In a matter of two months, Animal Crossing: New Horizons became the highest-selling game in the franchise and one of the best selling games on the Nintendo Switch. Being Nintendo's only major release in 2020 thus far without much on the horizon, it was always clear Animal Crossing: New Horizons would be a breakout success, however, no one could've anticipated that a global pandemic would occur, forcing everyone to stay home right before the release of the perfect distraction; like a perfect storm.
Once reserved as a day for worship and relaxation, Animal Crossing: New Horizons created new daily rituals for players and forever changed the way we look at Sunday. Tom Nook's expensive house upgrades cost millions to pay off and the easiest way to accrue a lot of bells fast comes from investing in the stalk market and buying Turnips to sell for a profit later. The collective goal of achieving a 5-star rating from Isabelle has brought millions of fans together, but for every helpful fan, there's another trying to take advantage of those in need. What is the Stalk Market and why has it brought out the best and the worst in Animal Crossing: New Horizon's players?
How Does the Stalk Market Work?
Each and every Sunday, players will be visited by Daisy Mae between 5 AM and 12 PM, a lovely boar that sell turnips in bundles of 10 for a randomized price, generally, around 100 bells per turnip, give or take 15 bells. Players can then go on to sell their turnips, hopefully for a profit, at Nooks Cranny from Monday to Sunday, with Timmy and Tommy offering a morning and afternoon price each day. But with great reward comes great risk and players are required to sell their turnips before the following Sunday or their turnips will rot. That also goes for any time travel, whether forward or backward, the turnips will become unsellable.
Turnip Calculator
For the most part, Timmy and Tommy's daily turnip price seems completely random and most of the time they're not buying for a whole lot more than players originally paid. Luckily, there are a few algorithms in place that determine how much turnips will sell for at Nooks Cranny and the Animal Crossing: New Horizons community has built a website to help players figure out the best time to sell that week. Turnip Calculator uses the game's algorithms to provide a range of prices that each player could potentially see each day based on their purchase price and Nook's Cranny prices each day. Not everyone wants to play online or interact with other players, so this is one example of how the community came together to help each other out.
Turnip Exchange
While Daisy Mae sells for around 100 bells per turnip, Timmy and Tommy can buy them back for any amount between 9 bells to 660 bells, leading to an incredibly high potential for profit that has many players making millions each week by playing the Stalk Market. Unfortunately, for most players, it seems like everyone else is making 2 million bells a week while they're barely breaking even. In comes the Turnip Exchange, a black market website where players can queue to visit islands with a high turnip price and sell them at a profit they weren't seeing on their own island.
Turnip Exchange in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is an incredibly helpful tool created by the community and while turnips are its main purpose, players use the website to purchase items they don't have, trade DIY's, find new fruit and flowers, and so much more. As Turnip Exchange is run by the community, the niceties comes down to individuals. Some players allow others to come for free, some appreciate donations but don't set requirements, while others charge extortionate prices from 10 Nook Mile tickets to 600,000+ bells, almost a quarter of the player's profits. The tool was created with the best of intentions but isn't always used for it.
Trolls on Twitter
On the other hand, turning to social media for Animal Crossing: New Horizons turnip prices can lead to hours of wasted time due to trolls posting fake prices. Search 'Turnip Prices' on Twitter at any given time and there will be dozens of 500+ prices from different accounts that all use the same text and hashtags, or by accounts that will never respond. Turnip prices have created a gold mine for trolls that will openly lie and deceive players with the sole purpose of wasting their time by keeping players on the hook of a DODO code coming soon, or even inviting them to the island with a false price.
The Animal Crossing: New Horizons Stalk Market has been a great mechanic that's brought players together and offered a much easier method to make bells fast, on the long journey to a 5-Star island. Unfortunately, like Destiny 2 Raid LFG's before it, there will always be trolls trying to ruin it for other players so it's best to be careful and use private groups on Reddit and Discord or play with friends. For those that are interested, the Animal Crossing: New Horizons community has created a number of great fan-made tools that can be used for everything from selling turnips to designing your own Iron-Man costume.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.