One of Nintendo’s long-running video game franchise Animal Crossing, invites players to start a life now on a deserted island. Like all pre-existing Animal Crossing games it is inhabited by cuddly anthropomorphic animals who are citizens to your Island. Players buy a house, work to pay ceaseless debt, trade, and have endless customizable freedom. It is a life simulator with a rural, charming aesthetic allowing the players to create their own perfect getaway.
Tom Nook and Economy
One of the most important characters is Tom Nook. He is the head of Nook Incorporated. He provides individuals with the opportunity to build a house without interest, deadlines or assessment. This is one of the basic principles that Nook has consistently operated throughout previous games, alongside occupancy ownership, and free markets. Because he owns and sells houses one might make the mistake of mislabeling him a landlord. Tom Nook provides every person in the Island with free housing. He does not charge rent or interest. If the player does not pay off the 0% interest loan Tom Nook does not evict them. He does not make any profit off his real estate ventures by leasing nor gain excess capital seen through the renovations done for public works. One might be convinced Tom Nook to be a socialist as he distributes real property in town to the citizens in more or less equal shares. However, this theory is debunked considering the lack of authority he has to levy taxes, pass or enforce laws, or perform any other functions of a central government.
It can be speculated or seen that Tom Nook operates on a basic libertarian form of market socialism called mutualism. Mutualists do not advocate state control over the means of production. Instead, individuals are self-employed workers and co-operatives exchanging goods and services in a market without interest, rent, profit, landlords or capitalists. This allows each person to possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market.
Essentially Tom Nook is able to create a functioning society rid of a strong central government. Through mutualism Nook, uses deserted fruitful islands to construct and develop new communities that operate from the importance of altruism, potlatch performativity and liberality. Nook provides a communal island with objects outside being public property. He is receptive to public works allowing them to be openly funded by the community. Along with having ceremonial events for the grand opening of them.
The game’s virtual economy is through natural resources viewed as a commodity. The player gathers natural resources to exchange for a currency called Bells. Currency is localized in all Animal Crossing games and distributed by Tom Nook’s shop called “Nook’s Cranny”. This is called company scrip. Money that can be exchanged for goods only at company owned businesses. This allows the business to determine the value of products from general compensation. This system was outlawed in the Fair Labor Standard Acts of 1938. By paying employees in scrip instead of legal tender, individuals have no money to purchase goods outside of their company. However this logic can also be refuted by acknowledging that the currency does grow on trees and having bells be found where light emerges in the ground. If the player decides to replant the money in the ground, this causes a money tree to emerge.
New Horizons introduces Nook Miles tickets, a new currency to parallel the traditional currency of Bells. It works as a loyalty program. Nook Miles are automatically issued upon completing productive labour for instance, chopping wood, catching fish, planting seedlings, pulling weeds, or crafting DIY recipes from raw materials providing the ability to redeem Nook Miles for goods and services.
Virtual laborious gameplay
With no comprehensive storyline narrative or any clear end to the virtual game, being productive is the measure of progress. What fundamentally drives the game forward is the player spending bells to develop their property or even the island itself. Each time the player’s housing debt is paid off there is an opportunity afterwards to expand or remodel one’s house. With temptation to store more items and have more storage space. It is easy for the player to agree to expand their homes. Thus perpetuating a system of ceaseless, never-ending debt. Animal Crossing illustrates mundane performative labor as a means of producing material property and capital ideals. It is a vicious cycle of accomplishing menial tasks to slave away for profit.
One example can be constructing DIY furniture to display in their house, island or to simply sell or give away. In order to construct furniture players need to have a workbench along with the recipe for the materials. Players are limited to what they can make depending on what kind of materials they need to provide for the making of the object. Through pure manual labor of extracting resources, a player can be rewarded with the outcome of productivity of having a new item. A player can then sell their item to Nook’s Cranny, if it is a hot item of the day, for double the usual price. This can be done to pay off house loans or for the pursuit of material gain. The narrative of a player often settles into a cycle that mirrors real-life capitalist ideals. Investing time and in-game currency towards the advancement of the island mimics the labor, debt and need for supply, one feels in their daily lives.
Animal Crossing is a game that’s pure objective is to have a peaceful experience of building a community with friendly animal villagers. Having the game loop on repetitive tasks, social interactions, unlocking new features to further your customizing pleasures, it relies on us to track our progression through our debt to Tom Nook. Who also seems to be our economical system and capitalist who essentially produces our communal spaces and experiences.
Ian Bogost hits the nail on the hammer about the epitome of non-victory driven games, essentially saying “Animal Crossing can be seen as a critique of contemporary consumer culture that attempts to persuade the player to understand both the intoxication of material acquisition and the subtle pleasures of abstention.”
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