Remembering Nookazon: a DIY recipe for disaster

I was shocked to discover that this cottage-core fantasy would turn into a tale of exploitation, cult worship and most surprisingly, potential animal rights violations.

Image Credit: Nintendo

Like everyone in the conceivable universe during 2020, I caved and bought a Nintendo Switch and a copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons off of Gumtree (shoutout to Marc in Gladesville). With the naive intention of enjoying a low-key and relaxing community simulation, I was shocked to discover that this cottage-core fantasy would turn into a tale of exploitation, cult worship and most surprisingly, potential animal rights violations.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out in March 2020, and by June both the US and Australia were recording critical Nintendo Switch shortages, a surefire sign that something crazy was happening. A sprawling online community quickly formed and created ‘Nookazon,’ an online item trading marketplace, named by splicing together Tom Nook, the infamous tanuki loan shark, and Amazon, an infamous hell site run by notorious cowboy hat enthusiast Jeff Bezos. At first, Nookazon was a clunky little website where people could buy and sell furniture, fruit, and just about any item that could be dropped and picked up again. It connected organic buyers and sellers who maybe just needed one more iron nugget to complete Nook’s Cranny or a missing piece of Zodiac furniture to finalise their astrological anteroom, or in my own case, a delightful cafe wallpaper to proudly, and now somewhat regretfully fulfil my mandatory service to cottagecore kitsch (remember, it was 2020 after all). But Nookazon quickly transformed into a massive, efficient, and cutthroat network operating through a website, app, and dedicated discord page — just about living up to its megacorp nomenclature. And many of its users were equally of a megacorp ilk. Sellers weren’t just marketing items they’d incidentally acquired throughout the course of natural gameplay, but rather crafting and purchasing wares with the express intent of merchandising them, often on a scale even Nintendo couldn’t have foreseen. An Animal Crossing entrepreneurial class was emerging, and to understand them, it helps to understand one of their most profitable products: the Flower Garden Wagon. Dom Hook* reached out to me with a tale of their Nookazon drop-shipping empire that amassed millions of bells through this unassuming artisanal amenity. 

Despite the Flower Garden Wagon being a fairly easy DIY recipe, Hook brags, “You farm a bunch [of materials] using time travel, then you flip those motherfuckers for 70,000 bells.” Hook spoke frankly about the insidious world of Nookazon drop-shipping, “Now I’m not a scientist but I don’t think that's a fair trade. In the span of 2 hours of dedicated playing you can get probably 1 or 2 million bells.”

I never saw the appeal of the Flower Garden Wagon, but I did encounter one such entrepreneur in my Nookazon riddled quest to acquire the aforementioned all-important Cafe Wallpaper. Once the necessary travel details were exchanged on Discord, I began the long journey to my seller's dedicated drop-shipping island. As my Dodo Airlines flight circled this stranger’s mercantile empire, I spied the hostile infrastructure supporting the anthropomorphic capitalism of Animal Crossing’s insidious underworld.

After touching down, a dirt path lined with barbed wire fences kept me, the lowly buyer, at bay. On the other side of these bristling defences was my trading partner. Decked out in a Royal Crown (1.2 million bells), Star Pochette (3000 bells) and Dreamy Dress (2080 bells), they greeted me with bubbled text — less a request than a thinly veiled demand.

“order number <3.”

I responded, and then placed my bells on the table. One 99,999 bag at a time. They picked them up, and I waited for my wallpaper. And waited. And waited. But before I could even ask how much longer I would have to wait, the island was closed by the seller and I was forcibly flown back to my island — wallpaper-less and truly shaken to my core. 

I never got my million bells back, like countless other innocent victims, but after two weeks my friend caved and gave me the wallpaper out of pity.

Despite my whistleblower, Dom Hook, claiming to have never engaged in malicious behaviour as a seller, there are countless posts on Twitter and Discord detailing doxxing, corruption, and theft that’s rife across the Animal Crossing: New Horizons trading scene. However, this trading scene extends not just to lowly material possessions, but to living, breathing villagers. Animal island companions fetch the highest prices on Nookazon, and for many traders, this lucrative business is one of their most profitable sources of income. Despite countless instances of scams, counterfeit images, and straight up lies, many people are drawn by love or, more likely, cold-blooded clout chasing to this risky enterprise. 

Infamous in this blackmarket bonanza is Raymond — species: cat, villager type: smug, star sign: Libra, social clout: immeasurable and potentially infinite. For many on Nookazon, selling him is the golden goose (or cat, in this case), with Raymond going for around 10 million bells and 100 nook miles tickets (an absolutely unhinged price point). Better yet, you can spend real money too! The most pristine Raymond can sell for anywhere from $20 to a whopping $125 on eBay.

One could argue that the surge in trading and trading platforms that followed the release of New Horizons is simply a response to a number of its features. With many of the game’s milestones being dependent on island decoration, along with increased capacity for customisation and terraforming, it isn’t a surprise that people are buying and selling items to take advantage. Combined with an improved online multiplayer, a new villager acquisition system, and the rapidly ascending hypnotic powers of the internet, New Horizons was well equipped and almost destined to create a marketplace like Nookazon to facilitate such exchanges.

In a meandering, slow-paced game experience like that of the Animal Crossing series, it’s hard to say what the ultimate goal is, because there really are countless ways to play. Despite the end credits rolling with that first K.K. Slider concert, the game can extend for as long as your tolerance for Tom Nook tomfoolery will allow. But I would argue that whether your vision is having the perfect Cyberpunk island, catching every shark, or demolishing the Stalk Market, none of our AC imaginings included DIY mass production, barely concealed extortion, and black market furniture deals: a veritable Animal Crossing Industrial Revolution, complete with dangerous working conditions, and most shockingly, child labour, albeit in a Discord format. Despite previous entries in the series having trading networks, admittedly on a smaller, more decentralised, and friendlier scale, they cannot compare to the unwholesome aspect of Nookazon’s globalised and corporatised underpinning. Despite all of this, Nookazon, whilst having countless ethically questionable moments and eroding a bit of everyone’s humanity in our quest for a 5 star island, truly was a moment of innovation which no one saw coming.

*Names have been changed.