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Nintendo said:
We deeply appreciate that so many people around the world are having fun with Animal Crossing: New Horizons (the Game) for Nintendo Switch. Thank you for your support and for helping us build such a wonderful community.

While our services and products are generally for personal use only, we understand there may be situations in which businesses and organizations would like to use or reference the Game in relation to their business. As such, we would like to share a few guidelines with those businesses, organizations, and anyone representing them, to preserve the experience for the millions of people enjoying the Game recreationally.
If we see your activity is not following these guidelines or is damaging or having bad influence on the community, we may ask you to stop such activity or usage of our contents, and take appropriate actions, including prohibiting your future business usage of the Game.

Businesses and organizations may use the Game in the following ways.
  • Providing your Custom Design and/or Dream Address to other players.
  • Inviting other players to your island.
  • Uploading screenshots and/or game footage to family-friendly websites and social network services.
However, please observe the following points when you engage in these activities.
  • Please be aware of the game rating and do not engage in activities that go beyond the rating.
  • Please refrain from using the Game inappropriately or creating any content within the Game that would be considered vulgar, discriminatory, or offensive. Please also refrain from bringing politics into the Game.
  • Please do not share false information about the Game with anyone, and do not deceive others while using the Game (e.g. falsely indicating you are separately licensed or otherwise approved by Nintendo).
  • Please do not leverage the Game as a marketing platform that directs people to activities or campaigns outside the game (including directing people to a sales page, distributing coupons, sweepstakes, giveaways, requiring consumers to follow social network services accounts, gathering customers' information, or other invitational activities).
  • You are not allowed to obtain any financial benefit from using the Game (including selling your Custom Design or earning any advertising revenue with the Game content).
We may revise this message as the community changes. If you are interested in distributing your Custom Designs or other activities in relation with your business, please refer to the latest version of this message. Please be aware that any applicable Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Account agreements continue to apply.
Any business use of the Game that exceeds the rules set forth herein shall be permitted only with the separate and express, written permission of Nintendo.

For information regarding the monetization of videos using gameplay footage and/or screenshots captured from the Game and done by individual consumers, please see the "Nintendo Game Content Guidelines for Online Video & Image Sharing Platforms."

Charge me bells if old.
 

DecoReturns

Member
Oct 27, 2017
22,003
Is Animal Crossing really being used a lot for this kind of guideline stuff?

I know about that Talk show. Tho I haven't payed much attention
 

Woylie

Member
May 9, 2018
1,849
The politics thing is dumb and I can't see them actually doing anything about the Biden campaign's use of AC, but I assume this is just a covering their ass kind of thing in case people get mad at them

I wonder if this was at all inspired by the Free Hong Kong stuff that was popping up in AC earlier this year:

www.wired.co.uk

On lockdown, Hong Kong activists are protesting in Animal Crossing

With the world in lockdown, social games such as Nintendo's Animal Crossing are enjoying huge success – in Hong Kong, protestors are using it to get their pro-democracy message heard
 

Stike

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,036
You are not allowed to obtain any financial benefit from using the Game (including selling your Custom Design or earning any advertising revenue with the Game content)
So you are not allowed to
- stream it if the stream is monetized
- upload videos of the game with ads attached

Great 🙄
 

HardRojo

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,096
Peru
They could've at least bothered to word that "No politics in the game" bullshit better. Fuck that.
 

ngower

Member
Nov 20, 2017
4,008
So you are not allowed to
- stream it if the stream is monetized
- upload videos of the game with ads attached

Great 🙄
Not how in reading that at all. I think they're saying you can't use the game to sell products.

EDIT: these guidelines are for businesses and organizations. You could get into the weeds and say streamers are businesses but I think they're explicitly going after advertisers using the game as an advertising medium.
 

Cubo

Member
May 14, 2018
506
The politics thing is dumb and I can't see them actually doing anything about the Biden campaign's use of AC, but I assume this is just a covering their ass kind of thing in case people get mad at them

I wonder if this was at all inspired by the Free Hong Kong stuff that was popping up in AC earlier this year:

www.wired.co.uk

On lockdown, Hong Kong activists are protesting in Animal Crossing

With the world in lockdown, social games such as Nintendo's Animal Crossing are enjoying huge success – in Hong Kong, protestors are using it to get their pro-democracy message heard


They just waited until they could succesfully push Biden to the White House, obviously. We got lucky it wasn't Trump who saw the winning influence Animal Crossing would have.

Yeah, I think it's easy to understand why they wouldn't want to have political campaigns inside their game. And it's also for the better
 
Oct 25, 2017
12,192
Is Animal Crossing really being used a lot for this kind of guideline stuff?

I know about that Talk show. Tho I haven't payed much attention
www.vice.com

This Bank Wants to Use Animal Crossing to Sell You on Financial Services

Ally Island closes the loop between Animal Crossing's satirical depiction of endless indebtedness and the financial circumstances of its audience.

www.thegamer.com

Japanese Company Attempts To Work Remotely In Animal Crossing: New Horizons

After instituting a work-from-home policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, one company decided to get creative with its virtual meetings.
 

Koppai

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,416
I figured this would happen. Alot of people/comapnies are using it as a marketing tool.
 

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,904
"Please refrain from bringing politics into the game" is such a shitty way of framing it. It's fine to put it out there but it's a really unprofessional sentence, feels like a bad translation.

Not surprised they had to put this out there though, I got one of the Ally commercials yesterday on twitch and that felt like a step too far, well past just offering free designs
So you are not allowed to
- stream it if the stream is monetized
- upload videos of the game with ads attached

Great 🙄
That's not what it's saying. It's referring to charging money for anything within the game, such as access to your island, advertising space on an island, that kind of thing.
 

Giga Man

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
21,210
b14b49b95bfcd5f4134e81f014080c12.JPG
 

Eeyore

User requested ban
Banned
Dec 13, 2019
9,029
Sorry Tom Nook qualifies as a shitty libertarian so guess Animal Crossing is canceled via Nintendo's logic.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,328
Honestly this is good, and we don't need companies, banks, or official political parties encroaching like this into social video games.
 
Oct 26, 2017
13,606
Also worth noting Nintendo waited until AFTER Biden won. Feels like they could have done this earlier to kill that bit of the campaign, but luckily they didn't, hopefully as a sign of support for him, even if obviously they can't outright say it.
 

任天堂ファン

Alt account
Banned
Oct 26, 2020
423
The politics policy could be because the game apparently got pulled from China after it was used to spread awareness about the Hong Kong protests.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52269671

Take into account that Nintendo is apparently set to overtake Sony in China when it comes to being popular and now it's clear to see what the motive could be.

Alternatively, it could just be that Nintendo does not want political organizations to try and create a perceived connection between their ideologies and Animal Crossing.
 
Oct 25, 2017
2,644
The politics thing is dumb and I can't see them actually doing anything about the Biden campaign's use of AC, but I assume this is just a covering their ass kind of thing in case people get mad at them

I wonder if this was at all inspired by the Free Hong Kong stuff that was popping up in AC earlier this year:

www.wired.co.uk

On lockdown, Hong Kong activists are protesting in Animal Crossing

With the world in lockdown, social games such as Nintendo's Animal Crossing are enjoying huge success – in Hong Kong, protestors are using it to get their pro-democracy message heard

This also popped into mind right away (since I have Hong Kong protest art all over my island myself), but given that these are guidelines for businesses and organizations, I think it's more aimed at future equivalents of the Biden/Harris campaign distributing lawn signs.

Whether it's enforced for the accounts of private individuals is a separate question, and they deserve every bit of blowback they receive if this turns out to be the case.

Separate from the question of enforcement, it's responsible for them to have some kind of written policy in place to preempt any controversies. Nobody has a problem with natural history museums distributing their logos in the game, I hope (and they have, if any of you caught the joint museum tours by interpreters from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Field Museum), but as a company, Nintendo doesn't want to play reactively if you start seeing, say, Pornhub use AC as a platform for self-promotion. Corporate social media teams have been all over AC, and you all know that everything from fast food to PETA has a long, long record of trying to be hip for the video game audience.
 
Last edited:

milkyway

One Winged Slayer
Member
May 17, 2018
3,004
I don't see anything wrong with the political comment - it's targeted at businesses/organizations, not people in general. It's fair that they don't want the game used as a political engagement platform, that doesn't mean they're outright banning political expression via the game.
 
Oct 25, 2017
3,064
Would you be glad if Trump used it? Or if Hong Kong police used it?

You do realize there's a pretty huge difference in your examples compared to what I stated, right?

It would have been a lot different had those parties promoted fascism in AC, and Nintendo denounced that in particular. But they would never do that because they don't care about the ethics, their only interest is to protect their brand plain and simple. Which I'm not surprised by, I'm just saying it just sucks.
 

julian

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,748
They don't want to offend the "leave politics outta my damn games!" gamers.
To be fair, just before that they say not to be discriminatory.
What does this mean for the talk show? I've been meaning to watch but thought it could be considered "vulgar". Or doesn't matter cause there are no sales being made in it?
Honestly confused but I feel like if they really had an issue with a lot of the stuff people have been doing they'd have announced such guidelines a lot sooner. Did something recent trigger this?
 

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,904
Also worth noting Nintendo waited until AFTER Biden won. Feels like they could have done this earlier to kill that bit of the campaign, but luckily they didn't, hopefully as a sign of support for him, even if obviously they can't outright say it.
No, this is 100% because of the recent Ally ad campaign, where they not only made an island promoting their bank, but hacked it so that it would sell turnips at 1000 bells a piece, higher than you get normally get in game.

 
Oct 26, 2017
13,606
No, this is 100% because of the recent Ally ad campaign, where they not only made an island promoting their bank, but hacked it so that it would sell turnips at 1000 bells a piece, higher than you get normally get in game.
Oh wow. Yeah, totally get why Nintendo did that. I was just commenting on the "no politics" bit specifically though. :P
 

Nanashrew

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,328
Y'all are really bending over backwards thinking it's about people protesting China when all the evidence is right in front of you of what many companies and organizations are doing.
 

Bane

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
5,904
I can't say I'm surprised this happened. The political stuff is whatever, but it felt weird seeing other companies using it the way they did to promote themselves. Though I'm not sure a lot of that is really affected by this new stance.
 

Giga Man

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
21,210
I remember Wendy's was streaming the game day 1 on Twitch and got a ton of attention. It was hilarious.
 

Cubo

Member
May 14, 2018
506
You do realize there's a pretty huge difference in your examples compared to what I stated, right?

It would have been a lot differenthad those parties promoted fascism in AC, and Nintendo denounced that in particular. But they would never do that because they don't care about the ethics, their only interest is to protect their brand plain and simple. Which I'm not surprised by, I'm just saying it just sucks.

Lol, pretty huge difference? We are not even talking politics here. And I'm afraid Nintendo could never have taken down a Trump island with Vote for Trump signs because it "promoted fascism". You would have it there the same way you had Biden's. Or you could have had only Trump and no Biden.

And yes, sure this is only a measure to protect their brand and game. And it also protects the community from the possibility of being highjacked by companies or interested parties. As I said, even though I loved seeing the Biden campaign there, it's for the better.
 

julian

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,748
No, this is 100% because of the recent Ally ad campaign, where they not only made an island promoting their bank, but hacked it so that it would sell turnips at 1000 bells a piece, higher than you get normally get in game.


Well that makes more sense. Seemed so odd to wait until now to set up these guidelines.
 

delete12345

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 17, 2017
19,665
Boston, MA
That's not what it's saying. It's referring to charging money for anything within the game, such as access to your island, advertising space on an island, that kind of thing.
I'm on the side of "using the game to generate real money revenue", because anything involving real money will violate the Nintendo Customer Terms of Services in general, unless you seek Nintendo's permission for licensing.

In-game Bells trading is in-game activity and is just trading Bells, which I think it's fine, because no real world money is involved.