Opinions on ACNH was "a fad"

[iamjohnporter67]

For me when I first played the game it was like an escape to getaway from all the bad stuff that was going on in the world when the Pandemic hit. I bought New Horizons on Day 1 (March 20, 2020) and I was so busy playing the game all day, catching bugs and fish, by the time I got to a 3 star island I finally got the Island designer app so I can make my island the way I wanted. However when I got to mid April 2020 I started to feel too overwhelmed my island was in a mess and I feel like it wasn't going anyway. So I restarted, redid everything, and by October 2020 I got my island to where I wanted it to be and its been a whole lot better since.

Now here is where I started to slow down. By now I have caught every Bug, Fish, and Sea Creatures in the game and donated every Fossil and Art to the Museum so I feel like I'm just done right there. Also all those diys I collected from past seasons/events and getting the rest from trading I felt like I was done with it. Usually whenever I turn on the game I just check the shops, water the flowers, check for my daily money rock, and then turn it off afterwards.

I know I seen people restart their islands just to get back that joy but for me personally I do not want to redo everything again. I am happy how my island is and I gotten every villager I wanted but I just feel you know "done" with the game because I've already seen enough of what this game has to offer throughout the year. Yeah sure there is a lot of things that missing and there things that can be improved on I'm sure in 2021 thats going to happen I will still keep playing the game when that happens but as of right now I am not playing so much daily as I used to.

 

[MidnightAura]

I think it was a fad. Quarantine probably helped boost Sales. I know so many people who have never touched an animal crossing game in their lives, bought ACNH. Some people bought switches just for the game.
There is nothing wrong with that at all. There was a period when every content creator was playing it.

Out of my friendship group of about 8-10 people with the majority being new to the franchise, only three of them still play daily. The rest don‘t. I play daily ish but I have taken weeks off from it as I got burnt out. Nothing to do with covid, I just have a love/hate relationship with ACNH!

 

[Poppies_92]

Seeing all this talk, I wonder how the next main AC game will do sale wise, after the hype of NH in the years to come?

 

[moo_nieu]

It may be a fad for some, but I was always going to get the next ac game just like i'll get the next one too (unless it's another small spin-off). It's a great game, so I understand why a lot of quarantined people wanted to play when it first came out. But ac has never appealed to all gamers bc it is a slow-paced, fairly repetitive game (I'm enjoying the excitement of the new updates, although I didn't like them at first) and tt-ing can cause burn out (at least it did for me in NL). I'm not surprised that many people stopped playing. Fads are common now, but ac being a fad for some doesn't mean those that really like the franchise (or just new horizons) can't still enjoy it for a long time

Basically, I don't think new horizons is bad or needs defense just bc it is a fad for some

 

[Airysuit]

Basically, I don't think new horizons is bad or needs defense just bc it is a fad for some

^^ this

I agree to some level of this game being a fad. But I mean, look how vibrant the community still is at this point? And while for some people lockdown gave them a lot of time to play, there are still a LOT of people who still had to go to work or still busy doing other hobbies and didn't play much more than for example ACNL.

But I do agree that people (as a society) keep expecting more and more of games/series/yt content. If you would release wild world, city folk or maybe even acnl right now, I'm pretty sure we would face a lot of the same problems (maybe not as much with acnl but still).
I also think previous games, especially pocket camp, are to 'blame' for peoples high expectations, and the risk with high expectations is that you can be disappointed easily. If people would have played this as stand alone game, they would just have said that they'd take a break of the game for a while, instead of getting burned out.

 

[-Lumi-]

I think maybe it’s a mix of the two?

New Horizons has some issues which I think help contribute to people burning out faster but I think New Horizons in particular was bought by a larger than normal amount of people who may not enjoy this style of game. I think this goes hand in hand with it launching during what was the start of quarantine for a lot of places, the switch being a popular console, and I feel like Animal Crossing just became the “quarantine game” at the beginning so people who may not usually have picked up the game decided to this time.

Animal Crossing New Leaf (the only other one I’ve played) was also a slow game, meant to be played one day at a time so you slowly unlock things and build up your town. I feel like New Horizons has less to unlock and look forward to which can make the game a little less fun to play every day especially once people realized we don’t have shop upgrades at the moment. If you don’t enjoy checking in on your town just to say hello, check shops, maybe fish or catch bugs it can definitely get boring fast when you know you’re not actively working towards something.

With quarantine I feel like people were more apt to speed through the game. People who may not usually time travel may have felt like it was worth it, but even without time travel people just had a lot more free time to put into the game.

When New Leaf came out, at least for me, I was still in school so a lot of my day was school work, or homework, or hanging out with friends so I didn’t have as much free time to put into it and I think that’s part of why New Leaf lasted so long. New Horizons being released during quarantine wasn’t Nintendo’s fault but people having so much more free time to fiddle with & perfect their town sooner probably lead to faster burn out.

 

[TommyTDL]

I don't think it's fair to call it a "fad" ... more like the exact distraction that the world needed at the very moment we were all told to drastically change our lives and stay home. That required a HUGE adjustment and it doesn't surprise me that one of the immediate results was an enormous ACNH popularity, however brief it turns out to be. I don't have any numbers to back this up but every game released on every game system has a lifespan arc whether that arc is a small dud of a game or a popularity monster. ACNH no doubt has an enormous arc due to the world conditions and inevitability as we all get back to 'normal' the downswing of the arc will be nearly as dramatic and the game will no doubt survive for a long time with a loyal base of followers, many of which continued to grind on ACNL for many years.

Speaking only for myself and my GF - and just giving a bit of background - I grew up grinding massive hours on games like Ocarina of Time and more recently BOTW. I have played sim games before but never thought I would find myself addicted to a game with the premise of playing with animal friends building an island together. I did not play any previous versions of AC. Conversely my GF has never consistently played ANY video games and has always thought they were mostly a giant waste of time. ACNH has changed everything - each of us is over 600 hours vested and we are still at it each day. It's fun. We suck it up and pay the "shared island penalty" and we have fun together at it. Again, we never played any previous AC games and don't have the same sense of "incomplete" that some of you have. In other words we don't know what we're missing - we're just enjoying the right game that came at the right time.

That being said, we haven't exactly hit the wall and ran out of new things to do BUT what is killing the ACNH high and hastening our downhill arc is our growing frustration with what we see as ridiculous planning errors by Nintendo such as the whole snowboy thing AND minor irritants such as finally getting the pile of presents and discovering that we should have grabbed red wrapping paper whenever the last time it was for sale. Definitely none available when it was needed but then again it was the DAY OF the holiday and suddenly we are going to decorate with piles of presents? It makes no sense Nintendo - fail. Do you think we'll still be grinding on this game in December 2021 and rush to get our decorations out early? Maybe... IDK ... I doubt it.

 

[Lanstar]

From that logic, the Welcome Amiibo update in New Leaf was a fad too, in my experience.

Something of note: I bought New Leaf in Mid-October 2016 as my first animal crossing game. Little did I know that was only a few weeks before the Amiibo update started. I was also pretty active in Miiverse at the time, and obviously when the update happened, the New Leaf channel by storm.

What I saw that brought people back, however, was primarily the amiibo functionality. Having villagers themed from other franchises got people interested, and the vast majority of posts were of those villagers and playing with them. Some posts were about cherishing the other features, but they weren't in the forefront at all.

After 3 months, however, the fad faded, and the channel activity diminished considerably. I suppose lots of these people milked all the features they liked from the game and stopped playing. And that's despite some people here consider New Leaf to be incredibly feature rich compared to New Horizons.

Not that being a fad is a bad thing - they attract lots of new players, and create tons of different feedback about the game from players who wouldn't play such a game otherwise to improve the next titles. I doubt NH would have been the same game without the fad that the Welcome Amiibo update imposed.

 

[eggie_]

ACNH was definitely a fad for many but i dont think it is fair to say that on the whole the game was just a fad. i think for people new to animal crossing or for players that arent in it for the long haul (and belonging to either of these groups is completely fine, i am not trying to be invalidating), ACNH was really just a short term thing for quarantine to capture their attention and curb some of the boredom. i do agree that there seems to be an energy of "you still play that game? " floating around and moreso than past years. but people moved on to the next new thing, and that is okay. i think right now, until the next major update, its going to be mainly the players who enjoy the game long-term and the long time fans of the series who will be active online.

personally, i have been playing the game since march and have close to 400 hours. when it first came out i didnt really play it for hours a day; played it for maybe 1-2.5 hours every day. but in the first week i did time travel to get blathers, and i was definitely playing all day for the first and second days! but after that yeah it was mostly just 1-2 hours every day, and no time traveling. have not felt burnt out, but can agree on some of the lack of content, but only in some places. i really feel that there is a lack in furniture, and i would love to see sets like the astro furniture come back - im sad about what happened to miras house! now its all weird and it looks like a set for a play, totally changes her character design imo. anyways thats nerd talk and i digress. but yeah anyways i feel as thought the furniture currently in the game is a little limiting as it really only caters to certain aesthetics, though there are creative work-arounds and there has been some really cool stuff that people have come up with.

with events, i have felt that it is almost too much content in too little time. im in highschool but in really difficult classes and counting time spent in-class and on homework, i average about 60 hours of school a week for a seven day week. i cant play as much as i want! i can log on a few times a week for a couple hours, but getting everything collected during events is very challenging. i would like to see either the event times increase or the spawn rates for DIYs event items increase.

id say all in all - i mean, i dont want this to become a new leaf v new horizons thread for the four thousandth time - i really do prefer new leaf despite the time i have sunk into new horizons. it is just more nostalgiac. however, if i played in a way that was very design-oriented, i think id die playing new leaf lol. i was trying to plot reset with amiibo cards the other day and i definitely appreciate the QoL updates new horizons has brought so far, though there still are things lacking as far as QoL goes.

 

[Silkfawn]

Every game has an expiration date, even those who are meant to be played for years and years like AC.

The fad part is simply because the game got unusually popular due to quarantine; I remember a post of some celebrity (I forgot his name) asking to go to someone's island to buy turnips.

Celebrities played the game, and people like myself who have never played an AC game before played simply out of boredom.

And yes, people burned through the game!
I started played mid June, I'm already basically done with the game.
My island is done, my museum is finished, I got my dreamies, and collected all of the DIYS.

Now I basically just go on and aimlessly check the shops, check if Redd is here (just because), maybe talk to some villagers, but thats about it.

 

[Uffe]

I still think it was a fad. That doesn't mean it's a bad game. That means people who have never played Animal Crossing jumped on board because people were talking about it a lot and they wanted to be a part of that game and/or discussion. Add that with the pandemic and people having a lot more time to do whatever else. Some new people stuck with playing the game. Animal Crossing is life simulator. There's not going to be any adventures or whatever to occupy some people enough to continue playing it for hours on end. I'll take my friend for example. He and his wife bought the game when it came out. He used to play it, but then he stopped, because there weren't any goals to be met, even though there technically is.

I also don't believe this game is complete. If it were, the holiday events would already be in the game. I'm not sure why they made a game without those already in place. If it was to prevent spoiling the game, sorry, but Animal Crossing doesn't really have anything to spoil, especially since anybody with the game would be able to do the same thing. I'm still excited to see what the future holds for this game. My question is if Nintendo is going to make a full circle and be done updating, or will they continue bringing out new content for this game? I'll still continue playing it regardless.

 

[moonchu]

as with many games, there's the hype period and then it dies down. i think acnh was a fad for many - lots of my friends (new and old to the franchise) have stopped playing. then there's the core fanbase (ex: us, here) who will continue to play daily. tbh, i plugged in over 600+ hours when it first came out and then didn't touch it due to life etc for 3 months. nowadays, i've been playing a bit daily.

i think the interesting and new (and highly debated) aspect of acnh are the updates/DLC. anyone here play path of exile? i don't personally play poe, but i know a lot of my friends do. they'll always play the new updates until their interests peter out and they move onto other things (or back to other things). then more content comes out, and they'll start it up again.

it'll be interesting to see what nintendo does with the updates this coming year. i recall playing new leaf a few years after it had come out with my cousin, and then i put it down. then the amiibo update came out and i picked up acnl again for a while. every now and then, i consider my two new leaf towns and think about booting them up again, but it's hard to go through all of the motions to prevent move-outs. the really, really nice thing (imo) about acnh is that i don't have to worry about villagers leaving. i can pick it up for years to come, play a little, see what's going on, and then x out and know that things will be fine.

 

[marea]

It was a "phase" or a "fad" for many people, but i dont consider that to be a bad thing. I think what some people might also mean when they say things like "you are still playing this game!" is that the game is "yesterday's news" to them since they already moved on.

 

[Mairmalade]

I believe you're spot-on in that even if events (or anything else for that matter) were all in the game from the beginning, it wouldn't change the fact that the initial excitement of the game will begin to decline. It's a natural cycle where we're excited about something, we buy it, invest time into it, and eventually, we shift our attention elsewhere either temporarily or permanently because it won't hold the same level of appeal.

I remember playing New Leaf a lot until I eventually just stopped for a year until Welcome Amiibo happened. It was a large enough update for me to become intrigued with the game again and start a new town. It was something fresh, but the New Horizons updates aren't large enough to where it creates a change to the 'flow.' They're great to keep current interest rather than revitalize it.

The rate at which it declines will differ with one of the primary ones being, in my opinion, whether you're a long-time or new player to the series. The effects of COVID-19 certainly play a role in its sudden surge of popularity because of the nature of the game: it's a casual, peaceful experience, there are opportunities for self and creative expression, and it's a unique form of connection with others that we may not otherwise have.

New Horizons has also surpassed New Leaf's total units sold over its entire life span when it has been out less than a year which is insane. I doubt a future Animal Crossing title will have the same level of impact that New Horizons did because it's very much 'for the moment,' but I'm sure a decent amount of those new players have become long-term fans.

When @Mick first mentioned:

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.

...I think that's extremely important to note. While we begin to lose interest in certain games overtime, Animal Crossing as a series, and New Horizons being a core Animal Crossing experience, still has a unique appeal that will never go away completely. It also displays enough impact to where it inspires the design of other games and experiences.

 

[Mairen]

I like that it was a fad. Yes, a lot of people got into this series "just because everyone else was playing it" and may not have originally ever chosen to try out an animal crossing game under normal circumstances. It doesn't make them a "fake fan" less of a person than the people who have been playing since the N64/Gamecube days. Some of those people will lose interest and move on to other things. Some will be eagerly awaiting the next game in the series.

I actually like that for a little while, the world was connected through this game. It was kind of a beautiful thing.

 

[meo]

AC has always seemingly had a large influx of players at the start and then, usually, trails off as the years go on for the current game. I don’t think that’s abnormal since for the average gamer...most do play a game for a short period and then eventually move on to other anticipated releases. I’m sure quarantine did help with the sales but I also think the marketing and probably more exposure to people through the mobile game as well.

I do personally think New Horizons is an incomplete game. However, I don’t think that it means that those who agree with that feel bad about New Horizons. Those that usually spend years with the game until the next releases most likely will continue to do so with each installment. It’s kind of what you see with major mmo expansions. Veteran players are typically pretty loyal.

I think New Horizon has naturally tried and did achieve introducing some very new systems. I do think it does show though that the time that was needed for them to test and try to implement that meant other areas of the game naturally had to suffer. There was a reason the develop team had to prolong the release, and with the pandemic on top of that, I’m sure there was more they wanted to flesh out for the game.
Sadly I do think had they postponed it a second time that new horizons could have been much more. However, that’s not to say that new horizons isn’t beautiful and worth playing long term; it is. I just hope Nintendo can listen to feedback from the community with New Horizon and hopefully avoid similar calls down the line. Also hopefully with NH being the first child of some of these new systems, hopefully the next installment will be more fluid and other cuts won’t have to be made that were in NH.

 

[Yoshisaur]

I love fads apparently. I'm still out here grinding crowns on Fall Guys & decorating my AC island. People can call them dead games or think it's weird I'm still hooked. I'm having fun and that's what counts

 

[RollingAntony]

Seeing all this talk, I wonder how the next main AC game will do sale wise, after the hype of NH in the years to come?

It's a bit premature to say, but I don't think the next entry will surpass New Horizons' numbers. NH did get some sales-bump due to covid-19 and the Switch being a great console; so similar factors should happen- maybe as a launch game for the Super Switch/successor. But the sales-power behind the game is almost unprecedented- this game is a monster and it's proving to be an evergreen like its predecessor.

NH is still selling like crazy every day, it's going to fight against MK8 DX to be Switch's top seller. As reference, it has sold around 360k physical copies on Japan through November/December and the biggest week of the holidays is yet to come, it'll probably sell around 120k more. That's nuts. It's already the best selling game ever on that country and it has been on the market for less than a year.

If NH ends around 40 million copies sold (which tbh, I think I'm underestimating that number), the next main AC game may shoot for 25 million which would be a remarkable result. It may be kind of similar to another famous fad series, Pokémon. No game has been able to replicate Red/Green/Blue sales (around 35k), but each non-remake mainline entry sells between 15-20 million. If NH turns out to be the peak, future games selling twice the amount of NL or something above 15m would be a success.

Apologies for talking so much about sales, but this is history on the making.

 

[thebefu]

I'm a new to Animal Crossing person. I started with playing Pocket Camp when it came out because I was curious. I also have a good friend (HI AGAIN ANBLICK) who loves AC and because of that is why I started PC. I stopped playing PC when I got ACNH from a friend in May, so I wasn't there for the first few "hype" months. He tried it and it wasn't for him so I bought his copy. For me, I enjoy playing it as a fun little escape but I can understand for some where they did too much in the beginning and now there isn't much reason to come back. Or it's just not their style of play. Because of my friend still being hype about the AC community, we travel to each other's islands for stuff. It's why I'm trying to do things to help out other people because it's fun and it gives my other friends who have the game but aren't as involved to swing by my island or for me to swing by theirs.

AC isn't for everyone, and that's OK. This year was weird and spiked the popularity of many things and it was primarily games that brought people together (like AC, Among Us, etc). I'm just glad that if I miss a day or two, it isn't a big deal. I also try to make sure that any friends who are like "I HAVEN'T PLAYED IN MONTHS I'M A BAD PERSON". No, you're not. It's totally OK to step away. We'll be here when you come back and if we have spare stuff to give you, we're more than happy to share!

 

[daffodilcrossing]

I hadn’t thought about it that way but it makes sense. And when I do think about it I realize that I was kind of suffering the same problem. I play Stardew valley as well, and I just started PokeMMO with my boyfriend and those two games are also long and take up time. Plus I was finishing my masters degree, watching tv shows, and reading a lot. Sometimes it just didn’t seem worth it to start up animal crossing to play for four hours and get hardly anything done when I could play two hours of Stardew valley and go through like 7 or 8 days