Ok, real talk: I think the real reason people go from jokey discourse about Tom Nook to VERY SERIOUS DISCOURSE has is less abut the actual game mechanics than it is about deep rooted financial trauma.

People don't care about what the actual mechanics are. People don't care that it's actually really laid back and the debt is easy to pay off, or that you don't pay interest, or that the whole thing is really weighted towards making things easy for the player.

They care that they're in Animal Crossing debt, and that triggers all kinds of feelings about real debt.

Tom Nook doesn't actually really fit into any real world category. He's not a landlord, he's not exactly a developer, he's not a bank... you get the idea. But he pushes emotional buttons associated with capitalist systems that keep us down, and that's a big deal for some people.

And that's valid. I'm not saying it's not valid. Those feelings are real. But I feel like we're all so jaded that we have to turn this cute game into a horrible grimdark hellscape, and the only one who's allowed to do that is my sister Ada, because she's the best at it.

For those of you who haven't heard about my sister, she figured out the only possible winning strategy in the DOS game Dinopark Tycoon, which is where you buy the cheapest dinosaurs, land, and feed, then you fire all your workers in the off season and let dinosaurs "escape" (die)

Then in the summer, you just buy more dinosaurs.

Whenever she proposes changes to Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley, I feel like she really just wants to play This War of Mine but with cute graphics.