From black markets to a social media free-for-all over a cat, it’s safe to say that New Horizons brought with it a lot of unexpected drama for such a relaxing game. One unexpected topic of debate is whether or not it’s acceptable to cheat in a non-competitive game with social elements. Everyone can agree that cheating in a competitive game is wrong. And most people don’t care if someone cheats in a single-player game, because it doesn’t impact other people’s experience.
What about cheating in Animal Crossing? There are a lot of online and social elements to the game, but crucially, nothing that can really impact other players. You can’t grief other players’ islands any more than you’d be able to without hacks, and even that’s limited just to digging pits or hogging resources (both things you can’t even do without explicit permission from the host, at that). Hacking does, however, allow players to get items they did not find “naturally” (or that don’t even exist) and bypass wait times. Is that really so bad?
Some will inevitably make the argument that players who cheat or hack to get more furniture items to decorate their islands with are in the wrong because it’s “not fair” to players who got their own items legitimately. To that, many proponents of hacking and time traveling in Animal Crossing might say this: mind your business. As Twitter user SteeloAndKri puts it, “someone having a cupcake tree doesn’t impact you at all”.
The tweet was made not long after Animal Crossing’s Dream Suite update went live, alongside a new batch of ways to report players with hacked islands to get them deleted. It left many at a frustrating impasse: players who wanted complete freedom of design to show off on their islands versus players who reported everyone in sight for not “playing fair”. While they represented two more extreme sides of the spectrum - with most players being ambivalent towards the whole ordeal - the deleted islands remained a fact.
Whether or not the items were obtained legitimately for all these super-themed items, it’s not as if the hack placed them down for the player in question. All the creative designs that people showcased by virtue of being unrestricted were still arranged and picked out by a real human player who wanted to design their house and island exactly the way they wanted it. It begs the question - would the anti-hacking crowd be upset if someone played Minecraft in creative mode? It’s just decorating.
Obviously some people might feel frustrated that the item they also want to use doesn’t exist. The star fragment trees are a great example - something cute and appealing, but not in the base game. Hacks made it possible to achieve, but those who were already against hacking and time-traveling went on a reporting spree to get them all removed. Although it modified the game in a way those who don’t hack can’t replicate, it’s still unnecessary to have the island they worked hard shaping into something cute outright deleted over it. At the end of the day, it’s just something that’s nice to look at. They could have made it in photoshop for all anyone really cares.
Let the Animal Crossing hackers be. They just want to decorate.
NEXT: Here’s Why You Probably Shouldn’t Regift Items In Animal Crossing: New Horizons
