{"id":112820,"date":"2020-05-12T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2020\/05\/feature_the_dark_secrets_of_animal_crossing_new_horizons_stalk_market"},"modified":"2020-05-12T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T17:00:00","slug":"feature-the-dark-secrets-of-animal-crossing-new-horizons-stalk-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/05\/12\/feature-the-dark-secrets-of-animal-crossing-new-horizons-stalk-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: The Dark Secrets Of Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Stalk Market"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
\"Animal<\/a><\/figure>\n

If you\u2019re anything like millions of other global-pandemic-lockdown Switch gamers, you\u2019re on a vicarious head-in-sand holiday in Animal Crossing: New Horizons<\/a><\/strong>. Strolling the beach, shopping windows, listening to chirping insects and lapping waves\u2026 you\u2019ve seen this \u201cStalk Market\u201d<\/a> thing \u2013 interesting, but wouldn\u2019t it take the heart out of the experience?<\/p>\n

You hear the turnips\u2019 calls, from deep in the woods. What might become of you if you followed? Which kind of turnip trader will you become?<\/p>\n

1. Dabbler<\/h3>\n

Animal Crossing\u2019s about friendship \u2013 seasoned with a little materialism, sure \u2013 but when you wake up to a letter from Axel the elephant, you feel wanted; like he needs you even more than you need that fifth colourway of the snack vending machine. And when Bangle the tiger gave you that sewing machine? Priceless<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You love all that. But giggles and blushes aside, there is the question of cash flow. After all, the customised wrapped gifts you rush to hand out to your islanders every morning don\u2019t come for free. So how about you grab a bunch of turnips with whatever\u2019s in the kitty on Sunday morning. Stick it in the garden somewhere and wait till the Nook boys make a decent offer. Maybe they\u2019ll drive a hard bargain all week, but that\u2019s part of their charm.<\/p>\n

Graham the hamster gets the brush-off when you\u2019re hurrying to catch the turnip seller\u2019s narrow window, but he\u2019ll understand \u2013 and he\u2019ll dig that fortune-telling set you\u2019ve picked out for the way back.<\/p>\n

\"Animal<\/a><\/figure>\n

2: Amateur<\/h3>\n

Great to set up your friends in style \u2013 but don\u2019t you deserve an extra present for yourself now and then as well? You know, give out some gifts of the ‘thought-that-counts’ variety during the week and save up to pop a couple of hundred extra turnips in the yard come Sunday.<\/p>\n

Better dig up some of the tulips to make space. Was Katt the cat doing the \u201cDisapproving Look\u201d reaction just then? Is that one of the reactions?<\/p>\n

3: Farmer<\/h3>\n

Once you\u2019ve hit a 5x payout on your little turnip pile \u2013 Nook\u2019s Cranny deciding they\u2019ll buy at 495 bells per turnip one day \u2013 things start to look a bit different. You just put a third room on your house and paid off the loan on the spot. Any fruit-growing or bug-hunting money goes straight into the bank until Turnip Day.<\/p>\n

Your islanders now get low-cost gifts of cheery hellos wrapped in promises of shared wealth in just one more week. You\u2019ve fenced off a field and made decorative furrows so your turnips look smart when you line them up. In theory, if you catch the wave just right, you could turn over a million bells in a week.<\/p>\n

Slightly annoying that Gwen the penguin thinks she can just walk around on your farm. It\u2019s a place of work, for goodness sake.<\/p>\n

4: Trader<\/h3>\n

When you go in big and score, the endorphins go wild. Money making more<\/em> money. Who would work<\/em> for a living? But it\u2019s a shaky income if you\u2019re waiting for the local Nooks to play ball every time.<\/p>\n

Enter internet. Late nite Twitter trawls for randoms whose islands have prices over 500. Drug-deal vibes as you load up and fly to a stranger\u2019s hood in the dark. Not sure if it\u2019s a con or a sting. No option, though, if you\u2019ve got four inventories of turnips worth a sweet 8 million.<\/p>\n

Expanding that farm field soon got boring. And getting the turnips all neat takes time you could be spending scouring for a score. Now there are just heaps on the beach, in the road, around the pool\u2026. Walker the dog can have his garden furniture back when you get the next couple of weeks done. He lives too near the airport, it’s his problem.<\/p>\n

\"Animal<\/a><\/figure>\n

5: Broker<\/h3>\n

Reddit\u2019s full of tasty turnip prices if you\u2019ve got a few spare \u201cNMTs\u201d \u2013 Nook Miles Tickets, which can only be earned, not bought with bells. Hand a couple to your host and they\u2019ll wave you on to their high-rolling Nook\u2019s Cranny. So how about if you<\/em> leverage your next decent price? (And maybe see what you could do to get a decent price sooner\u2026)<\/p>\n

You could be the Good Citizen<\/strong> who welcomes all freely, but no, you\u2019re the Entrepreneur<\/strong>, who takes a sales brokerage of NMTs or a cash cut. (And you could consider being the Actual Entrepreneur<\/strong>, willing to share a Dodo Code for a Venmo payment of $10 US.)<\/p>\n

At this stage, turnips are for chumps. You wouldn\u2019t touch the grubby things. A couple of thousand need cleaning up from corners of your island, sure \u2013 behind palm trees and houses here and there \u2013 but you\u2019ll get to that when you rebuild the barren plains that used to be your warehouses. That elephant seems to like running around there, anyway. What was his name again?<\/p>\n

6: Scammer<\/h3>\n

What if \u2013 and of course you wouldn\u2019t \u2013 but what if you acted the Grifter<\/strong>, who collects a fee then boots from their island because they never had the advertised prices? You imagine being the Twitter Scammer<\/strong>, who demands likes, follows and retweets in exchange for a non-existent Dodo Code to a fictional island. Feeling rather more trollish, you contemplate being the Prankster<\/strong>, who tells the world their friend has prices of 672: just keep DMing them until you get the code.<\/em><\/p>\n

The #turnips tag on Twitter is now 99% spam. Fans of the actual vegetable must be dismayed.<\/p>\n

\"Animal<\/a><\/figure>\n

7: Pro<\/h3>\n

But enough of that. This isn\u2019t a game anymore. Managing a queue of sellers and keeping track of fees is a slog, so you get a team together. A friend comes to work on your island as a bouncer. You wear uniforms. You have a makeshift gate system, exploiting the behaviour of seats in the game to restrict entry until payments are made.<\/p>\n

Bells are basically infinite at this point. Your house is maxed out and stuffed with any exotic treasure you like. Missing something from the catalogue? If you have a price of 500+ then someone will bring it to you, whatever it is. Your island is a gleaming OCD city-state of pristine paths and sparkling street furniture.<\/p>\n

Those animal things have all moved house, relocated for your personal aesthetic satisfaction. That sort of stoner dog one sits under one of your ripe money trees.<\/p>\n

But really it\u2019s all about the NMTs at this point. #Turnips at 567. 3xNMT. DM for code.<\/em><\/p>\n

Where\u2019s all this going? What\u2019s the absolute top level? The unburdened sharp point of the pyramid? Where is this course taking you, propelled first by a lust for bell bags then by the endorphin rush of money making more<\/em> money?<\/p>\n

Who are the gods of it all, your heroes, whom you can join in just one more step? They are:<\/p>\n

8: The People Trafficker<\/h3>\n

Having maxed the material possessions of the game, you just want the last gilt touches of the perfect island: the A-list islanders with the fanciest houses. There are ways to trade them, little hypnotist\u2019s tricks that\u2019ll make them think they\u2019re leaving another island and joining yours by their own free will. We\u2019re talking backroom reddit deals with their current owners, briefcases glowing with strapped blocks of blue NMTs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what those tickets were for! Tom, you sly old raccoon-dog\u2026<\/p>\n

You disband your old clique in a heartbeat, ditch the mangey menagerie of has-been chumps and stock up with the it<\/em> animals of New Horizons. And after all of it, in your retirement, you stroll round your sunny island, wearing your crown, and your elite cohabitants chat small talk with glazed eyes and sleepily pass you presents.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the dearest friendship money can buy.<\/p>\n

\"Animal<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re anything like millions of other global-pandemic-lockdown Switch gamers, you\u2019re on a vicarious head-in-sand holiday in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Strolling the beach, shopping windows, listening to chirping insects and lapping waves\u2026 you\u2019ve seen this \u201cStalk Market\u201d thing \u2013 interesting, but wouldn\u2019t it take the heart out of the experience? You hear the turnips\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}