Animal Crossing has replaced my lost dream of home-ownership

After a year of yo-yo lockdowns, over 126,000 deaths, and the occasional beacons of hope crushed by a seemingly unaccountable government, it’s almost impossible to sift through the ashes that this wildfire of a pandemic has left behind.

It exacerbated previous systemic problems, with homelessness rising to an all-time high in 14 years and the UK entering the worst recession on record. Amongst all this, it’s unsurprising that the generations hit hardest – millennials and Gen Z – would try to find ways to forget about the amalgamation of crises facing us. 

With a bigger need to escape than ever, the popular Nintendo game Animal Crossing: New Horizons couldn’t have come at a better time than on March 20th. Although its design looks juvenile at first glance and the language used by its ‘villagers’ is as PC as it can get, the majority of players were older than expected, the average gamer being between 20 and 40 years old. When I asked people online – all between the ages of 20 and 35 – what they loved about the game, the words ‘escape’ and ‘relaxing’ appeared most frequently.

One explained: “I just love how chill it is and it’s an escape to your own little world.” 

While another replied: “It’s a great escape from the real world. You have the opportunity to create your own little life on screen. And play with creativity!”

Some admitted that they wouldn’t have played the game, or even gamed at all, if it wasn’t for the pandemic, while others said they always enjoyed the genre anyway. Talking to villagers and exploring the island served as substitutes for what was lacking during lockdown. Other popular games included Fortnite, Minecraft, the Sims and Zelda. 

It makes sense that Generation Rent would find a cathartic escape in a game where you can easily pay off your ‘loans’ with bells (the in-game currency) and acquire a two-storey house in no time. The slow pace of the game and lack of chasing up by the island’s landlord Tim Nook to pay off your loan offers a sense of ownership and agency to build your own space in a way that is hard to achieve in real life. 

For the first time, people in their 30s have lower household incomes than those born during the previous decade. First-time buyers now need an average of £59,000 for a deposit, while the figure shoots up to £132,685 if you want to buy in London. Despite the fact that average earnings have increased since 2010, the real earnings of people have decreased as living costs became higher. According to figures estimated by The Observer, 207,543 households reached out to their local council about homelessness between the start of April and the end of November 2020. 

Despite being the sixth largest economy in the world according to the UK’s GDP, inequalities have increased and economic downturns such as the financial crash in 2008 especially harmed those born between 1981 and 2000. It’s expected that a pandemic will cause a recession, but the UK has performed particularly poorly in comparison to other European countries. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise when more than three quarters of the UK’s GDP is reliant on the service sector. 

A service economy fares badly during lockdowns in which huge amounts of the sector are forced to close. According to ONS figures, of the 693,000 payrolled jobs lost over the past pandemic year, more than half were lost in the hospitality sector. Retail was also hit hard, and more than 60% of the total fall over the past year impacted people aged under 25.  

It’s unlikely that this setback will recover post-pandemic, especially with the uncertainty of Brexit’s impact on the economy – after all, almost half of all exports (43.5%) in 2019 went to the EU. At least London Mayor Sadiq Khan has proposed to cut the proposed council tax increase by half – a welcome move since almost a third of the decrease in employment has been in London. But many will still be left destitute when lockdown ends. 

Games such as Animal Crossing offer a temporary relief, and it looks like I’m not the only one. The game ended 2020 as the best-selling boxed video game in the UK in terms of single platform sales, and remained popular as it returned to first place on its anniversary. As we stumble out of lockdown, you’ll find me practicing my social skills while talking to villagers on my island: a place where the possibilities of building a beautiful home are endless and rent is never due.