You know how humans will sometimes say “Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news”? And you know how that clues you in on there being good news as well as bad news so that you wait until you have the whole picture before you start rending garments and gnashing teeth and shaking your fist at the skies? Well, that’s not how Nintendo handles emails about ceasing support for its freemium mobile game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.
No.
Instead, in amongst your inbox’s LinkedIn spam, the verification requests from that one persistent person attempting to hack your travel site account, and the messages from a Google alert regarding Casualty and Holby City actors appearing in pantomime this Christmas in the UK, you find an email titled “Notice of end of service for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp”.
Immediately, you put down your shopping basket, forgetting all about the excitement of finding exotic beverages like “Grape Fanta” and “Raspberry Ripple Irn-Bru” in the local convenience store. After all, everything will taste like ASHES and MISERY in the aftermath of this email. Why bother with anything? Refreshment is for people who still have joy in their lives and pockets. Fizz and high fructose corn syrup are the domain of those who can still look forward to annoying a grumpy octopus called Octavian as part of a years-long grudge over a Valentine’s Day card.
“Thank you for playing,” says the email. You look around the convenience store, hoping that a fellow shopper feels the full force of your incredulity at this sentiment and meets your wild gaze. You do not simply “play” Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. What a ridiculous way of describing it. You LIVE Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. You set phone alarms for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. You spend real human money in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. During darker times you unfriended real human friends for not understanding the in-game etiquette of which insects to share depending on the flowers you grew during old gardening events in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.