PaigeFTW: Amiibo: DLC in Disguise
I got a New Nintendo 3DS for Christmas — yes, that’s New, not new; it’s that vaguely named console upgrade released last year — bundled with Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, so naturally I’ve been playing some of that lately.
I find it relaxing in a mind-numbing, let-me-decorate-another-house-for-the-millionth-time kind of way. It doesn’t require any heavy thought. There is just the comforting monotony of designing house after house for exuberant animals. It’s good to play before going to bed. Your mind really empties into the kind of gray void that is perfect for just dropping the 3DS and immediately falling asleep.
Anyway, the main thing is that Nintendo used the game’s release as an opportunity to release amiibo cards, supplementing its already extensive line of amiibo figures. Figures cost $12.99 each, and a back of six cards is $5.99.
Now, Happy Home Designer says you need the cards in order to decorate some exclusive houses (they serve other in-game purposes as well). No cards, no dice. So, even if I did have the patience to decorate 300 fictional homes, I can’t — unless I pony up for a pack of random cards.
So here’s the thing, I am, to this day, still not entirely clear what the hell an amiibo does or what purpose it serves at all besides Nintendo siphoning money out of people’s wallets in the form of collectibles. I don’t own one yet (I want the Roy one, begrudgingly, and then I plan to stop forever), aside from the single card that came with my game.
I hate amiibo the same way I fundamentally dislike DLC — it somehow devalues my original product to know that I’d have to spend so much more money to gain access to a number of comparatively small things — worse, in this case, because those very small things also add up to a very large pile of real-life rubbish. Is there no better way?
