In Defense of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (Video Essay)

This is SUCH a well-constructed video! I'd thought everyone but me had forgotten about Pocket Camp once New Horizon was released, but I'm glad to see it getting some good attention now! Keep up the great work, man!

I think my favorite part of pocket camp is that you don't have to pay, and there's always tons to do, it feels so much more rewarding to finish my dailies throughout the day on pocket camp than to get on new horizons and do those dailies

Very rarely comment but this video deserves it. I've played this game pretty much every day from a couple of months after launch, I have maxed out bells, have over 1.3k leaf tickets and can pretty much make anything I want at any time, but despite having unlimited pretty much everything, this game never lost its charm, I've never debated stopping playing it. I would pay any amount of money for New Horizons to even have half the amount of furniture and clothing this game has. It seems so strange to me that a free to play spin off mobile game has leagues more furniture and clothing than a paid main line game!

You can decorate a cabin with 3 STORIES, a camper van with two and a pretty big sized campsite. There are THOUSANDS of event items that you can get for free and use, way more options than New Horizons. Fortune cookies you can still get for free sometimes by luck and getting them in a rotation at timmy and tommys cart OR if a friend gifts you a fortune cookie gift! You can 100% have fun with Pocket Camp without spending any money AND STILL GET LOTS OF ITEMS! The events do get repetitive, but there is always a reason to log in and check in on it every day at least. So yeah idk why it gets hated on so much when yes it does have microtransactions and some things cost money but also you can still stack up leaf tickets for free if u play a lot and have patience. And there are still so many free items to decorate with like. The customization options in this game is insane compared to New Horizons

I played 800 hours of ACNH, so I definitely got my money's worth, but I was still disappointed by the lack of features even after the last big update. I liked the amount of furniture in ACPC, and the fact that even clothes were craftable. I wish they would at least let us get specific items if we have a villager's Amiibo card! It almost feels like ACPC is given more love at times, but sadly my mobile device isn't compatible anymore, so I can't even play it. 😔

I played pocket camp in 2018&2019. I liked it fairly well and honestly I liked it enough to give ACNH a chance, with over 600 hours. I do wish I could have an RV in NHs. 😢Mine was so cute

I played pocket camp in 2017/2018 & i loved it! I was obsessed with it. I was spending real money to get leaf tickets, played it multiple times a day. But once they added so much & my lifestyle changed, i just couldn’t keep up. I would love to play it now, but every time i log in I’m bombarded with notifs & i just force quit lol

It's a fun game, but I just can't with the grind vs. payout. They simply don't give you enough Leaf Tickets. To put it in perspective, one random draw at a fortune cookie is 50 tickets and usually the special crafting items are around 100 tickets. Tickets are 20 for a dollar, which means you have to spend $3 just for one random try. Even the helper plan only gives you 60 tickets a month. Paying regular money but only getting one sure try. I had to grind for months just to get some of one event, and even though I got what I wanted it doesn't feel satisfying to then have to plan on grinding for months again in case an event comes that I want.

I love pocket camp! I feel like it's slept on. I like that you don't miss out on anything if you don't pay for it. Using actual money just speeds things along. Tbh I feel like the free slower way is more in the spirit of animal crossing. I also agree that I would rather have micro transactions than ads all the time. I feel like the game isn't begging you for money all the time like some other mobile games.

My main issue w/ Pocket Camp is that it’s transactional & freemian game. I’ve known children who’ve spent hundreds of dollars which parents haven’t been happy with.

This game takes all my money (I willingly give it) but i play religiously everyday. I had started playing when it launched but left it alone for three years then picked it back up a couple years ago when ACNH came out. It’s so worth it because there are three different events every month (gardening,fishing and scavenging) where you can collect different furniture sets, outfits etc. and every single month has a different theme. I think it’s so worth it. If you’ve been an animal crossing fan since childhood (like me) and love all the games, this game is literally perfect because you’ve always got your camp in your pocket wherever you go!!

when i was hospitalized for 70 days i got back into pocket camp it was easy enough to play since i had low energy and it really got me through it. It really is free to play!

i got hugely into pocket camp in 2019 and then it became a quarantine game for me 2020 and 2021. i played it... every day, for over 2 years. something was hypnotizingly satisfying about flower event, fishing event, gyroidite, flowers, fish, gyroidite, flowers, fish, gyroidite... the neverending cycle lol. i literally spent 0 dollars on it and i had a great time with the friggin TRIMONTHLY new furniture sets. so much free content and i never spent a single real dollar.

As someone who played it almost everyday(until an update around late 2020 that made Pocket camp not compatible anymore to me and other majority of android users. And even more worser for my case due to not having an nintendo account at the time which resulted me losing my Pc account). It was an pretty fun game. And i have good o'l fond memories of mine spending time with it. Im even have screenshots around it back then, and even some gameplay videos. Its great to see that the game is still going out strong! Even if so many players had to drop out due to an update like i mentioned before. This game will always have an special place in my heart. Also, good job on the video! It was pretty well done and even brought out some stuff i hadn't thought out before. Keep up doing great as always!

I’ve been playing since launch, and while I don’t play daily (stardew and sims got those time slots) I’ve always loved this game in the AC line the most because I’ve always had something to go back to. I like having little daily quests and being able to call up people I’ve met but don’t live at my camp to stop by my camp and see what I’ve built, or to stop by an island so I can build up their friendship. I like how I can even go so far as to edit the skyline of my camp, which I can’t do on ACNH or any other games if Im remembering correctly. The group working on this title seem to care just as much as their players, and I love that

Pocket camp was my first game, since I didn't have much money (because I was a child who couldn't get a job), but in December 2020 I got a switch lite for christmas (it was my gift to myself) and I got acnh I wouldn't have ever known about animal crossing at all if it wasn't for pocket camp, so its really amazing.

I really enjoyed playing Pocket Camp when it first launched, I no joke literally played it daily for years participating in events, Finding my favorite villagers and adding them to my camp site, Catching rare bugs, fish, fruit and charging a lot of bells for them just to upgrade my RV and much more. Until I believe two years ago when the app told me to download an update. So it took me to the play store and I wasn't able to download it I got confused by it because it ran perfectly fine. So I looked it up and they had added an AR mode and some people in the comments of that video had the same problem that I had.

ah yes the “poor man’s” AC for us who could not afford a 3ds yet alone acnl back then. Enjoyed it for quite a long before pandemic in 2019 ish. Still remember when they held a cross event with the release of acnh. went nuts and ofc pulling myself to get a hold on switch and acnh. Good times and quite a spin on the lovely franchise if you have the time and 💰 (f2p sure but a lot of ppl spent hundred bills for tickets and furnitures). I remembered last time I have the tom nook island paradise tour as well and timmy and tommy holding the acnh release flag 🥰

I loved Pocket Camp. It was so cute. Then all my progress was suddenly deleted from the world and I was never able to get it back even though it was synced with my Nintendo ID. I love Nintendo.

oh?? It's the first time that I see the dialogues in English, I feel that in Spanish the names that the characters give you are funnier and more adorable 🤧🤧 I also end up becoming attached to a character and it's hard for me to get them out or i feel evil to have him abandoned in my cabin lmao