Tom Nook is one of the most iconic characters of the Animal Crossing series, and fans have often called him a capitalist due to how he practices business with the player. He opens shop and gives players homes that they need to pay off in increments. The cynical outlook of this cute tanuki character being a greedy capitalist is part joke as well as partly rooted in reason. After all, one dedicated fan did math that resulted in Nook possibly being four times as rich as Jeff Bezos.
A lot of conversation since Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out has long since died down, with most fans agreeing that Nook is a greedy character that takes advantage of others. However, there is a smaller group of fans that believe the opposite. Even the producer of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Hisashi Nogami, has said that Nook is a superb guy and fans have misunderstood him.
Why Fans Have Misunderstood Tom Nook
These allegations against Nook are a major product of the times the fans are living in. A good deal of gamers are Gen Z and Millennials, who are currently living through the reality of a global housing crisis. Many young people cannot afford a house, and justifiably have negative emotions associated with landlords and those with the power behind housing prices. So, while Animal Crossing and Tom Nook are fiction, they do touch upon real anxieties.
There is also a reason that is not connected to the age gamers are living in. It is the simple trend that fans love cynical and dark takes on innocent-seeming media. Tom Nook being a capitalist crook is in the same vein as Ash possibly being in a coma in the Pokemon show or Mario's Shy Guys being failed genetic experiments. These outlooks spread like wildfire on the internet, and while they can have compelling evidence, they are obviously not the intention of the creators whose target audience is children. Cynical fans have latched on to Timmy and Tommy's role as well, making the argument that Tom Nook facilitates child labor. However, the truth is that their age is absolutely unknown (it is very hard to tell in an Animal Crossing game, as many villagers act and look like children, especially lazy and cub villagers), and they were orphans that Nook adopted and decided to teach business to.
Last but not least is that fans still hang on to how Tom Nook used to be on the original Gamecube. In that Animal Crossing game, he was the shadiest. He had the player work directly under him to pay off their debt and would mention paying it off in a week (though that was not enforced). He also would threaten to send raccoon goons after the player if they did not pay him. While some think Nook was joking, it was still hard to forget and forgive. The character has changed a lot since then.
How Tom Nook Is Not Capitalist In New Horizons
Payments to Tom Nook have no due dates, have zero percent interest, and Nook will never hassle the player to pay off their house. The only incentive to pay off the house is rewards, such as more rooms. If this was practiced in real life, there would be no housing crisis or any homelessness. There is also the topic of Nook Miles, which is a generous currency that Nook awards the player for doing easy tasks that they will often do anyway with or without incentive. The fact that the player can sell almost anything to Timmy and Tommy in Nook's Cranny is also rather anticapitalist. They buy weeds, old clothes, and bugs from the players, and that would absolutely be a waste of a business' money in real life. Not only that, but this encourages less trash on the island.
Capitalism existing in Animal Crossing is also ridiculous when really examined. Free furniture falls from trees, and even money grows on trees. It becomes evident pretty quickly that every villager does not know the true value of anything either, offering many more or many fewer Bells for one of the players' items. Nook also does not care much for business as fans would lead others to believe. He actually believed one of the very first things the New Horizons island needed was a free-to-enter museum and wanted to work up to the goal of a free public concert. He also leaves all the power to the player, as they can decide where villagers move and whether someone new moves in.
Rather than being a capitalist, Nook invests or just simply gives away. Those who are truly greedy would find his actions to be an irresponsible nightmare that puts power in the hands of the buyer rather than the actual landowner. Players don't have to pay him, keeping a free house while he patiently waits and hopes that he will be paid back someday. As such, it may be time to change the narrative around Tom Nook.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now for Nintendo Switch.
