Forget Nook’s Cranny or the Able Sisters shop. There are entire economies and marketplaces residing outside of Animal Crossing: New Horizons where players can buy and sell whatever they want. This in turn means we can track what players actually covet and consider valuable.
Polygon reached out to two marketplaces to get a sense of the games’ trendiest items. These websites largely work the same in that players can put up listings of things or services for sale, and these can be purchased with anything from Bells to villagers. While there are slightly different popular items for each, there’s still overlap — and together, they provide a sense of how players approach the game.
Nookazon, the leading Animal Crossing marketplace, tells Polygon that the most popular items ever sold on the site are as follows:
- Nook Miles Ticket
- Cutting board
- Ironwood dresser
- Crescent-moon chair
- Fish bait
Many of these entries make sense. Nook Miles Tickets have become the de-facto tender for all types of Animal Crossing trades, purchases, and services. If you’re visiting a stranger’s island for an event, or trying to get a villager onto your island, you can expect to cough up some NMT.
The cutting board, meanwhile, is not only cute on its own, it’s also a necessary crafting material for one of the most sought-after pieces of furniture in the entire game: the ironwood kitchenette. The kitchen accessory has practically become an elite signifier for the fandom. And because you get extra points in the Happy Home Academy for matching furniture sets, it’s no wonder that the Ironwood dresser is also on the list.
The Crescent Moon Chair makes total sense, too: It’s adorable. It’s space-themed piece of furniture is certainly on my wishlist. But perhaps the funniest inclusion in this set of popular items is the Fish Bait. Technically, the hunting material is always spawning on your island, albeit slowly. But the process of running up and down your island, having each clam take up a space in your inventory, and then individually crafting each bait is annoying. Of course folks would rather just buy fish bait.
It’s also worth noting that Nookazon has a page dedicated to the most popular items of the day. Today, for example, the Crescent Moon Chair holds the top spot, while an Ironwood piece is in the top five, and a seasonal and therefore limited-time furniture piece can be found in the top ten.
The results of this inquiry are a little different over at Nook.Market, another popular marketplace that has been growing in size within the last couple of months. A Nook.Market representative tells Polygon that the most popular purchased items on the website are as follow:
- Cute Bed
- Soft-serve Lamp
- Pinball Machine
- Floor Light
- Cute DIY Table
- Espresso Maker
- Double Sofa
- Imperial Bed
- Imperial Partition
- Cute Sofa
The items and furniture pieces vary from the largest marketplace, but ultimately show similar tendencies. Players want cute things, cool things, fun things. But once they get an item, the want to match the theme or set.
I am also slightly embarrassed to find that my own house displays nearly half of these items; more if we’re counting outside decor. Turns out that deep down ... we’re all kinda the same.
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