Why I stopped playing Animal Crossing

Unlike most gamers my age, I had never played the game until the release of Animal Crossing New Horizon. In my mind it was a game for children and ‘living together on an island’ didn’t really appeal to me. However, the closer we got to the release of New Horizon, the more curious I became about the hype. Since fellow Girl Gamer Galaxy blogger Nicky was also super excited, I decided to try it with all the consequences that followed. I will tell you how I got addicted to this game and why I stopped playing Animal Crossing.

Bells, bells, bells

After many hours of catching fish and picking weeds to pay off Mr. Nook, I could finally start with what I was most looking forward to…designing my island. And you still need a few bells for that. So I soon realized that the sweet Miss Desi was the solution. The next Sunday I went to buy many, many turnips and dropped them all off on a part of my island where I hadn’t built anything yet. My island was covered with turnips and I texted all my friends about the prices on their island. Lacking a good price, I found the website turnip.exchange where fellow gamers opened up their island to visitors to sell their turnips.

Turnip.exchange

Most providers do not do this out of the goodness of their hearts but have turned this into a real trade. So you pay a fee to get the Dodo code. Most of the time this fee is a Nookmileticket that you can purchase with your hard-earned Nook Miles. The site was super popular and for a good turnip price with a low fee there were long queues but I was determined and waited hours in the queue for my first visit with my backpack full of turnips. Many turnips.

From the plane, I could see that Timmy and Tommy’s shop was close to the airport and there was an expertly constructed path with gates on either side. The owner of the island sat on a bench with the royal crown on his head. I dropped the fee that consisted of bells on the floor and was allowed to sell my turnips. I was very happy with all the bells and when I walked back I saw that my predecessor left ‘a tip’ for the owner so I dropped another bag of bells. 

Cataloging

In addition to the visits to buy/sell turnips, turnip.exchange also offers the option to put in a ‘catalog’. There are two options here. You go to someone’s island with, for example, an item from their wish list or another fee. The owner has all kinds of items ready that you can pick up and then put back so that you can buy them yourself afterward. Another option is a catalog party where everyone takes a number of items, you put your items down and everyone walks around to pick up each other’s items and put them back. Unfortunately, not everyone was always super honest and sometimes items were secretly traded or stolen.

Soon I came to the second site Nookazon where you can offer items and create a wish list. I had this so that I could keep track of which items I wanted and which I had already collected. It didn’t take long until it turned into a total obsession with having every item in every color. In addition to this quest, my island also had to be decorated.

‘Core’

Down the rabbit hole, I go: YouTube is full of Animal Crossing island tours for inspiration. And a real connoisseur is aware of the different cores and trends. My own favorite ‘cottage core’:

• Fairy core
• Forrest core
• Farm core
• Jungle core
• Kid core
• Urban core 

I even found out that there are people online offering their ‘terraforming services’ for money. And no, that doesn’t mean they will do it for you. They will just tell you how to do it yourself and people actually pay real-life bells for this.

I can’t stop

Every day when I turned the Switch back on, the same routine started:

• Check mailbox for purchased items and indicate in Nookazon that I now had these items
• To the beach to collect a recipe
• Check turnip price
• Visit all villager houses for a recipe
• Shake all the trees on the island until I found an item
• Digging up fossils
• Mine stones
• Turnip exchange check for prices
• Queuing for a catalog session
• Bully unwanted villagers off my island
• Look for the perfect villagers
• In the afternoon: check the beach and the villagers again for a recipe

The cute island game became a time-consuming obsession. I had to keep repeating these tasks until I got my perfect island with no time travel. During the first lockdown, a lot of gamers started putting in more game time, due to a lack of other activities. You can read what types of games were popular right here. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, I played Animal Crossing every day. And finally, it was enough. I was done with these repetitive actions. It wasn’t a game I enjoyed anymore! Although some days I miss Timmy and Tommy and wonder how Stitches is, I’m not going back to my island of tasks!

Now you know why I stopped playing Animal Crossing, but what about you?

So, that is why I stopped playing Animal Crossing, at least for now. I’m curious how you experienced the game. What makes it fun for you and how many days do you play the game? Or did give up your island life? Let us know! Vote in our poll on Instagram.