Something that has always bothered me about Nintendo and video game series' in general is how they transition from one instalment to another, and how the previous ones are typically left to rot. This has motivated me to switch from mainstream console games to indie computer games, with communities that live indefinitely.
With the Animal Crossing community, I think it's pretty obvious how the transitional process works. City Folk (or Let's Go to the City, as it's called where I am) gets released and it's super popular and everybody's playing it. Then, New Leaf is released and everybody switches to that. People still played City Folk, though, and the popularity switching from that game to New Leaf is perfectly natural and expected, but then Nintendo closed the Wi-Fi down for it, and of course that obliterated almost all of the regular players at the time.
Go to any of the boards on this forum for previous Animal Crossing instalments and you'll notice a huge difference in the amount of threads made in relation to it. The reason, of course, is the transition from the first game to Wild World, from Wild World to City Folk, from City Folk to New Leaf. You get the idea.
Now, though Nintendo did have the ability to recreate the Wi-Fi network for their older games, a marketing strategy no less was to simply direct those players to newer instalments of the game, increasing the popularity of their newer consoles (especially with how much of a commercial failure the Wii U was turning out to be, which I personally don't understand because I really enjoy the Wii U as a console) and moving forward as a company.
The sad thing is that the same thing will no doubt happen to New Leaf, along with every other future Animal Crossing instalment. This same pattern can be applied to the Pok?mon series, which is perhaps even sadder, considering how connective each game is, with the ability to trade and all that.
So, that's my opinion on it at all. What do you lot think?
With the Animal Crossing community, I think it's pretty obvious how the transitional process works. City Folk (or Let's Go to the City, as it's called where I am) gets released and it's super popular and everybody's playing it. Then, New Leaf is released and everybody switches to that. People still played City Folk, though, and the popularity switching from that game to New Leaf is perfectly natural and expected, but then Nintendo closed the Wi-Fi down for it, and of course that obliterated almost all of the regular players at the time.
Go to any of the boards on this forum for previous Animal Crossing instalments and you'll notice a huge difference in the amount of threads made in relation to it. The reason, of course, is the transition from the first game to Wild World, from Wild World to City Folk, from City Folk to New Leaf. You get the idea.
Now, though Nintendo did have the ability to recreate the Wi-Fi network for their older games, a marketing strategy no less was to simply direct those players to newer instalments of the game, increasing the popularity of their newer consoles (especially with how much of a commercial failure the Wii U was turning out to be, which I personally don't understand because I really enjoy the Wii U as a console) and moving forward as a company.
The sad thing is that the same thing will no doubt happen to New Leaf, along with every other future Animal Crossing instalment. This same pattern can be applied to the Pok?mon series, which is perhaps even sadder, considering how connective each game is, with the ability to trade and all that.
So, that's my opinion on it at all. What do you lot think?
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I will be open to trying any new AC game that comes out, but I don't see how it ACNL could be improved upon, and so many people have spent months or several years perfecting their towns. It will be so sad when the Wi-Fi for it goes away for good. This prospect is especially sad to me for ACNL, as I rarely visited with anyone in Wild World, and the Dream Suite didn't exist then. In Population: Growing, I don't think I even knew that visiting was an option, though I had the cable to visit the private island. City Folk I only played a handful of times, so I wasn't personally affected when the Wi-Fi for it went away. But for ACNL, it will be like mourning lost friends.
