“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” for the Nintendo Switch was released March 20, offering players an escape into a real-time alternate life complete with cute animal friends and the exploration of pretty locations on a deserted island. This video game seems a perfect distraction for your time in quarantine as a soothing alternative to anxiety over current events.
As it turns out, adorable neighbors and relaxing day jobs aren’t quite good enough to make every Animal Crossing player happy. The latest surge of criticism on the internet has turned its cruel glare upon the cutest, fuzziest character of the gentle game: the business raccoon named Tom Nook.
If you have yet to play any version of the Animal Crossing game, go Google an image of this adorable baby. Tom Nook is a soft, squishy-looking raccoon who—in New Horizons—dons a big Hawaiian shirt and beige khaki shorts that almost come down to his tiny little feet.
His round, pink ears are perched excitedly on top of his head and his cute oval paws wave at you when you want to speak to him. Most importantly, when this round raccoon starts talking to you, his big eyes squish up excitedly and his pointy nose bobs up and down. In conclusion: he’s a friend.
You may be asking yourself, why are people hating on such an adorable creature? Besides the obvious answer that these players apparently hate their own happiness, it seems that most critics take issue with Tom Nook’s role as the operator of Residential Services for the island in the game.
If you have no idea what this means, let’s go through a quick summary of the game. To start, you create a tiny, cuter version of yourself—or design your little islander however you want—and head to a ‘deserted’ island only inhabited by a few gentle villagers, the adorable Tom Nook and his two, equally adorable, itty-bitty sons.
You start off living in a tent on the island. Tom Nook gives you the supplies you need, and being the intelligent business raccoon that he is, asks that you repay him in ‘bells,’ the island’s currency. Since you don’t have any bells when you get to the island, this puts you in debt to Tom Nook.
You can probably guess why players might resent this particular furry friend—if you’re more concerned with material goods on the island than the friendly animals around you and the beautiful places you can explore. Players are quickly offered several opportunities to repay the sweet raccoon, and the rest of the game involves getting paid for fun activities like fishing, catching pretty bugs, gardening and finding fossils.
Some players don’t want to repay Tom Nook for his generous offer of housing supplies and a place to live on his island. They’d prefer to live without ties to the village, perhaps even wishing they could replace Tom Nook as the leading village businessperson to accrue more bells.
The Next Web angrily declares that “Tom Nook is not the charitable philanthropist he wants you to believe, this raccoon is a greedy con-artist that wants you wrapped around his capitalist raccoon finger and all your bells in his raccoon pocket.”
Shacknews calls the furry baby “a garbage creature” and mocks how he wears matching “goofy-looking leaf shirts” with his sons Timmy and Tommy Nook. These examples of relentless criticism are a product of innate player greed for power on the island. The real villains here are all those vicious, money-hungry game critics who refuse to be content, even in paradise.
Sure, some players might call this article capitalist propaganda for supporting such an intelligent, adorable business raccoon. There’s no use trying to dispute that Tom Nook operates within a capitalist society. The point is, he’s just trying to survive—and so are you. He has sons to feed, and you’re angry because he won’t let you take over his land without a fee.
Just enjoy your paradise already. Let this cute, fuzzy baby live his life in peace.