© Alan LopezSoapbox features allow our writers to express their own opinions on hot topics, opinions that are not necessarily the voice of the site. Today, Alan grabs his accountant visor and all the money wasted wisely invested in the Bank of Nook over the past year.
In the corner of my desk, there is a small plastic bar always sitting near my stack of business cards, next to a sink of discarded pens: it’s a small, small house two inches high, with small windows and tiny door. When you open the door, open a red otter called “Pascal.” I take it off whenever I’m sad. I love it, it’s beautiful.
Pascal and the house where he lives, come from the phenomenon of city construction, Animal Crossing. You may have heard of it. Imported from Japan, his little plastic home has been sitting on my desk for almost a decade. It was the only thing Animal Crossing had for years.
That was my quaint life, before March 20, 2020, the day I bought it Animal Crossing: New Horizons for my Nintendo Switch for $ 59.99
You know what happened next: the world succumbed to a global pandemic; we all pile up inside; we clung to our fictional animal friends for convenience. It’s a little painful to realize that it’s been a whole year since my obsession with Animal Crossing began.
And no, I don’t mean to be obsessed with the game itself. Honestly, I almost enjoy watching others touch her. I no longer care much about the little details of the game. My villager’s hair often put a mess on his head, a rare sign of logging. Rather, the silver plan of my lost year was the opportunity to let go of some accumulated hobby for something I didn’t even know I cared so much about.
My year of the passage of animals
© Nintendo LifeIt all started with trading cards. Why do you always start with trading cards?
A slight revision: I did in fact, buy something else with Animal Crossing, aside from this little plastic chisel. Until recently, virtually the only modern merchandise in the Nintendo series that had ever been released in the state were four series of amiibo cards, each card with a different animal from the game’s history.
The timing of its release (2015) was certainly off. Despite having small tokens inside that allow you to scan them in games, I’m sure they didn’t do much then. Piles of these things were literally spilling down the aisles shortly after they left. My local stores could hardly afford them, reducing prices to cents. So yeah, sure, I was pleased. I finally bought enough discounted packages that I almost finished the entire dang collection before I even gave up on it.
But when Nintendo announced it five whole years later that these random cards were literally the only means to invite the animals to your game, these discarded pieces of paper instantly turned into Obay gold; So much so that people who had been out of my life for years made me chill by sending messages to borrow me from random animals. Despite my useless hobby, I had become a god among mortals … except for the fact that I still had fifteen or twenty letters left.
© Alan LopezI’m not exactly proud of that, but I spent the first few weeks of my forties marketing duplicate cards by mail, on Reddit. But eventually, even trade became too expensive. (“Do you want HOW MANY letters for Pietro ?!” I was a real thing I told someone.) After researching trusted online sellers, I bought:
- POMPOM # 373 – $ 2.95
- ANCHOVA # 219 – $ 1.55
- PIETRO # 356 – $ 35
But then another wrinkle: I bought official card folders for the first three very cheap series, back at the release, but I never found the 4 series binder. No problem, I found it on eBay for a price not exactly cheap $ 51, after shipment. It was so close to the end of the set, why not?
This whole trip in the end left me only needing four cards, unfortunately some of the most popular animals that years ago I wasn’t lucky enough to get at random in packs. For the privilege of hooking up with Rosie, Lucky, Wendell and Ribbot, I negotiated with an online seller $ 86.10. My Animal Crossing collection was finally complete …
Nook, Inc.
Unless not, it really wasn’t. Because then came an official “complementary book” from Animal Crossing, an encyclopedia of game minutiae that is being resold today for outrageous $ 100 north prices, but I was able to pre-order at launch. I just paid $ 24.40, an absolute thief! (I also put a packet of Animal Crossing stickers in the cart, but it was just like that 5 USD).
As Animal Crossing grew in ubiquity during quarantined life, it was then that second-hand art became great online. My friend made a work of art that she sold for charity, so I paid $ 20 for that. Some time later in the year, a whole bunch of ridiculously cute pines appeared on my Twitter feed and, with all the publicity of a low stock alert, I decided to buy all of them that were still available. That added up $ 110.50 (Hey, it’s important to support small businesses during a pandemic.)
It wasn’t fast enough to get them all, But. Don’t worry, I picked up the ones I was missing a few months later during a replacement $ 43.
And then came the mother load of all Animal Crossing memories, at least in relation to price: designer clothes. After a presumably successful clothing series based on Nintendo franchises, Australian fashion outlet BlackMilk jumped on the Animal Crossing bandwagon with a dazzling line of dresses.
It had been my lifelong dream, or so I decided just when the phone finished loading the newsletter I had previously signed up for – to see my partner in a Timmy and Tommy dress. Two of them, actually. I would also look great with a neon blue t-shirt with a tie on the front, I played.
It’s true that I knew what I was doing when I paid $ 197 for all this. And the other Animal Crossing dress I bought a day later $ 114.32? That was a gift.
This is your detailed invoice. Yeah yeah.
© Nintendo LifeMaybe you read all this and think I’m a rich guy. I mean, I have a job. But no, I’m not. I’m usually pretty cool with money. Except maybe for that time a month or two ago, when Nintendo finally re-released the Animal Crossing trading cards (the ones that got me into this mess) and made them available online (and correct me if I’m wrong) , fanatical people in the comments) just a few hours, tops. I bought nine packages for $ 45.75 only by have them, unopened.
Sure I played a lot in Animal Crossing, but mostly I played myself.
It is a warning story about what happens when one of your favorite things reaches the cultural vein: in this case, against all odds, a digital meditation on life not, but on life, expressed through of anthropomorphic animals. When I caught some freaking out Animal Crossing Makeup per 24 USD, Had arrived at the one-year anniversary of New Horizons with a $ 820.56 card. It is money expressed in real currency, not bells.
The good word for Animal Crossing goes even beyond all the previous shit; since the fashion of New Horizons, where in the past there was hardly anything, now there is all: stuffed animals, office supplies, stickers, calendars, t-shirts, patches, so to speak. I literally received an email trying to sell me Animal Crossing socks while I was writing this piece. To meet the level supported by the sellers can only be described as living an “Animal Crossing” lifestyle, which surrounds you in a lifestyle about playing lifestyles, the latest ouroboros of the fandoms, all in a single calendar year. (Thank God I didn’t leave the Animal Crossing theme change for $ 299.99. Can you imagine?)
And yet, of all the things I own Animal Crossing, the one I like best is my little Pascal, sitting in the corner of my desk. I still open the door and let him out from time to time. In fact, I took it out while totaling the cost of every video game thing I bought over the past year, but only the Animal Crossing stuff. I definitely won’t admit it to how much I spent others video game stuff.
I’m not crazy.
© Alan Lopez