Who still plays Pocket Camp
I still play Pocket Camp. I have a full friend list of over 90 people who still play, too. I was surprised yesterday morning when I started up the game and got the message that it was shutting down in a few months.
I've been a Happy Helper member for, apparently, 1,738 days, getting Leaf Tickets every month as part of that plan, so I'm sitting on a stash of over 4,500 tickets still that I can't possibly spend before the game ends and they become worthless.
I also stockpiled snacks. I had over 4,400 gold treats yesterday, 4,000 bronze treats, and 1,980 silver treats. I just found it tedious to give them away, and really only bothered when new characters showed up so that I could level them up to be on par with everyone else. That's also when I would give away all of the themed snacks, so I only have, at most, about 200 of any of those. I last gave them away about two months ago, I think, when the last batch of new animals dropped.
I play the game a lot, actually. I have a special voice trigger for Alexa where I say "Alexa, do the thing," and it starts a 178-minute timer for me. If I say "Alexa, do the other thing," it lists all of my active timers so that I can see how much time is left. I harvest my flowers, tell Alexa to do the thing, and when the timer goes off again, I open the game up. I just hit level 599 today when I gave away another 120 gold treats, 5 at a time to 24 animals, to see if I can give them all away before the game ends.
I've never been good at moderation.
But nothing lasts forever. The game has felt unsustainable for the last couple of years. There's a new set of furniture items each month for the latest event, but for years now each month has had a bug-collecting event, a fishing contest, and a gyroidite-collecting event each and every month. It was a pattern, and I was getting tired of it. How many new items could they possibly make before the game simply became too large to keep updating it? Apparently, two more months' worth.
I still played, though. If nothing else, I justified it by saying I was getting weekly Platinum Points. I spend those points. I've gotten calendars, keychains, posters, all kinds of things with those points. I had to pay shipping, of course, but I still got those things. I guess I'll have to do the actual monthly "quests" in Switch Online or something if I want to keep getting Platinum Points. I sure ain't gonna play Fire Emblem on my phone.
I knew this would happen eventually, and the game did last for seven years, which is incredibly long for a mobile game that hasn't had any major changes to it in so long. I do wish I'd been able to add Hiropi to my Switch friend list, though, or find out who they are. We've given each other a combined total of over 2,700 gifts now, since we've managed to keep it going nearly every day.
I have no idea what the offline version of the game will be. Maybe I'll be able to get all those fortune cookie items I never spent Leaf Tickets on. Or landscape items I never bought. Maybe they'll finish releasing all of the animals. I'm sure there are still some they haven't.
Or maybe, just maybe, I'll find myself with a lot of spare time all of a sudden after seven years of playing the same game.
Wouldn't that be something?