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okay i’m doing it: a thread on hacking + some views/opinions, i do want to disclose that this is based off my own experience with both a non-hacked and hacked switch, and everything comes from public posts i’ve seen, and this isn’t directed at one person/group of people 
i first want to start with the idea behind people upset saying it’s a privilege to be able to hack a switch, i personally disagree with this statement solely because if you have a switch..... you can mod it too, it’s prettt straight forward and not exclusive to -one- person
chances are if you have a -normal- switch, not a lite, that in itself is privileged. whether you saved for it, parents/spouses bought you one, or it was gifted by a friend, they’re currently hard to get with the demand for them, so owning one itself is what i view alone as (cont)
a privilege. i bought one when they were released and lemme tell you..... the debt i was in + saving i had to do for it..... my teenage self finally understood the concept of money 
on top of just owning a switch, buying games usually are priced at 60$ just for the base game alone, not including the dlcs can be.... expensive on its own. hacking is free, there’s not one person that has paid for any programs or files.
(adding this in) i want to also include just how many discord servers there are for modding the switch, each has about 2-4K people in them that are constantly answering questions + sending updated files. something that isn’t hard to find either.
one general statement i’ve seen from people upset on all social media platforms is the argument that it discourages others to play (specially AC) because some items are unattainable unless you have a modded switch.... which isn’t true.
i am going to use the st*r trees as an example, just for this one. when they first were modded, YES, it was very hush hush solely because those who modded them in didn’t know what consequences could come with it. now knowing what we do, it’s obvious it’s to each their own. (cont)
(add in) i’m 100% sure with one search you can even find tweets of myself judging them/saying no to them BEFORE i took a deep dive into them/modded my brothers switch. example are these tweets
now cont: having them in itself won’t result in a ban or corrupted save, having visitors won’t cause an issue, gifting them won’t either. as of right now the thing we’re seeing is people’s dream addresses being taken down and nintendo issuing a warning- still no ban.
as far as obtaining them, with one google search you can find those selling them. i personally have seen price ranges anywhere between 50¢ per tree, to deals such as $10 for 40 or even $5 for 10-20 depending on who it is. (cont)
however on social media there’s a range of sellers posting daily giveaways for them/accounts that just post giveaways all day long for them. if you know someone who has a modded switch, chances are they even gifted you them just because you asked.
because of that...... it’s not a rare item only -some- can have. realistically everyone can obtain them if they just look at different accounts/key words ie. those that do have $5 laying around can even just buy them via twitter/IG/tumblr/etsy/ebay/even depop (lmaoooo)
another general statement i see is people saying they don’t feel bad for those that get banned- they knew it was a risk. and this is something i DO want to talk about. nintendo has been known to only give bans when someone pirates a game, or mods a competitive game (pokémon)
so.. what’s the difference? nintendo doesn’t want to lose money. if you pirate a game, instant ban the moment you go online. that’s $60 they expect you to pay, that’s years of development + testing, hella $$$ going into it, now it’s time to make it back.
as far as competitive games, i’ll use pokémon as an example. it’s shitty when you spend hours hunting the perfect pokémon, then training it + gathering and buying potions + barry’s, just for someone named brad to drain its life in .2 seconds bc they hack.
THAT makes the player feel bad, they were defeated despite all their hard work. here they spent hours, maybe even days/weeks with this pokémon, just for someone to pop up and have a code ready to destroy them. nintenod knows this will stop others from playing (cont)
on top of knowing that is GENUINE cheating. so when that happens, they issue a ban. that in my opinion is warranted and should’ve been given to the person hacking/modding.
but when we look specifically at Animal crossing... it’s not a competitive game. there’s no storyline, there’s no training or ultimate goal. there’s no <my x is better than your x). and this is where the personal opinion comes in... this is where i know people will get mad...
those that are mad and do view it as ~competition~ are just competitive and don’t understand the concept of a game existing for the sole purpose of just relaxing/playing on your own terms. their idea surrounds the concept of <i must win> and <i must do xyz before this person>
and this is coming from experience, i’m competitive at everything, from video games to work. i have that mindset of <i must complete this before chad does bc i need to show im better than chad/have better work flow than him> meanwhile chad is eating hot cheetos unaware of my mind
so when i see people saying they don’t feel bad..... for me personally my initial reaction is “that’s unemotional/heartless of you.” SOLELY because i know what nintendo looks for in particular with bans. and i think right now, it’s more so a scare tactic than realistic.
now what do i mean? Nintendo knows animal crossing is a relatively easy game to hack. look at my joke tweet about new leaf, it surfaced to instagram and so far has a total of 300K likes over the pages that posted it. because people KNOW this.
just looking at FACTUAL data here. animal crossing has always been a massive game for the franchise, those that are using the statement “it’s because it’s bigger now!” well... not really. new leaf sold a total of 12.55 million copies to date. new horizons, 13.41 million.
(i have to add more tweets after this one, its long, sorry)
New Leaf alone beat the DS version of super smash which only sold 9 million copies. One of nintendo’s “big” games everyone knows. while there was a spike in sells for new horizons, it’s not comparable to other games.
New Leaf alone beat the DS version of super smash which only sold 9 million copies. One of nintendo’s “big” games everyone knows. while there was a spike in sells for new horizons, it’s not comparable to other games.
NOW, if we look at the legend of zelda, we see a massive spike from 3.3 million copies of majora’s mask to 14.27 million for BOTW. we can positively say ~there’s more players, it’s more popular~ this is insane compared to the baby spike you see with AC.
now i’m just rambling and going on, but in conclusion hacking animal crossing rarely/never resulted in a ban. this is solely a fear tactic used by those with either
1. a misunderstanding of nintendo
2. never played (new nintendo owners)
3. those who have the competing mindset
1. a misunderstanding of nintendo
2. never played (new nintendo owners)
3. those who have the competing mindset
and finally
4. those who are generally just upset they’re not the only one modding now that is has become so common and so easy to do, whereas the ds.... was a whole ordeal.
4. those who are generally just upset they’re not the only one modding now that is has become so common and so easy to do, whereas the ds.... was a whole ordeal.
so... what does that mean?? owning hacked items won’t result in anything bad, just stay on the -safe- side and if uploading a dream address take out the hacked items, upload the island, then add them back.
and this is JUST to avoid those ^ 4 types of people who take TOS too seriously/are just upset because they can no longer charge $20+ for pixels 
okay wait another if thing to!! the argument of “this is a child’s game”... well, realistically we can say this about almost all of nintendo’s games. but we all know the majority of people playing are teenagers-adults because they have the $$ to buy them.
okay i think i’m done
