Do you feel bad outsmarting Redd all the time?

[niko@kamogawa]

The discussion here inspired me to create a thread about Redd's role in Animal Crossing.

Redd is a shady shopkeeper deviously trying to make you buy his fake art and making a profit from it. (Unfortunately, he underestimated the Internet. People can research and see through his lie. I find this quite hilarious.) This is the reason why we can get a huge discount on acquiring pieces of art. It's not our fault if we keep outsmarting him all the time! We have very good eyes. (The only exception is when he sells only fake art.)

A few questions that popped up in my mind.

• Is his business even profitable at this point?
• Do you feel bad for being a sharp consumer outsmarting him all the time?
• Should he shift his business elsewhere? (Feel free to come up with interesting ideas.)
• Do you have any mechanic to make Redd's shop more interesting?

I am also aware that fake art may have some value due to its uniqueness.

Personally myself, I rather see him venture into a different business. Just to add a bit more fun, he should host a scam lottery allowing us to win random mysterious prizes that may or may have not any value. What do you think?

 

[Jaco]

I always buy any artwork I haven't catalogued, real or fake, along with the other items he carries at 1.5x normal price.

Redd strikes me as crafty enough that he always has a significant mark-up over his costs. Maybe he isn't smart enough to differentiate between real and fake paintings, but he definitely knows how to work his margins. His "cousin discount" is no doubt some factor higher than his supply cost (assuming he even paid for it at all...)

 

[MapleSilver]

Considering how shady Redd is, I wouldn't be surprised if he just stole a lot of the genuine paintings. In that scenario he still might be making a profit. Although if a bunch of art was stolen and it all began showing up in some island's museum, that would look rather suspicious. Blathers is going to have a lot of explaining to do...

Edit because interesting thought: What if Redd gradually gained respect for you the more genuine art you buy? Conversely, he would become more condescending the more fake artwork you buy. Would have been an interesting thing to add.

 

[tybalt_cake]

i don't think he purposely wants you to buy fake or real paintings , it's more of a "hit or miss , either way it's not my problem"

 

[Karmahri]

i don't think i feel particularly bad, since i would buy fake versions of certain types of art/statues like the valiant statues for decoration, also I love that he has different variations of furniture from nook's and i don't mind paying extra for that

 

[AlexSilverpen]

I want to explain why I think he deserves this. This is taken from a twitter thread I made, and a discussion with friends on discord about why Redd always makes me angry:
"I will NEVER forgive Crazy Redd for scamming me all those times in Wild World. As a kid, whenever I ended up with fakes, I’d hit his tent with my axe. Fun fact for you kiddos new to the series: before New Leaf, there was no visual difference between Real and Fake paintings. There was a rumor going around that what reaction Redd used when you were looking at art was the giveaway, but as far as I could tell, that wasn’t the case. You just had to buy stupid expensive art, and often it was a coinflip. A coinflip I lost so. many. times. And you can’t sell the fake art. It was then considered a garbage item that had to be paid to get rid of, or you could use the recycling bin. As of New Leaf, there’s a visual difference between the real and fake paintings and statues. But when I was introduced to the series, around 2007-ish in the Wild World era? nothing. As you can tell, some scars still haven’t healed."
my first Animal Crossing game was Wild World. I will never forgive Crazy Redd for scamming me out of all those Bells all those years ago. In fact, I continued to fume and made a meme, shown in the attached file, which has my character holding an axe.
And that is my Crazy Redd rant.
tl;dr: redd sucks

 

[niko@kamogawa]

I want to explain why I think he deserves this. This is taken from a twitter thread I made, and a discussion with friends on discord about why Redd always makes me angry:
"I will NEVER forgive Crazy Redd for scamming me all those times in Wild World. As a kid, whenever I ended up with fakes, I’d hit his tent with my axe. Fun fact for you kiddos new to the series: before New Leaf, there was no visual difference between Real and Fake paintings. There was a rumor going around that what reaction Redd used when you were looking at art was the giveaway, but as far as I could tell, that wasn’t the case. You just had to buy stupid expensive art, and often it was a coinflip. A coinflip I lost so. many. times. And you can’t sell the fake art. It was then considered a garbage item that had to be paid to get rid of, or you could use the recycling bin. As of New Leaf, there’s a visual difference between the real and fake paintings and statues. But when I was introduced to the series, around 2007-ish in the Wild World era? nothing. As you can tell, some scars still haven’t healed."
my first Animal Crossing game was Wild World. I will never forgive Crazy Redd for scamming me out of all those Bells all those years ago. In fact, I continued to fume and made a meme, shown in the attached file, which has my character holding an axe.
And that is my Crazy Redd rant.
tl;dr: redd sucks

Thanks for sharing this! It gave me a fresh perspective about Redd's role from earlier Animal Crossing games.

 

[LambdaDelta]

no, this is just payback for all the times pre-new leaf where there was no way to tell his fake art from the real thing

 

[Pyoopi]

Jokes on him, I was a fine arts major and studied countless works of art, lol. I view my character to be shady especially because I'm developing a themed pirate island so, I don't feel bad for anything. I've always liked his character and I don't see him as a bad guy even in previous titles.

I wish the furniture he sold on his boat were more catered to his character than like other color variations you'd see in Nook's Cranny. Like an oddities shop which are always cool and creepy. Imagine like a display full of dead bugs. Or something like the floral swag but shrunken heads. I'm sure all the witch-vibing people would gobble that up.

 

[Skandranon]

never feel bad for conning the conman

 

[AlexSilverpen]

Thanks for sharing this! It gave me a fresh perspective about Redd's role from earlier Animal Crossing games .

of course! I'm pretty petty and bitter from all those years ago, so being able to share why I get angry at Redd all the time helps me feel better. I admit I have bought fake art from him in New Horizons, but I like the fake Academic painting, and the other fake art was haunted and I have a friend who loves stuff like that... plus all the art he had that day that wasn't fake, I already had donated.

 

[KittenNoir]

Nope I never feel bad as soon as he comes to my island which is like never I get up my fake vs real art guide and check haha

Although last time he came it had been a while and I think cause I was just so happy that he was actually there I didn't pay attention to the art and was all happy thinking I was conning him back. And got a fake one thinking it was real haha

 

[AccfSally]

No, he's trying to scam us.

 

[smonikkims]

Not at all, but actually I like to think of him as pretty sympathetic. He is definitely a con artist don't get me wrong, but the fact that he even has real art thrown in there from time to time, and doesn't distinguish between them in how he acts, suggests to me that he simply trades the way he does to get by - he just doesn't know any better!

Or he's like Won/Huang from Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Town and he literally can't tell the difference himself because he's gotten so deep into this real AND fake trading hole...

 

[-Blue-]

Even if there was a way to determine the authenticity in the older games, it was during the time when the internet wasn't as readily available. And if it was, most families still didn't have it. So it'd still a crapshoot whether you'd get it right or not, unless you knew art.

I blame Redd's creator. Seriously Nintendo should had implemented some kind of indicator. Even if it was simply interrogating Redd and having to get the questions right. And the better you did he would sweat. Giving an indicator it was real.

I actually like Redd's character. If he was truly worried about someone screwing him over he wouldn't even buy real paintings.

 

[KittenNoir]

Even if there was a way to determine the authenticity in the older games, it was during the time when the internet wasn't as readily available. And if it was, most families still didn't have it. So it was still a crapshoot whether you'd get it right or not, unless you knew art.

I blame Redd's creator. Seriously Nintendo should had implemented some kind of indicator. Even if it was simply interrogating Redd and having to get the questions right. And the better you did he would sweat. Giving an indicator it was real.

I actually like Redd's character. If he was truly worried about someone screwing him over he wouldn't even buy real paintings.

I wouldn't mind that if we had to answer correct questions to get real art

 

[Nooblord]

I don’t use guides when buying art. But I do save all the fakes I receive so I don’t make the same mistake, and I take pictures of art in friend’s museum so I have a reference next time he comes around. Makes collecting more fun, lol.

 

[Peach_Jam]

nah he's cool, and it's fun figuring out which piece is real from him ahah
also if he wanted to make his business more profitable, then he should let us buy more than one piece of artwork at a time :<

 

[Le Ham]

Redd still makes money when we buy real art from him, and sometimes when we buy fake art on purpose. He also has a cleaner source of income doing the ticket raffle for the fireworks show, as well as buying furniture items from him. If you're into marketing or advertising, you might even see his continued sale of fake art and his sketchy manner of speaking as his signature brand.

A good businessman knows his customers. If he's smart, Redd will be well aware his "cousins" mostly look up the guide online. If you have good RNG, he will still be making money off of you from real art and furniture, while still profiting off the people who don't look up the guide. This isn't to say anything about his ethics (or whether he actually is a marketing genius or just sketchy), but he seems well-off enough either way that I don't feel bad for him at all.

 

[LuchaSloth]

Honestly...I'm gonna buy all the fake stuff after I finish donating the real stuff anyway. So...his day will come. Hahaha.