That argument doesn’t quite apply to the animal crossing series though. Especially in this latest installment, the series is built around a slow relaxing grind and long-term drip of content. 150 hours in Animal Crossing isn’t really that much content considering the pace the game is intended to be played at. The game was released with many features stripped and Nintendo telling fans that the game would receive regular content updates for over a year. Fans were told this shortly after launch when they were still putting out substantial updates - this is something that led many people to buy the game given how much of the game’s coverage mentioned how enjoyable but feature bare it was at launch. Yes the game has gotten updates, but they’ve been essentially bug fixes compared to the updates Nintendo put out in the first few months of the game’s life. So yes, people may have put a lot of hours in for a $60 game, but Animal Crossing isn’t like Red Dead Redemption 2 or other blockbuster AAA titles where every hour is spent experiencing something new. Most were expecting at least feature parity with the most recent title, New Leaf, but instead fans got dragged along through a grind fest and told everything short of a direct promise that more content was coming.

Buy a game at retail and it isn’t the game you wanted? Lesson learned. That sucks.

Thisis essentially what happened with AC New Horizons, but many fans grinded on and continued to play for some time under the false pretense that more content was coming.