Animal Crossing Mobile game announced

[Justin]

Seems to be that the Animal Crossing mobile game (and Fire Emblem) will be free-to-play and not include in-app purchases. Pray this will be the case

https://mynintendonews.com/2016/05/11/animal-crossing-and-fire-emblem-mobile-will-be-free-to-play/

In-app purchases is what free-to-play basically means though. Like that term was essentially created as a nicer way of saying "game you can download for free but pay money through in-app purchases". This is actually just a confirmation that it will be an in-app purchase hell as far as I can see.

This is probably why Nintendo in their PR has started using the term "free-to-start" instead of "free-to-play" as it's more genuine of what it really means. (as in that they expect you to spend money later, it's just free to download) See: https://www.nintendo.com/games/free-to-start-games

If this was coming from Nintendo PR messaging and not from a DeNA official through WSJ, I'm sure they'd have used that term instead and I'm sure that's what they'll call the game later this fall.

EDIT: Actually, they did say free-to-start in the actual article:

“‘Fire Emblem’ and ‘Animal Crossing’ are both free-to-start apps,” DeNA Chief Executive Isao Moriyasu told The Wall Street Journal.

WSJ and other sites (including my own) are just saying free-to-play because it's the more widespread term.

 

[N a t]

I would be more excited if I wasn't worried about where this might be headed...

 

[Justin]

For anyone interested, a somewhat lengthy article I wrote earlier today about how Miitomo's free-to-play works as an idea of what we might expect for Animal Crossing on mobile: http://animalcrossingworld.com/2016...tization-miitomo-mean-animal-crossing-mobile/

 

[dudeabides]

So the AC game would be free to own with in app purchases? I hope you don't have to put in your credit card information every time your character buys something with bells in the game.

 

[Boccages]

Actually, Miitomo is quite light on the microtransaction side of things. I suspect Animal Crossing shouldn't be too bad either.

 

[Venn]

I just hope that the currencies won't be like Miitomo.. HARD. (or useless like Candies)

 

[spamurai]

For anyone interested, a somewhat lengthy article I wrote earlier today about how Miitomo's free-to-play works as an idea of what we might expect for Animal Crossing on mobile: http://animalcrossingworld.com/2016...tization-miitomo-mean-animal-crossing-mobile/

This was a good read btw Justin. *thumbs up emoji*