Nookazon: The Amazon for Animal Crossing

As we spend more time quarantined at home, many of us have been trying to perfect our Animal Crossing islands in any way we can. However, some people, including me, have been finding the perfect pieces of furniture and other in-game goods through a fan-made online retailer site for Animal Crossing called Nookazon. Through Nookazon, users are able to trade furniture, produce, resources, villagers, and anything else they might need for their island. The owner of the site, Daniel Luu, came up with the idea of the website while playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This was Daniel Luu’s first Animal Crossing game, and he initially bought it due to the hype around the site. He loved playing the game and decided to join a server for trading furniture through Reddit.

“The server I had joined was so chaotic and disorganized with people constantly messaging the same messages and no separation between categories” (Luu). So from this frustration came the idea of creating an organized website specifically made for trading in-game goods. With his background of being a software engineer, and with the help of a few friends, he went on to create the famous website Nookazon. The website launched early April, and Daniel Luu decided to initially post the link to his website via Reddit.

Nookazon Clothing Page

This garnered a bit of attention, but Daniel Luu did not see the rapid rise of his website until it was posted on the popular video-sharing social network site Tik Tok. At that point, the number of users had sky-rocketed from 6,000 all the way to 180,000 in one night. With the explosive success of the site, Daniel Luu has “given up most free-time activities to work on the site.” However, even though most of his free time is taken up by the site, he still enjoys the time he spends working on it since software engineering is his passion. Currently, there are over 16 million listings on the website, and they also run a very organized Discord server with bots to prevent spamming and scamming.

As far as future updates, the Discord server has recently gotten an upgrade to increase the max amount of users that are able to join the server, and the website itself will be getting translated in all of the languages Animal Crossing is available in.

I have used the site myself quite often for my own game, and I must say, every experience I have had using Nookazon has been a very pleasant one. In my opinion, it adds a certain flair to the game when you are able to share goods with other people online rather than having to wait for the perfect furniture set to arrive on your island. I am now much closer to being the owner of a cute, five-star island, and I have made myself an in-game millionaire through the site and server. Everyone I have interacted with on the site tends to be very friendly and polite, with exchanges being to-the-point. There are certain mannerisms and slang terms on the site and Discord server to keep in mind while you are exchanging goods.

  • Most people tend to trade their items for bells or Nook Miles Tickets, which are forms of in-game currency. 
  • When you see “LF” on the Discord server, this means that someone is looking for an in-game good.
  • When you see “FS” on the Discord server, this means that someone is selling an in-game good.
  • Make sure you use the right channel for selling and buying on the server.
  • When trading goods, people exchange Dodo codes to each other’s islands.
  • You can make a wishlist and profile on the website itself, this can be very helpful if you would rather try to trade furniture you already have.
  • “Touch-Trading” or “Cataloguing” is when someone drops an item, you pick it up, and then you drop it right afterwards so you can purchase it through the catalogue. If someone says they are doing a touch trade, DO NOT try and walk away with the item (I accidentally did this the first time I touch-traded an item, and it was super embarrassing).
  • It’s always polite to say “Thank you” and use one of your positive “reactions” on someone’s island.

The Nookazon website started out as a small fan site, but it grew over the past few months tremendously and has even started garnering its own culture thanks to the efforts of their social media team. The website and server have made playing Animal Crossing a much more open experience for many people, and there is more to come for Nookazon in the coming months and years thanks to the support they receive from their Patreon.

Author

No comments

Leave a Reply