junk with minimal utility could never work. Imagine if the Nook store was not just a void where items come and go infinitely but it was an actual market networked with other players. The value of most of the items in the game would drop to 0, the game would become significantly harder and less casual. No one would exchange their gold nuggets for clumps of weeds, no matter how many weeds you offer.
  - djur 3y ago
    Sure, which is why my post started with a long list of the ways that the Animal Crossing world doesn't resemble our own. I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that you can't really see Animal Crossing as depicting even an idealized form of capitalism.

djur 3y ago

The economic elements of Animal Crossing can be understood as a solution to a natural problem of a game featuring item collection: what do you do with excess collected items? How do you ensure the player feels like the main gameplay activities are still worthwhile even when they're not adding new fish, bugs, etc. to their compendium? The game wouldn't play much differently if shop items were free and house upgrades were unlocked over time or by collecting enough unique items, but money adds a very familiar way of measuring progress, which is psychologically much different.

Gigachad 3y ago
AC makes sense as a video game trying to be fun, but it can't at all be taken as some kind of system that could be used in reality. Having someone build you a house which takes thousands of hours in exchange for some foraged junk with minimal utility could never work. Imagine if the Nook store was not just a void where items come and go infinitely but it was an actual market networked with other players. The value of most of the items in the game would drop to 0, the game would become significantly harder and less casual. No one would exchange their gold nuggets for clumps of weeds, no matter how many weeds you offer.
- djur 3y ago
  Sure, which is why my post started with a long list of the ways that the Animal Crossing world doesn't resemble our own. I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that you can't really see Animal Crossing as depicting even an idealized form of capitalism.