Animal Crossing and its Nonviolent Incentives

Video games have always had inherent ties to violence, from the stomping of enemies in Super Mario Bros. all the way to the brutal chainsaw executions of Gears Of War. While the prevalence of violent video games is not necessarily a bad thing, it does limit the discussion that surrounds non-violent video games. One shining light in a world of violent video game mechanics, however, is Animal Crossing, a game almost completely devoid of any meaningful violence beyond being stung by a bug. When the video game industry believes that violence is “fun”, and that so many video games’ mechanics are based around shooting, punching, stomping, or even using otherworldly superpowers to destroy people, it becomes very difficult to consider non-violent game mechanics as a way to convince players to play a game for long stretches of time. Through the use of many different types of actions and a series of interconnected systems based on the earning and spending of currency, Animal Crossing: New Leaf showcases everything about the series that allow for non-violent fun, which could be used to rethink the nature of core game mechanics.

At its core, a video game is merely an array of actions or interactions that a player is allowed to perform on the surrounding game world. In a game like Halo, the main methods of interaction are to kill enemies and drive vehicles, usually with the intent of killing enemies. It’s possible, however, that violent mechanics in game design is not actually necessary, but instead those mechanics are simply easy to use because they “include opportunities for mastery, achievement, heroism, and self-directed action” (Przyblski, 2009). Aside from heroism, this can also be said for the main methods of interaction present in Animal Crossing, instead focusing on buying, selling, and collecting. This inherent difference found in Animal Crossing allows its systems to focus more on the price of every individual item, whether being bought or sold, as well as on more movement-oriented actions such as a player positioning their character to catch a bug. The punishment for failure in Animal Crossing is not death, but rather the player is punished with a lack of bells, the currency against which every item in Animal Crossing is weighed.

According to the Bartle Taxonomy of Player Types (Bartle, 1996), there are four different kinds of players: killers, socializers, explorers, and achievers. Killers act on other players, usually through violent methods. Socializers interact with other players, instead choosing to talk to them. Achievers act on the world, accomplishing goals that the game sets for the player. Explorers interact with the world, traveling all through it to find whatever hidden treasures are nearby. Animal Crossing provides outlets for each of the four player types, save for the ability to harm other players. Instead of that, a killer is able to catch bugs or go fishing, effectively besting any prey they catch. Socializers are able to talk to other players through online play, as well as talk to npc villagers at any time. Explorers are constantly rewarded in their searches for bugs, fish, dig spots, and fruit. Achievers are given a very clear goal system: to pay off their loan. Every time this is accomplished, however, they must restart and begin to pay off another loan. This breadth of interactive systems works greatly in Animal Crossing’s favor to portray it as a game that can be picked up and played by almost any kind of player.

If a player had the choice between playing a violent video game which had something for all four player types, or Animal Crossing: New Leaf, then why would they choose the non-violent game? According to “Effects of Prosocial, Neutral, and Violent Video Games on College Students’ Affect”, a study which compares the psychological affects of violent, prosocial, and neutral games, the play of prosocial games result in far less hostility, even for someone who is a typically aggressive person, than violent or neutral games. (Saleem, 2012). Neutral games in this study are closer to tetris or pong, while Animal Crossing: New Leaf falls clearly within the prosocial category. Przyblski’s study (2009) even states that “players, on average, did not find the violent game to be more enjoyable than the nonviolent one,” which suggests that the use of nonviolent mechanics does not inherently cause a game to be less engaging.

The “Gamefeel” present in Animal Crossing, the overall feeling that it gives a player, is very unlike that of most video games. Instead of placing its player into the shoes of a supersoldier with an unrivaled arsenal, or a plumber who can jump three times his own height, Animal Crossing simply makes its player feel like a child. Walking or running is vaguely clumsy, as are most of the actions that you perform. Catching a bug requires many small movements in order to line your net up just right, and catching a fish requires a similar amount of small movements to make sure your hook lands in a good place to entice a fish. Instead of making its players feel powerful, Animal Crossing makes a conscious and consistent decision to make its player feel clumsy. In a game where death was an ever-present threat, this would be an incredibly frustrating feeling, but in Animal Crossing it is used to give the entire feeling of the game an unmistakeable character.

While some are more clumsy than others, there are a great deal of actions that a player can have on their environment in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The first category of these actions are “Harvesting” actions, a category that exists as an answer to Animal  Crossing’s core system of bells and debt. A player is expected to take things from the game world, or harvest them, and to exchange them either to earn bells or to work towards some other goal, such as digging up a fossil and then donating it to the museum. Harvesting actions include the digging up of buried items, the taking of fruits from trees, as well as the catching of both fish and bugs. All of these items are placed into the world with the purpose of allowing the player to make money, or to fill the museum.

As an answer to these actions that encourage the player to take items from the world and make them their own, there are also “Planting” actions, where a player is able to put items back into the world with the expectation of a reward. The most obvious of these actions is the planting of fruit trees, especially of trees that grow fruit which is not native to the player’s town. While a town will start with a limited number of types of fruit when a new town is created, it is possible, and expected, that a player will venture out to other islands or to other players’ towns and  collect different types of fruit to grow in their own town. The reward for planting trees is a simple one, the ability for a player’s town to produce fruit at a faster rate, meaning that the player can exchange them for bells at a faster rate. Other planting actions include the donation of items to the museum. While the player is not planting anything in the traditional sense of the word, they are giving an item up forever for the ability to expand the museum and make it larger.

Both Harvesting and Planting, as well as bells and the museum, work together very closely. The core of Animal Crossing is its economy, which means that there are many systems in place to ensure that the player is constantly either spending their money, or not selling their items at all. The museum encourages players to part with their bugs, fish, and fossils before ever seeing a single bell for them. Tom Nook will give a player loan after loan, making sure to always keep the player in debt. Another entity that encourages the player to spend their hard-earned cash is the Happy Home Academy, a group that rates the player’s home based on whether or not they fill it with the best decorations and furniture. A player interested in pleasing the Happy Home Academy would gladly blow all of their bells on an 11-piece decoration set, then return to foraging for apples or durians.

Animal Crossing is almost two games at once, a carefree game of paidia-fueled fun without the threat of serious consequences, as well as a stringent game of ludus-centered time and money management. In “Interactivity, user-generated content and video game: an ethnographic study of Animal Crossing: Wild World” (Kim, 2014), it is even put that “chores in everyday life dominate in Animal Crossing, and users come to accept game-labour dialectics: mundane labour can be a game, but gaming also can be a form of labour.” which reflects the inherent structure present in making money within the game. The systems of Animal Crossing are predictable and adhere to very identifiable rules, such as what time of day a certain bug appears, or how many bells a player may sell a fish for. For someone who simply wishes to play this part of the game and make money, they are able to do this uninterrupted. If a player is not interested in making bells however, and instead would simply like to talk to townfolks or complete their museum without having any fiscal pressure exerted on them, they are equally able to do that. While harvesting and planting are very closely entwined with ludus, there are other actions that deal more with the unjudging paidia of self-expression.

“Creative” actions are a category of actions which do not inherently change the game, but do allow the player to feel as if their actions are having a tangible impact on the world around them. This includes the redecoration of the player’s town, the redecoration of the player’s home, the designing of clothing, and the changing of clothing. None of these actions actually contribute anything to any other systems, save for home decoration affecting what score a player will get from the Happy Home Association. Beyond that, creative actions are typically money sinks, but they give the player the opportunity to see themselves in the world. 

Between the systems of economy and creativity lies a sort of exchange in the form of “financial” actions. While these actions may be limited mostly to buying and selling, they are powerful actions that allow for items earned through gameplay to be converted into currency, as well as actions that allow for new items to be earned through the spending of sed currency. Financial actions also include the taking out and paying off of loans, an integral step in the upgrading of a house, as well as a major  incentive for a player to be constantly making a profit. Without these actions, none of the items earned during gameplay could ever be exchanged for bells, leaving the player completely unable to earn money. Because the currency system is the core of Animal Crossing, it makes a lot of sense that without the act of buying and selling, Animal Crossing: New Leaf would fundamentally no longer work as a game.

The fact that there are multiple “games” being played within Animal Crossing: New Leaf means that there is a huge difference between the mechanics that were designed for the buying, selling, and collecting of items and the aesthetics of a microcosmic life that are presented directly to the player. These mechanics of what a player can do influence the dynamics of what a player wants to do. While digging up fossils and fishing are both “Harvesting” actions and both produce the same effect of either gaining money or being donated to the museum, once a game of Animal Crossing begins, it becomes much more reasonable to focus on fishing for income than it does to focus on digging, as holes appear much less frequently than fish. This in turn affects the aesthetics of play by enticing the player to perform certain actions over others for the same effects, while still feeling as though they are making a conscious choice.

There is one final category of actions that are much less central to gameplay than harvesting or planting, “Mayoral” actions. Animal Crossing: New Leaf would still function almost exactly the same if the player was not made to be the mayor of his or her town, which seems strange, as being the mayor of your town is a fairly integral part of Animal Crossing: New Leaf. These mayoral actions allow the player, separately from their avatar, to influence their own world. Through the building of public works projects, or through the changing of a town’s flag or theme tune, the town becomes more unique and the player who made it that way feels a stronger connection to the town. This is an important feeling to instill in a player when a game is expected to be played for long stretches of time, such as Animal Crossing, which is designed to be played at every point throughout a year.

Many incentives are put in place to keep players from losing interest in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, one of which is the museum itself. If a player desires to fill the museum with every bug or every fish, they will have to play for an entire year in order to see all of the different seasonal bugs and fish. Even the day and night cycle affects which animals appear, some of the more dangerous bugs only appearing at night. In addition to collecting items, there are also events on various days throughout the year, monthly butterfly-catching competitions, and limited edition furniture or clothing, all designed with the intention of either keeping a player coming back, or bringing a player back who has already stopped playing. Beyond instances designed by the game’s designers, Animal Crossing is also made in a way so that players may synthesize their own emergent stories through play, as remarked by Kim (2014) with “In the user-generated narratives, which are not strictly structured by game creators, players develop new plots by applying various given skills,” going on to mention various actions such as the collection of rare items.

Even the world itself is designed to manipulate the player into only seeing a few possible interactions at a time. While towns are typically random in their layouts, every town shares one thing in common: the world is a rolling-pin. Because the world is not quite flat, the camera is not forced to look straight down at the player, but can instead give the feeling of looking up to see what lies ahead. This can influence movement when the player is looking for something to do, but does not know what. Even seeing a new fruit on some distant tree is enough to justify the rolling-pin world and its ability to show players how they can interact with the world around them at almost any time.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf, unlike every predecessor in the series, does not exist in a vacuum and is not “finished” just because it has been released. Instead, New Leaf has a future, one which includes the addition of amiibo cards and a new RV mechanic. The amiibo cards are almost perfect real-world analogues to the various  collectables in Animal Crossing that players spend their hard-earned bells on, echoing the themes of capitalism present in the games. Using these amiibo cards, as well as normal amiibo, will bring a special RV, helmed by the character from the corresponding amiibo card, into the town’s RV park. This allows the player to buy some of the special things that the npc might own, such as rare or otherwise unobtainable furniture pieces. Although Kim (2014) was speaking about Animal Crossing: Wild World, the article does contain a note on the game’s overlap of game and labor reading “As game players work inside the game text (e.g. fruit picking) and outside it (e.g. game device controlling) simultaneously, game and labour become overlapped. This dialectical process leads players to internalize consumerism.” Not only does this system continue to incentivize players to play Animal Crossing: New Leaf as well as provide an outlet for players to spend their bells on rare items, it also allows for Animal Crossing to continue making real-world money from many players who have already purchased the game and, in any previous console generation, would not have ever expected to spend more money on it after purchase.

Overall, Animal Crossing contains a wide array of interconnected systems, both financial and collectible-based, that drive players to participate in various non-violent activities in order to achieve a sense of progress, to socialize with townspeople, to customize a world of their own, and to have fun. There are many different activities available to satisfy the wants of any type of player, no matter whether they are in the mood to work or to play. Even when the game itself starts to become boring, the player is afforded the ability to create their own stories in long hours spent chasing after a rare butterfly, or an elusive shark. Many of these concepts present in Animal Crossing could be used in a huge array of other games in order to introduce less violence into the medium, an idea that will probably only grow as the casual and mobile gaming markets expand.

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