I've been listening to people play Animal Crossing while I've been working from home, and I'm been fascinated by how it is seems to be designed just to be addictive. I'm not even sure people have fun while playing or realize what it is teaching them to do.

For one thing, you start off the game by having this giant loan over your head for your new vacation home. Then, the first thing you have to do is learn how to earn bells in order to pay off your loan. But it's not framed "paying off your loan", it's framed as unlocking features.

The whole goal of the game is to acquire the best neighbors, have the biggest and most expensive house, and finding the game mechanics that let you get the most bells with the least work. Which seems to include stock markets. Well turnip stocks.

It's like....a living in the suburbs simulator. However it's wrapped in adorable animations and customization so you don't realize it's the same as what adults do everyday. And tons of random quests to keep you grinding, acquiring and playing.

Unlike other similar games like the Sims and Stardew Valley, they've removed the other aspects of those games that build on the daily grind simulator. Like going into dungeons, relationships, romance, etc. It's just.....chores. And earning currencies.

I realized today while listening that there's no activity I've heard streamers do in the game that they describe as fun. And they spend so much more time talking to their chats because what they are doing in the game is requiring no thought, just repetition.

For them, and maybe that's why it is succeeding, it's a game that encourages maximum interaction with audiences with adorable animations and nearly zero thought. So all their energy is going into being social as how they are being entertaining rather than the game.

And how heavily it is built on RNG also informs this. The stock of shops is always rotating, acquiring new premier villagers is like gambling as you roll earned currency on going to random island, the stocks and rare insects are just repetition.

That's always a talking point any streamer can have, how RNG is screwing them and how they are waiting for that thing they want to drop. I was thinking about what it reminded me of, and at first it was a blizzard game like Diablo or WoW. But then not really.

In theory, all the grinding and dailies and currency acquisition in those games is to unlock the ability to do harder difficulties of boss fights. And then those require some element of skill to pull those off. Animal Crossing is just.... randomness and grinding.

The core game mechanics are playing slot machines that you earn pulls on by inputting time. And then showing off how lucky you've gotten. At some level it's wild that's all there really is, but then again that's largely what suburb society is anyway.

I think people love it because it is a very low stakes version of the lives and patterns they already live. It's not like your animal crossing house will be repossessed if you don't have your bell repayments. Or if you gamble everything there's no one coming to collect.

An idealized version of lives where most of the most negative consequences of bad decisions and behaviors have been stripped away.

Anyway, try it yourself. Listen to a twitch streamer playing Animal Crossing but don't watch what's happening on the screen. I think you'll have a very different impression of the game and why it is popular.