What’s the Deal with Tom Nook?

Okay, we’ve been talking about what is coming next for Animal Crossing: New Horizons for a while. Despite coming to the conclusion that we probably won’t find out much more before E3, something did occur to me the other day. Tom Nook has absolutely no competition in the world of Animal Crossing.

What do I mean by that? Well, let’s break this down a little bit. If you really get down to it, the only other business people we see in Animal Crossing, are independent contractors. The Able Sisters, Kicks, Leif, and Saharah all own their own businesses. However, other than minor crossover here and there, none of them do anything similar to Tom Nook.

Tom Nook owns islands, department stores, a whole chain of general goods stores, and has a foothold in most real estate areas. He also has connections with museums, travel, even entertainment! So why has no one created a rival company? Is Tom Nook more like “Tom Bezos?” Has he just made a situation for himself that is so convenient for the customer that no one realizes the seedy big corporate underbelly?

On that note, we really don’t know much about Tom Nook himself. He’s a businessman, he has two nephews, and that’s about all we know. Does he have a wife? Does he have children of his own? Does he have a secret affair with Isabelle when no one is in the Resident Services office?

The plot gets more and more suspicious. After all, the man has a monopoly in the business sector, and yet he remains an enigma. What is he, Bruce Wayne? Also, before I get weird comments, yes I understand that none of this is important. However, the reason I ask about competition is that it would be an interesting economic thing to add in for children.

We already have the Stalk Market, which is subject to rising and dropping prices. Why not have competitors that you could visit/set up, that allow you to compare prices and maybe occasionally scope out bargains? Granted, Crazy Redd does occasionally sell furniture, but his overarching goal is the illegal sale of counterfeit (and occasionally real) art, so that’s not really comparable.

Alternately, why not do a spinoff game like Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, where you can run your own business! It would be interesting to see if running a store like Nook’s Cranny resonates with people like designing homes did.

Odds are, these are questions we won’t get much of an answer to. Nintendo tends to keep things fairly simple when it comes to their characters, so I don’t really expect them to give us much in the way of a Tom Nook origin story. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t still wonder about it ya know? So, if you’re like me and have these questions, you should tell me your thoughts in the comment section!