Animal Crossing: New Horizons offers a fun challenge in visually appealing packaging. It’s a great way to veg out after a long day with a low-stakes video game.
However, parents may want more from video games.
The fun is great, but is Animal Crossing educational?
I think so, but you should judge for yourself.
Is Animal Crossing Educational?
Animal Crossing is not marketed as an educational game. It was not designed by teachers or made specifically to teach kids anything.
However, the game bursts with educational value.
It’s loaded with subtle lessons, from patience to making friends, money management to taxonomy.
Animal Crossing’s Many Lessons About Money
Animal Crossing overflows with lessons on money management. It covers debt, mortgages, crowdfunding, making money, savings and interest, investments, and more.
This game has heaps of money-related content – and it’s so fun that you don’t even realize you’re learning about it.
Nearly everything in the game offers a life lesson about money management.
Here are the coolest features in Animal Crossing that teach us about money.
Exploring Debt and Mortgages
One of the first things you do in Animal Crossing is take out a mortgage to buy a house.
Although you could skip this step and spend the game in a tiny tent, most players will want the house upgrade for the extra storage.
When you visit Tom Nook, he will graciously let you complete the first build in exchange for Nook Miles (something you earn by completing tasks).
But one tiny room isn’t enough.
Mr. Nook will let you expand your house – for a price. The first upgrade costs $168,000 bells (Animal Crossing currency). Fortunately, you don’t have to pay it all upfront. You can take out a mortgage and pay it off over time.
Like real mortgages, the debt stays with you until you pay it off, which is essential for expansion.
So, you work to pay off your mortgage to build a bigger home, thrusting you into a never-ending cycle of debt and repayment, just like in real life.
Lifestyle Inflation
The first loan was only the beginning—every new expansion costs you more and more.
As your living situation improves – things get more expensive.
That’s lifestyle inflation in a nutshell.
You don’t have to make all these additions to your home, but it’s hard to say no. Who is satisfied with just one small room when they can have four rooms, an attic, and a basement (and all that sweet, sweet storage space that comes with it!)?
My current loan for my fourth room was nearly $800,000 bells! I can’t imagine how much the basement and the attic will cost. I don’t need them to play the game, but I want them, regardless of the price.
It’s much easier to eat the price of these increases in living standards in a video game, but this happens to us in real life just as often. It’s difficult to return once we’ve lived with a certain amount of comfort. And it’s difficult not to want more, regardless of how much it might cost.
Making Money
Everything in Animal Crossing costs money – just like in real life. Fortunately, it’s far easier to make money in the game.
Your “job” in the game is collecting and selling things for cash. Rare items are worth more than common items.
You can spend an entire gaming session catching only horse mackerel, hoping for that massive Mahi-Mahi score, which earns the big bucks. Although you can make money with the smaller stuff, it takes a long time and a lot of grinding. On the plus side, it’s easy. You will eventually make enough money if you put in the effort.
The big win is more challenging but has an incredible payoff.
Either way, the lesson is that making money takes time and effort. You may get lucky and score big now and again, but either way, you need to work to earn a living.
Investing
Animal Crossing offers a risk-free way to learn about investing.
You can buy turnips on Sundays from Daisey Mae, the local dealer. You can resell them at the Nook & Cranny for the rest of the week, but prices fluctuate. You never know how much your turnips will be worth on any given day.
It’s a clever analogy for the stock market, where prices constantly fluctuate. Sometimes, you buy stocks for a fantastic price and sell at a profit; other times, you get in too high and lose money.
Turnip investing isn’t nearly as complicated as real-world investing, but the same concepts apply. The goal is to buy at the lowest possible price and sell for a profit.
Crowd-Funding
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Animal Crossing highlights the beauty of crowdfunding (and, as an analogy, taxes) by letting you source funds for infrastructure improvements from the Non-Player Characters (NPCs) on your island.
Building a bridge costs $168,000, but you don’t have to pay for it all. You can ask your NPC villagers for help. Each villager will give you about $500 a day to help fund the project.
Although it’s more similar to crowdsourcing, it’s also an exciting lesson on taxes. We all contribute to building a better society.
Savings
Animal Crossing offers a savings account that pays interest on your deposits. You only earn a paltry 05% (which is very realistic, considering some of the biggest banks still pay less than that), so you won’t make much money from it, but it highlights the value of saving money.
You wouldn’t want to be stuck without bells on a Sunday when turnip prices are low or when one of the traveling merchants comes to town offering a great deal on an item you can’t get anywhere else.
You need to keep a healthy savings for these expenses as they pop up.
Other Educational Benefits of Animal Crossing
Although money management is the primary lesson in Animal Crossing, it offers other educational tidbits as well.
Here are some of the other cool things Animal Crossing teaches players.
Patience
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Nothing in Animal Crossing happens quickly. Plants take days to grow, big fish take hours to catch, and earning enough money to upgrade your home takes weeks.
The game teaches you to be patient. Good things come to those who work hard and don’t rush.
Taxonomy
The Animal Crossing island crawls with life. Insects thrive on the island, while fish abound just offshore.
Although players make a living by catching and selling these creatures, they can also donate specimens to the museum, where they’re displayed with fun tidbits.
The best part? All the creatures are real, as are the fun facts you learn about them. The game features a wide range of insects and fish, which have seasonal variations in their availability based on migration patterns.
It’s a great way to learn about the incredible animals on Earth that nobody ever talks about.
Art History
Pirates off the coast of your island will sell you impressive works of art – but some are fake.
Every image is based on an actual painting, but the forgeries have minor differences, like brighter colors or too-perfect imagery.
You must learn about the real paintings to determine whether the offerings on Redd’s Treasure Trawler ship are the real deal.
Agriculture
Growing and harvesting plants is a fantastic way to earn bells. However, you must water your plants and patiently wait for them to blossom to earn money.
The simplistic mechanism mimics gardening, though it’s a lot easier.
Animal Crossing is Fun and Educational
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Although Animal Crossing’s most significant selling point is all the fun it offers, the educational value can’t be overstated. It packs in a lot of engaging lessons that you wouldn’t expect from a video game.
Give it a chance; you might be surprised at all the great teachings it imparts.