This is an analysis of the economic system of Animal Crossing: New Horizons in both the multiplayer and single-player aspect. A lot of this is based on observation and in-game interaction within the community since the game’s release.
More than a month has passed since Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released and so much has changed as the game continues to release updates. More people (like me) are using Animal Crossing as one of the ways to interact with our friends throughout this pandemic. And oddly enough, the release date for the game was just in time to when the lockdowns and travel bans were announced in various countries.
But one thing I’ve noticed within the fan community when it comes to playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, is the in-game economy system. How exploits in the game DESTROYED the system, Nintendo is trying their best to make it balanced, and how fans are using Nook Miles Tickets as the new currency when it comes to in-game multiplayer trading.
This is an analysis of the broken economy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The 3 types of economic systems in video games (based on my experience)
In my experience, there are 3 types of video game economies: The main currency, a trading economy, and the premium currency.
The main currency
A lot of the video games I play are mostly single-player experiences. And in these games, a basic economy system is put in placed by the developers. This is where the higher the level or progress, the more you earn. An example of this is in Pokemon where the rewards increase the more you progress through the game. Club Penguin also falls under this example despite it being an MMORPG. In Club Penguin and Club Penguin Island, you play games and do quest/missions and you get rewards depending on your rank and progress.
The reason that this is the economic system these games have is because there is no “trading feature” between players. All the things you earn are within your player and your player only. You can’t exchange it with others and the only value that people see are in the items you own.
Example:
Let’s say you played Club Penguin for 5 years. Depending on when you started playing and how much items you own determine the ‘in-game’ value of your player. If you played back in 2005 and continued all the way to 2010, you’re seen as a ‘rare penguin’ as penguins can see you wearing rare pieces of clothing or having an igloo with a mix of rare and current furniture. The amount of time you’ve spend on your penguin shows the amount of value it has towards you and no one can take it away and transfer the items to another account.
The trade economy
This system is mostly seen when playing MMORPG’s, where trading is allowed between players. Sometimes, the game produces a fair way for players to trade with each other or it’s up to the player to create the price of their goods.
My most prominent experience of this is when I played Minecraft in 2012-2014 when I ran a food shop. My prices range from iron to diamonds. It was a fair deal since they know I’m better off farming and selling resources and I can provide resources that they need. I don’t make the prices too absurd, yet it’s enough to allow me to craft tools and basic armour if I do want to do my own adventures. The Minecraft economy is basic as there is no official currency at the time (Emeralds wasn’t a thing yet during this session).
In this system, the fans create the economy using whatever the game provides and it’s up to each player to agree or disagree with the prices.
The premium economy
This economy is usually the ones you see in mobile games, where you have to use real-life currency to buy special gems or coins to buy rare stuff.
An example of this was when I spent $30 on Clash of Clans back in 2012/13 for their premium currency of gems. Gems in Clash of Clans allow you to fast track upgrades. Yes, I could wait for 3-5 days for my Town Hall to upgrade or spend x amount of gems for it to be done instantly.
Obviously, I’ve learned better and I don’t think paying real-life money for an in-game premium currency is worth it. I rather work my way to the top than having to pay to win.
But then again… I’m paying money for Amiibo cards, Magic the Gathering boosters, and extra bits and pieces of Yugioh cards for my deck.
Fixing an in-game economy
Various games have their own way on how to make their economic system work. And sometimes, using virtual worlds can provide interesting data when it comes to fixing real-world economies.
An example: World of Warcraft and its fan contribution to fix their in-game economy, and the suggestions and data used & found are used by real life complanies.
Online games provide economies, marketplaces, trades, and currencies just like the real world, and face the same fundamental challenges. For example, the Korean supreme court has ruled that virtual and real money are legally exchangeable. Crime (e.g. theft) in online worlds and cyberspace is prosecuted just like in traditional legal settings…
…Some research finds behaviour in online worlds follows real-world patterns. Burt (2011) argues that virtual worlds have “enormous potential” as a research venue, especially for social capital research. He raises the concern of validity, and confirms that virtual worlds provide valid results for two aspects of social capital: higher achievement of network brokers, and higher trust between members of the same network.
Safferling , C., & Lowen, A. (2011)
But what if it starts to break? What do you then? Let me introduce you to the flawed economic system of Animal Crossing: New Horizons
An introduction to Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ economic system
There are two types of currency in Animal Crossing: New Horizons – The bells that act like ‘the main currency’ of the game, and the Nook Miles – a newly added feature in the franchise where you earn points for doing in-game tasks. Nook Miles isn’t a tradable currency and are stuck within the player while the bells can be traded to others.
I would like to count ‘turnips’ as a 3rd type of currency in the game but they’re kinda only used as a resource to earn more bells.
On paper, that seems fair… until you have to consider this one exploit that exists in every Animal Crossing game – TIME TRAVEL.
Time travel in Animal Crossing is when you cheat the game a bit by changing the date and time of your system. People do this either because they can’t play during the day due to work, fast track upgrades, or they want to repeat certain events. And while that’s handy dandy, it doesn’t help the economy at all due to this other added feature in the game – Bank Interest.
In ACHN – the in-game bank puts in interest every month. The max amount of interest that you can get was 99 999 bells. This was changed sadly during the April update of the game.
The previous rate was estimated at around 0.5%. Now it appears to be closer to 0.05%, with interest payouts capped at 9,999 bells.Kotaku (2020) – Nintendo Slashes Interest Rates In Animal Crossing: New Horizons
The bell exploits and the start of a tumbling economy
The heavily reduced interest rate isn’t the first sign that the bell economy is in shambles. During THE INITIAL LAUNCH of the game – there was a duplication glitch. This glitch allowed players to duplicate ANY ITEM and earn so many bells out of it. This lead to players becoming instant millionaires without time travelling. This was then patched a few days later.
But this single patch wasn’t going to stop people exploiting the game to earn bells.
Since time travel is a thing and ACHN also has a multiplayer feature, players can manipulate the turnip system by having one island open that has high turnip prices and the other is open to buy turnips from Daisy Mae. I will admit, I did this a few times just to pay off my loans to Tom Nook, but the fact that this is an actual exploit in the game means that players can get bells quick.
Exploiting the economy could mean inflation and rendering the value of the currency useless. And the effects of this happening is being seen RIGHT NOW as I’m writing things through the use of a fan-trading website – Nookazon.
How Nookazon became the new ‘Grand Exchange’ for Animal Crossing players
Nookazon is a popular website for Animal Crossing players. It’s seen as the ‘Amazon version’ of Animal Crossing where fans can sell goods and services and trade with other players. Just like the Grand Exchange in Runescape, players set their own prices of the items they want to sell. And this could lead to some ‘inflation’ to the prices of the item. I’ve seen goods where it usually cost 1-10k bells and people are selling them for 2 – 10x the price.
Be sure to look closely at the actual item they are selling — some are selling the DIY recipe, others are selling the actual item in one color. Sometimes, people offer to make the item for you if you can supply them with the materials for it. Alongside the item, the price is listed. Now it’s just a matter of finding the right listing with a price you can pay. Contact the seller on Discord and arrange for a time to do the trade.
This allowed Animal Crossing: New Horizons to have 2 types of economic systems – the main currency and a trading system.
The downfall value of bells
As I’m writing this, a few players in the Animal Crossing community stated that bells are becoming useless due to the amount of exploits found in the game. It even came to the point where the game where spawn rates of expensive-priced bugs have plans to be reduced to help fine-tune the game.
Nintendo’s desire to fine-tune the inflated Animal Crossing: New Horizons economy is no secret — upon downloading the latest patch, the game informs you that the Bank of Nook has decreased interest rates for player’s savings account. But that’s not all. According to dataminers, you might notice a huge change in spawn rates for bugs, too…
…In layman’s terms, that means that rather than having specific months where a bug spawned more often, now they all have set rates during the months they are coded to appear.
But the fact that the community no longer finds value in bells in Animal Crossing: New Horizons shows that the currency is useless in a multiplayer standpoint. Yes, in holds some value in some aspects in the game and the multiplayer trading system, but it’s not as valuable if you’re looking for rare goods.
Fans has now resorted to finding a new source of currency and apparently, the answer is through Nook Miles Tickets.
The Nook Miles ticket currency
What are they?
Nook Miles Tickets are items you can obtain when you earn Nook Miles. For 2000 Nook Mile points, they allow you to go to various mystery islands to find villagers, creatures, fruits, and other resources.
And apparently, the new ‘sought out’ currency in the Animal Crossing community.
If you’re after high value or rare goods now on Nookazon, you’re more likely to take out some tickets rather than pay bells for said goods.
Why are they valuable?
For starters, you can’t exploit Nook Miles. You need to do task in order to obtain them. And the fact that there is an exploit to get rid of villagers easier shows that you can go crazy with your tickets to find your favourites. There are at least 400 characters in Animal Crossing so having plenty of tickets on your person will increase your chances of finding someone you want. Also, mystery islands are a good way to get more resources, some giving you the chance to catch rare fish and bugs.
I don’t enjoy island hopping. I find it boring as I get the same old islands over and over. So I don’t mind spending my Nook Miles Tickets as another piece of currency. But I don’t enjoy earning them since I find no value into it. I’m glad that there are some sellers in Nookazon accepting bells, even the people I talk to in Discord. But sadly, as the economic environment changes within the majority of the community, I need to adapt.
History reflected in Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ currency
The whole issue with Animal Crossing’s inflated currency can be reflected back in history. We all know the story on the hyperinflation of Weimar republic and how they printed so much money to help repay the cost of the war. This lead to them having to create a new form of currency in order to solve their hyperinflation issue.
And the same is happening in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Rather than paying with a useless currency that’s easily exploited, fans found a new form of currency that has value. Just recently in Nookazon, they updated the site to allow Nook Miles Tickets as another way of payment.
There are even talks within the community of using ‘Fish Bait’ as another form of currency as they can’t be obtained in any in-game shop but are really useful when fishing.
Conclusion
Nintendo can try to even the playing field, find ways to fix the bell economic system. But in the end, it’s up to the fans to find something that’s worth of value in order to create a fair and even playing field when it comes to trading goods. Yes, bells are useful, especially when it comes to trading and the game still encourages players to use it to buy things. But to the eyes of the community, a piece of paper is all it takes to balance the economy of Animal Crossing New Horizons.
References:
- Safferling , C., & Lowen, A. (2011). Economics in the Kingdom of Loathing: Analysis of Virtual Market Data. University of Konstanz D Ep Artment of Economics.
- Gach, E. (2020). Nintendo Slashes Interest Rates In Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Kotaku. https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/04/nintendo-slashes-interest-rates-in-animal-crossing-new-horizons/
- Hernandez, E (2020) Animal Crossing: New Horizons has item cloning glitch, and it’s easy. Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/23/21190787/animal-crossing-new-horizons-cloning-exploit-glitch-clone-bells-money-nintendo-switch-cheat
- Tan, S (2020) There’s An Online Marketplace For ‘Animal Crossing’ Items, Which Is Peak Isolation Shit. Pedestrian. https://www.pedestrian.tv/tech-gaming/nookazon-online-marketplace-animal-crossing/
- Archer, N (2020) Animal Crossing New Horizons: How to earn bells quickly with Nookazon. CNET. https://www.cnet.com/news/animal-crossing-new-horizons-how-to-earn-bells-quickly-with-nookazon/
- Hernandez, P (2020) Animal Crossing nerfed bug moneymakers, dataminers say. Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/24/21233833/animal-crossing-new-horizons-update-bug-spawn-rates-nerf-redd-tarantula-scorpion-switch-acnh
- Toscano, P (2011) The Worst Hyperinflation Situations of All Time. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2011/02/14/The-Worst-Hyperinflation-Situations-of-All-Time.html
- The National Library of Israel. (n.d.). German Inflation 1919-1923. https://web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/english/collections/personalsites/israel-germany/weimar-republic/pages/inflation.aspx
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