Opinions on ACNH was "a fad"

[Underneath The Stars]

i feel like we've heard all those discussions before such as "quarantine made people burnt out" "the game didn't feel complete" etc, which i'm not saying weren't true or valid opinions, but we heard them repetitively.... so i want to add something that i don't think was talked about that much. it is the fact that the world is fast-paced more than ever and people move on from things so quickly. so when people say ACNH was a fad, i feel like i wanna say i don't really think it's a bad game, it's just that people move on fast.

in a world of social media where everything moves fast, i can't even keep up with everything. currently i play under such a short time and was just forced to time travel for things i've missed (which i haven't done before). i feel like people's attention span got shorter. not sure if this applies for everyone but to me it really does, i don't have time to collect those annoying balloon DIY's (why did they even make it like this). there's so much to do now like netflix, youtube, discord, twitch, social media, other games some of you might play, etc. and these are all digital--not including our irl activities.

obviously, nintendo isn't going to change the main core of the game. which is, animal crossing universe being tedious and time consuming for completionists. add the fact that the game runs in real time. honestly, my old self cannot keep up. when the game was new, we had so much time invested probably because we were excited, but i know somewhere in the future it'll all fade. what i mean is that, in hindsight it doesn't matter to me now whether they chose to do the updates/slow roll-outs, because even now i don't have time to participate in all the events. having them since release wouldn't change this fact. so NO, i wouldn't say it is a bad incomplete game as we enjoyed it & i feel like people are just forgetting how fun it was playing this game early this year.

i've been thinking about this for quite some time now on why i haven't really touched the game as like earlier this year, i could go on but i want to hear others.
anyone feels the same?

 

[skarmoury]

I feel the same way as well. When I look at things from a greater perspective, I think I've spent the most hours on ACNH than any other game in my entire life. When people flaunt about having a hundred hours of gameplay on another game it just doesn't impress me anymore, because I've played ACNH for over 600+ hours now (and I'm very sure many people here played longer than I have). While I still respect those who feel the game to be "incomplete", I personally don't. You can do so much with the game at this point if you want to decorate your island, but if completion is your endgame then I can see why people are craving for more. ACNH isn't a perfect game and neither is any game honestly, but I think ACNH has its own charm that's enticed plenty of players who are in it for the decoration aspect of the game.

And I agree, people move on from one game to the next and it's completely normal. I think another charm of ACNH people miss out on is how easy it is to get back in after a week or months of hiatus. Your villagers are still there and your island is still what it is (asides from the weeds and cockroaches, but those are the only cons). You can take a break from the game and come back to it when you feel like it. I feel it's unlike story-based games where once you've finished it, that's it. There's nothing else for story-based games to offer once you've finished the story. ACNH is your own build and own interpretation that you can create and redo and edit to your own liking. A pros of ACNH over ACNL is that nothing much changes if you leave for a while, while in ACNL if you want to keep your town as is you have to put effort into logging in every day or so to keep your villagers and all. It's more relaxed now with you taking a hiatus, which is really helpful now in the times of things "coming and going" like a fad.

I think one of the main stuff Nintendo wants players to do is to have a reason to come back to the game -- hence, the drip-feed system (or whatever you call it). As someone who doesn't really TT to unlock events, the updates keep me coming back, and the game keeps becoming relevant for longer than if everything was just introduced from the get-go. It's okay if this tactic from Nintendo isn't your thing, but I'm totally fine with it.

Overall, I love ACNH. It's given me so much freedom to decorate on my own (which makes sense considering HHD is one of my favorite spin-off AC games). ACNH may be another fad, but it's given me so much to do and so much creativity and I've personally grown in terms of designing and decorating. That's why I don't feel it to be incomplete or unsatisfying at all.

 

[LambdaDelta]

why are we talking as if it being a fad is/was a bad thing?

 

[Underneath The Stars]

why are we talking as if it being a fad is/was a bad thing?

isn't it? people be like "you still play that? "

Post automatically merged: Dec 29, 2020

i mean i know it'll apply for every other game, but ac is different in a way that there are special events. unlike the 2020 fad among us.

 

[Dingloids]

I feel like a big part of these complaints is that a lot of people don’t have the understanding of how previous animal crossing games worked. New horizons sold 26 million copies in 9 months which is 15 million more than New Leaf sold in 7 years.

I think that Nintendo designed this game to be played over a long period of time but those who haven’t experienced the long term play of these games may feel this way. I also think that those who say it’s incomplete are comparing it to previous titles which were fully released with no updates (which doesn’t seem like a very fair comparison in my opinion.)

I do feel like the game seemed to be a fad in the eyes of some people as I saw a lot of people buying it just because it was trendy on tiktok in like April and May and then not really playing it afterwards.

Post automatically merged: Dec 29, 2020

why are we talking as if it being a fad is/was a bad thing?

I guess just because the game isn’t made to be a trend for 2 months. It’s designed to be expanded over months and years (with apparently up to 2 years of updates until 2022) so the fact that people will lose interest after a short amount of time doesn’t seem like a very good thing for this particular title.

 

[Underneath The Stars]

I feel like a big part of these complaints is that a lot of people don’t have the understanding of how previous animal crossing games worked. New horizons sold 26 million copies in 9 months which is 15 million more than New Leaf sold in 7 years.

I think that Nintendo designed this game to be played over a long period of time but those who haven’t experienced the long term play of these games may feel this way. I also think that those who say it’s incomplete are comparing it to previous titles which were fully released with no updates (which doesn’t seem like a very fair comparison in my opinion.)

I do feel like the game seemed to be a fad in the eyes of some people as I saw a lot of people buying it just because it was trendy on tiktok in like April and May and then not really playing it afterwards.

oh yes this too. it really became a local game more than ever. so it's not all bad that it was a fad because it distributed to sales.
but i guess we can only do so much trading and turnip sales before people are over it.

 

[Mick]

It definitely was a fad for a lot of people. And that's alright, that's how it goes with a lot of hype games, they become massively popular and then a lot of people play it because, well, everyone is doing it. Eventually the hype dies down, and only part of the playerbase will stick around.

What I did notice though is that a lot of people who stopped playing do eventually pick it back up again. People get bored of this game, stop playing for a while, then come back to it. That's something that a lot of games nowadays don't manage anymore.

 

[JellyBeans]

I completely agree. Obviously there is the element of quarantine burnout as to why people moved on so quickly, but definitely just the world we live in today has an impact. I can't think of a single other game I've sunk so much time into, unless you count previous animal crossing titles I suppose. And yet now with real life taking over I just don't have the same time available to play to such an intensity as before, and I for sure don't have the patience to run up and down my beach every five minutes to find some new DIYs.

A lot of the people who picked up the game due to the hype I'm sure will have moved on by now, onto whatever is new and 'better'. But as has been mentioned before, animal crossing is such an easy game to return to whenever and see that nothing has changed and the true long-time fans will for sure return to it once they feel the urge to again.

 

[Chris]

It's the same with every game release, including previous Animal Crossing titles. Many people will buy the game, play for a few weeks/months, and then move on to something else. It just seems more prominent this time around due to being the popular activity to engage in during the first COVID-19 lockdown.

If you're young this might seem strange or wasteful to only play a game like Animal Crossing for a few weeks and then move on, but in adults with disposable income this behaviour is normal.

 

[Underneath The Stars]

I completely agree. Obviously there is the element of quarantine burnout as to why people moved on so quickly, but definitely just the world we live in today has an impact. I can't think of a single other game I've sunk so much time into, unless you count previous animal crossing titles I suppose. And yet now with real life taking over I just don't have the same time available to play to such an intensity as before, and I for sure don't have the patience to run up and down my beach every five minutes to find some new DIYs.

A lot of the people who picked up the game due to the hype I'm sure will have moved on by now, onto whatever is new and 'better'. But as has been mentioned before, animal crossing is such an easy game to return to whenever and see that nothing has changed and the true long-time fans will for sure return to it once they feel the urge to again.

yeah that's what differs those true long-time fans from those who just bought it from the hype. i guess that's why i had to go on this whole train of thought lol. i was annoyed hearing people act like it's crazy to still play ACNH, not that we should care but anyways. like @Dingloids said, this game was not really made to be a trend for 2 months. i guess COVID-19 changed that, but people who didn't get the games essence don't feel that.

 

[moon_child]

I feel like it’s a mix of a lot of factors. Yes, the quarantine may have burned people out. Yes, there are so many other things to do these days. But then I remember playing NL until NH came out and that’s no joke for a game that came out how many years ago.

I’m still playing NH but not as much as I used to. I had a moment where I stopped completely and then reset my island just to stoke the fire again. But lately that weird feeling of not being up to play it comes back. In fact most days, I feel obligated to play it and I just force myself to play it so as not to completely lose interest in my town and reset again. Make no mistake I still enjoy NH a lot. In fact, I love most of the features it has that gives us a lot of control over creating and designing our islands as compared to NL. But...I dunno. There’s...something...missing?

Reasons will vary person to person but to me personally, the main difference lies in the way this game is rolled out. I may really just prefer NL’s “out-of-the-box” (no incremental updates, no additional online subscription, no forced trading as everything is obtainable on your own) style. I’m not an impatient person by a mile but there must be something psychologically reassuring with having a full game that will never require anything else from the user after purchase and the ability to complete the game at your own pace and won’t require you to rely on anyone or anything else to enjoy every single feature or item in the game whenever and however you want to. There’s no pressure, no FOMO, no constant fear of rules being changed or taken away through updates, etc. Maybe that’s why I’m playing this less than NL.

 

[Underneath The Stars]

I feel like it’s a mix of a lot of factors. Yes, the quarantine may have burned people out. Yes, there are so many other things to do these days. But then I remember playing NL until NH came out and that’s no joke for a game that came out how many years ago.

I’m still playing NH but not as much as I used to. I had a moment where I stopped completely and then reset my island just to stoke the fire again. But lately that weird feeling of not being up to play it comes back. In fact most days, I feel obligated to play it and I just force myself to play it so as not to completely lose interest in my town and reset again. Make no mistake I still enjoy NH a lot. In fact, I love most of the features it has that gives us a lot of control over creating and designing our islands as compared to NL. But...I dunno. There’s...something...missing?

Reasons will vary person to person but to me personally, the main difference lies in the way this game is rolled out. I may really just prefer NL’s “out-of-the-box” (no incremental updates, no additional online subscription, no forced trading as everything is obtainable on your own) style. I’m not an impatient person by a mile but there must be something psychologically reassuring with having a full game that will never require anything else from the user after purchase and the ability to complete the game at your own pace and won’t require you to rely on anyone or anything else to enjoy every single feature or item in the game whenever and however you want to. There’s no pressure, no FOMO, no constant fear of rules being changed or taken away through updates, etc. Maybe that’s why I’m playing this less than NL.

i have extreme FOMO so i think i get you on this one. i had to leave pocket camp completely because that was too time consuming for my taste. and the more i keep on checking back on it, the more i'll think about the items i didn't get, so i definitely had to GO and never come back. of course ACNH is a main game so i can't do that.

 

[JSS]

The massive jump in popularity was mostly a combination of internet fad/memes, newbies from Pocket Camp and the usual fanbase.

I don't think my playtime has beaten years of New Leaf but I've played almost every day since launch and while I find ways to enjoy it I still don't see it as a complete game. In fact if I somehow wasn't able to play anymore for technical reasons I wouldn't buy a new Switch and go back into ACNH at least until I felt it was properly made justice. Not a fan of the slow updates for one, by this point in NL everyone had Brewster, Gracie, the Emporium, etc. and the game lasted people years with few complaints. NH has a great feature in outdoor decorating, sure, but I don't feel encouraged to do that when I put a few illuminated items around my plaza for the holidays and the frames start to drop.

This isn't me saying one game is and will always be better than the other, this is me saying ACNH still needs a lot of improving to be made justice.

 

[moon_child]

i have extreme FOMO so i think i get you on this one. i had to leave pocket camp completely because that was too time consuming for my taste. and the more i keep on checking back on it, the more i'll think about the items i didn't get, so i definitely had to GO and never come back. of course ACNH is a main game so i can't do that.

This. Also, the way they suddenly removed the hybrid island, adjusted the spawn rates, changed villager friendship rules etc. through updates is kinda scary in terms of those who play the games as a collector. The threat of items being taken away in the future if you haven’t completed them is a bit unsettling. And I even have online and I trade sometimes. How about those without the online subscription? I know it barely costs a thing but I have a friend who doesn’t pay for it bec AC is the only game she plays in the Nintendo platform and it just doesn’t really make sense for her to pay an additional monthly subscription. Because of this (and the fact she only has me in her circle who plays the game too and she lives far from me to locally play together), she doesn’t have all the fruits. She also can’t have other item variations except those being sold at her Nooks and her NMT items are locked to those that are tied to her airport color. They’re all clashing so she can’t even theme her island. She also can’t use custom patterns to theme her island. Not to mention, Luna and the whole dreaming and visiting other islands mean nothing to her. It’s such a pity. All of these things she could easily do in NL without problems. So I can’t even imagine what she does in NH. If we have online and we’re bored, how much more people like her?

 

[Mercedes]

It was a fad for a lot of people . The people who used to bully me about playing Nintendo games played the game. Then the social justice warriors came and ruined it more

 

[OiGuessWho]

All games come and go. But I don't think this game will go away too quickly, there's still a lot to do. As to those who decry it, well, there'll always be people like that. People like to oppose things.
Don't let the buggers get you down.

 

[Pyoopi]

I think I'm kind of dying so sorry if my response is weird (lol) so I keep forgetting what the question is. I need to sleep.

Personally, I think this game became a fad because so many long-time animal crossing players were hyping ACNH and it creates this curiosity or this FOMO whatever of this game MUST be good. Remember near launch how many new players were on this website and look at it now, right?

It reminds me when Pokemon Go became a huge fad and even people like my cousins (who know nothing about the Pokemon franchise) begin playing it addictively to the point of doing those midnight runs to catch some Charizard in the creek. But as soon as the hype or excitement died down; they don't play it anymore.

Or like my one friend for example, only began playing this game because of me and he started with ACNL but has no idea how certain events work, doesn't know names of the characters. This clearly isn't his type of game. Now with ACNH, he barely has touched his island, won't play unless I play with him and I don't because all he does is follow me around. He clearly needs people interaction and doesn't do well just playing on his island alone with little animal characters. It's not enough for him.

I think it just depends how much it fulfills your needs as a game.

 

[niko@kamogawa]

I have to agree as well. Most of my friends played the game because it was "hip" back then.

Currently, I am the only one left. It's a sad reality that I have to face. I rely with this community now to discuss the game.

 

[AssassinVicz]

I feel a lot of people say that ‘acnh was a fad’, mostly because everyone was stuck inside their houses during the pandemic. People couldn’t go anywhere, so they put as many hours into ac as possible since you need to pass boredom somehow. Which caused another issue that since acnh was a slow paced game then series previous, people started to time travelling to get further into the game to play more.
—————
Just to cut in, I have no issues with anyone time travelling. The only time I have some ‘irritation’ is when people deliberately spoil stuff on day 1 yknow. But honestly play the game however.
—————

Since people where flying through the game, getting all these items and possibly doing a year of acnh in about a month sitting. They had their island finished to how they wanted, decorated to the 9’s. Perfect town, all fish, bugs and diving and all the rare new neighbours in the tier lists. The game would turn from the rush of excitement, to a game with no purpose. Since they’ve done everything in their mind and there was nothing else to do. Aside from waiting for the new updates.

Whenever I see people complaining about acnh or saying it’s ‘boring’ , I always question if they time travelled. Not because they can’t, but if you basically zoom past everything the game has when it’s supposed to be a slower paced game. It’s like.. what we’re you expecting?

I’ve been playing day by day, aside from neighbour kick outs and I still have things to do on my game. (A lot of island decorating/rearranging. Fish, bugs and diving stuff. House decorating. Plus villager hunting.)

To just sum up. I feel like the pandemic situation where everyone was stuck at home. Made the game worse in terms of enjoying the game. Since if people were at work, they’d be playing maybe 1-3 hours a day. Not half a days worth that can tally to 1000+. So idk, my personal opinion.

I also do agree that there’s some valid flack with new horizons, since some features would make the game a lot better but, hopefully the team listens and implements them.

 

[meggiewes]

I think that games that become media darlings always disappoint loads of people. I also don't care if they "played it for the 2020 pandemic" or participated in the "hot new fad game of the time". People who don't care for the game will stop playing and that doesn't affect me in the slightest. In fact, even counting my month-long break, this is the longest that I have played the game consistently and my time for NH has blown my time for NL out of the water.

The question I am left with is why do we care if Animal Crossing was a fad or not?