By Nelson Schneider - 04/05/20 at 05:02 PM CT
Those depraved Nintendo fanboys are at it again! With the dismal release schedules happening in the world of videogames for the past two months, combined with the delays and postponements triggered by the coronavirus plague, hype-driven, FOMO-inspired gamers are desperate for some new thing to obsess over. And as Nintendo platforms are prone to what their own fan communities euphemistically refer to as “droughts,” anyone who only owns a Switch at this point is being forced to look closely at the platform’s giant pile of ports – and old news doesn’t inspire FOMO – or desperately cling to the single new first-party release and inflate its importance beyond sanity. Most of them chose the latter. And what is that release? “Animal Crossing: New Horizons.”
First, let’s start with a short history lesson about ‘Animal Crossing.’ The series was a new first-party Nintendo IP that initially launched on the Gamecube, alongside the likes of ‘Pikmin.’ However, before an actual ‘Animal Crossing’ game ever existed, a prototype, called “Animal Forest+” was in development for the ill-fated 64DD hardware expansion for the Nintendo 64. Back in the day, I was mildly excited about the release of “Animal Forest+” on the Worst Nintendo Console Ever, simply because the in-development game was touted (by Nintendo Power Magazine, of course) as an RPG, and we should all remember how dismal that genre’s presence on the N64 was.
However, when “Animal Forest+” morphed into “Animal Crossing” and received an official worldwide release on the Gamecube, all of my interest evaporated. It was not, in fact, any kind of RPG, but was, instead, some sort of new take on the Farming Sim subgenre pioneered by “Harvest Moon,” only with much of the structure, motivation, and actual ‘game’ excised, in favor of creating a Skinner box where players could just while away their time on virtual busywork, but would also be punished if they neglected their virtual terrarium/dollhouse for a day or two. Indeed, the ‘dollhouse’ metaphor seems particularly apt, since the majority of the people who enjoy the ‘Animal Crossing’ series are women and girls – a traditionally non-gaming demographic. To top it off, the general aesthetic exuded by every ‘Animal Crossing’ title is both childish and effete, a problem Nintendo has struggled with since earning the “kiddie” badge of shame in the late ‘90s.
I don’t think most so-called ‘Core’ gamers would even know ‘Animal Crossing’ exists, were it not for Nintendo’s heavy leaning-in to fanservice and cross-promotion. One of Nintendo’s most popular cross-demographic franchises is the ‘Super Smash Bros.’ series, which is not-coincidentally most gamers’ first point of contact with ‘Animal Crossing’ due to the inclusion of numerous characters and environments from that series as stages, Assist Trophies, and collectable memorabilia, eventually leading to playable fighters as the ‘Super Smash Bros.’ series matured. Nintendo seems to have realized that they can stoke interest in their lesser-known franchises by forcing them in front of an audience of primed-and-ready Nintendo fans who are already engaged with other IP. Nobody bought into the ‘Super Smash Bros.’ series for the ‘Animal Crossing’ references, but those references have raised awareness of the series exponentially.
In spite of ‘Animal Crossing’s’ niche status, the mere fact that it is a first-party Nintendo game causes the corporation’s most irrational defenders to proclaim it as an equal to the holy trinity of ‘Mario’/‘Zelda’/‘Metroid’ in its ability to act as a tentpole, propping up the entire Nintendo platform in times of drought. (However, if we’re being honest, even ‘Metroid’ has fallen off in recent years, and is in danger of becoming irrelevant in the face of competing Space Marine-based franchises from other companies.) This vocal and out-of-touch-with-reality portion of Nintendo’s fanbase actually got their wish recently, as the unpredictable confluence of events including the coronavirus pandemic, the lack of new releases in March 2020, and the psychotic world of social media combined to make ‘Animal Crossing’ go viral.
With only two March releases with titles the average mainstream gamer would recognize, and with polar opposite target audiences for said games, it wasn’t long before “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” and “DOOM Eternal” started getting mash-up memes, featuring DoomGuy teaching an anthropomorphic puppy (whose name is apparently Isabelle) how to operate heavy weapons. Okay.
When the meme factor wears off, though, where will these two IPs be? ‘DOOM’ will still be inexplicably popular due to a combination of nostalgia and the public’s insatiable thirst for graphic violence. Meanwhile, ‘Animal Crossing’ will still be a niche non-game primarily consumed by non-gaming women and girls, as the evolution of the domestic training experience once provided by dollhouses. In this era of Third-Wave Feminism, ‘Animal Crossing’ is something of a Trojan Horse, allowing the domestically-minded to indulge their love of busywork and housekeeping without the currently-socially-unacceptable outward appearance of doing so.
However, that domesticity is primarily why I simply don’t ‘get’ the appeal of ‘Animal Crossing’ in the first place. You can customize your house! You can pull weeds out of your lawn! You can go fishing or rock-collecting or fruit-picking! Yes, but all of those are real-life activities that don’t require any extraordinary levels of raw talent. Why would I want to waste time repairing a virtual house or pulling virtual weeds when I’ve got those things staring me down in real life? Fishing is not, actually, particularly fun – CATCHING fish is, because you get to cook and eat them. Not so with virtual fish… or fruit. Everyone who defends ‘Animal Crossing’ and tries to promote it to tentpole importance always focuses on how ‘relaxing’ it is, or what a ‘chill’ experience it is, but needing to keep up with busywork on a daily basis is neither of those, and when a game’s ultimate payoff is literally nothing – no epic tale, no exciting exploration, no exhilarating action – what IS the point?
Comments
dbarry_22 - wrote on 04/09/20 at 03:13 PM CT
Once again your bias against handheld consoles comes through. Animal Crossing was a huge success on both the DS and 3DS, it sold better than any of the Zelda games on those devices. So, it makes sense to me that since the Switch can also be portable this kind of game would also be quite a success.
So maybe you or me may not be a big fan of the franchise but that doesn't really matter does it? There are tons of people that enjoy it quite a bit. This kind of game caters to a younger and more casual gaming market, something Nintendo has always done.
Is this a "tentpole" franchise? Depends on what your definition of tentpole is. For me personally the only franchises that are truly "tentpoles" to Nintendo are Mario and Pokemon. If you're going to put Zelda on the list Animal Crossing has a right to be as well. The sales numbers back it up.
Nintendo has blatantly proven over the past couple console generations that Metroid is totally not a "tentpole" franchise. The fact that you bring up that franchise in any way for this argument is borderline laughable actually considering the evidence.
