This was a hard article to read. Why does it try so hard to draw parallels between our world and Animal Crossing? It's just a Nintendo game. Tom Nook's not some "capitalist oligarch", he charges exorbitant prices so that the player can enjoy the process and slowly make their way towards a larger goal. "Conspicuous consumption still haunts the animal village". I'd bet this was far from the mind of the creator when he designed this game.

This is like those literature memes where the teacher conjures up a fantastic narrative trying to guess what the author meant when he really just meant that "the door is red".