Via the excellent Morning Brew newsletter:
This is a thing: the bank in the Nintendo game Animal Crossing has cut its interest rate to nearly zero, ostensibly to prevent people making deposits, time-traveling into the future by setting the Nintendo Switch’s device clock and becoming millionaires. However, the interest rate cut means that
… the most effective way of making money is now to gamble on the game’s internal “stalk” market — a bourse in which the only commodity is turnips, sold to investors during a single session on Sundays. The root vegetables rot and their value drops to zero after a week.
– Virtual rate cut forces Nintendo gamers into riskier assets
The game also has arbitrage opportunities:
Thanks to websites like turnip.exchange, you can always find an island with a great veggie-buying price.
– New Animal Crossing patch tries fixing the broken bell economy
Because of numerous money-making opportunities, the Animal Crossing economy had become – still remains – hyperinflated:
Compare to now, where I won’t even get out of bed for anything less than 500% return on investment. In my chats with other players, this sort of expectation isn’t unique — many people seem aim for around 200% ROI, if not significantly more than that. I probably made around 2.3 million bells just on turnips this week alone.
– My Animal Crossing turnip selling standard is ridiculous now
Real-world mechanics in the virtual world result in real-world attempts to find alpha and arbitrage. Plus additional opportunities made possible digitally. This is both fascinating and entirely predictable.
[End-note]. This newspaper article offers a birds-eye view of the Animal Crossing economy.