Tom Nook - Parody and Analysis

Parody and Analysis

Tom Nook has been satirized in several articles, often compared to a mob boss or kingpin or otherwise a bad person. IGN listed him as the 72nd video game villain, suggesting that Tom Nook has a nice face, but the "cold, dead heart of a megalomaniac whose sole desire is to make a quick bell". Fellow IGN editor Patrick Kolan described Nook as the Animal Crossing equivalent of Al Swearengen, a pimp from the 1800s, due to his business sense, as well as both the character's position and disposition. Tom Nook has also been personified as a devious character, as well as a gangster, including an issue of the web comic VG Cats, which depicts him roughing up the player's character for his rent money. In a satirical article written by GamesRadar, they suggest that the cast of Animal Crossing, most importantly Tom Nook, were setting the player up into a "furry cult". GameSpy listed Tom Nook as a video game character who would be disliked in real life, stating that he is annoying in the video games, and would be terrifying if he was a landlord in real life. 1UP.com editor Jeremy Parish, in his review of Animal Crossing: Wild World, he makes a parody documentary of the in-game world. In it, he suggests that Tom Nook's keen business sense allows him to effectively control the village. In the book The ecology of games: connecting youth, games, and learning, Ian Bogost cited Animal Crossing as a video game that teaches players about economics. Specifically, he describes Tom Nook as being "a condensation of the corporate bourgeoise".