Nintendo Unveils New Mobile Game, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp

The fourth Nintendo mobile game will be free with optional micropayments. It will be released at the end of November on Apple and Android smartphones.

It's the end of a long wait for fans of the Animal Crossing saga. Evoked by Nintendo for the first time in 2016, the smartphone adaptation of the game has finally been unveiled through a video of 15 minutes, posted Wednesday morning. According to the Wall Street Journal, this delay is due to a complicated development. The team in charge of the game had to start again from scratch in the middle of the road in order to propose the best possible experience.

Called Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, this mobile game will be available on Apple and Android devices in late November. The application is however already operational in Australia, which serves as a giant test base in real conditions. This technique, called "soft launch", allows to bring the latest patches and adjustments before the global launch, in a month.

Fans of the Animal Crossing saga will not be distressed. The player finds himself immersed in a universe populated by animals with speech. He will have to build social relationships, but also decorate his interior, make gifts and ... repay a loan. No house to pay this time. The player is now owner of a motorhome that he can arrange as he wishes. To repay his loans, he will have to earn bells (the money of the game) by selling fish, fruits or objects that he himself has created.

After being mayor of a city in Animal Crossing New Leaf (Nintendo 3DS), the player is in Pocket Camp Manager of a campsite. It will have to be developed and meet the needs of holidaymakers. The whole game takes place in real time. Nintendo plans several seasonal events (Christmas, New Year's Eve, parties, theme weekends ...) to encourage the player to regularly restart the application.
Optional payments

Pocket Camp will be a free game. But the player can pay to go faster. The "green tickets", essential to obtain certain objects or access to specific places, will be winnable within the game or by exchanging them for euros. 45 tickets will cost 1.99 euros, according to the video presentation.

This free-to-play model is dominant in the world of games on smartphones. Nintendo has learned the hard way. Its application Super Mario Run, released late 2016, was free on the first 3 levels. It was necessary to pay 9.99 euros to unlock the suite. Tollé among mobile players, accustomed to free. According to Nintendo, 5% of people who downloaded Super Mario Run paid the full game, a rate deemed unsatisfactory by the Japanese company. Nintendo has opted for the free-to-play model for its next mobile game, Fire Emblem Heroes. The application was significantly less downloaded than Super Mario Run, but it generated a lot more money. In the last fiscal year, mobile gaming yielded less than 150 million euros, out of a total turnover of 3.6 billion euros. But this share should go progressively.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp is likely to be a success. This license, which includes four episodes on Nintendo consoles, has always pleased a large audience thanks to its ease of access and colorful world. No need to be a seasoned player to have fun on this game. By going on smartphone, Nintendo hopes to discover Animal Crossing to a very large audience and, why not, encourage them to buy the previous games published on its consoles .. .

source: figaro.fr