The Latest Animal Crossing: New Horizons Update Has Removed Harv's Hacked Fences

Hacking on Animal Crossing harms literally nobody. It’s your island, do whatever you want with it.

It's less about the item itself and more about following the rules. To have access to the online services and free updates like this, part of the agreement is to not hack the game.

People should be glad that all Nintendo did was to remove the hacked items. I'd say, although it would be extreme, Nintendo would have been in their rights to ban your account from all future online updates.

I guess the problem is that people are effectively selling hacks for real life money. And, who know, maybe the item could be implemented for real eventually

I would see let culture have a Life onto itself and if an item takes on a 'movement' and becomes a craze then make it a craft item. Art can sometimes become its own culture; good heavens I know this as I live in the town that is home to the guy that made the Andre "Obey" Art you now see in ever major city as a sticker randomly stuck here and there.

I also noticed that when you invite an animal to your camp, they removed the phrase “I can’t breathe” from one of the animals little ramblings. The one where they say “ I’ve got potato chips, pickle chips, chocolate chips...but I didn’t bring my TV. No TV ! I can’t breathe!” or whatever they say, can’t remember the exact phrasing. Anyway, they must’ve taken it out because of the George Floyd murder. I’m sure it had been written months before that incident but probably a good idea to take it out.

I gave a bunch of this fencing to a friend and she messaged me this morning saying they were all gone, lol. Bummer. I'm still reeling from the star trees debacle so I figured I would avoid the hacked items for now as there's always the chance they could get patched out. I lost one forbidden bench today but that's about it.

@Northwind, perhaps they will, I don’t follow this game all that much, but they did make the “No-HUD” option a thing after patching out a glitch that did just that.

I had hacked items all over my island knowing there was a chance Nintendo might patch them out someday but it still totally sucks now that they're gone, they were such cute additions, I feel punished even though I wasn't hurting anybody by having them. My island feels way less magical after the star trees were needlessly taken. I think the DLC, while cute, has been a little lacking and hacked items were keeping me interested more than diving or wedding photos ever were. Their game, their rules, I get it, but they could have been cool about it if they wanted to.

@Ratking Yeah? Even the tens of thousands of people who got them in trades with strangers while not knowing what they were? How do you think you'd handle all that hate mail exactly? And why do you care so much to punish people who want to play a single player game however they want?

@Northwind Well, they did implement what was previously a bug in the camera settings, so I can imagine Nintendo about to do the same with this fence.

The star trees though... Probably not. The fragments are really meant to be rare.

@Likethepear I think Nintendo is smart to try avoiding even incidental things like that. I think most of us would prefer our fictional games and media stay fictional. Or, at least I prefer that. Games and anime have always been a escape from real life for me. And while I highly enjoy stories that deal with real world concepts in a fictional setting, it's because of that fictional setting that it remains enjoyable.

Or maybe I'm just rambling in a reply to a random person online because of totally unrelated issues I'm currently attempting to ignore.

@Ratking,

People rarely look at things that way, but you are correct, Nintendo could have been far less forgiving of these cases of hacking, it's their IP at the end of the day, and weather it impacts others or not is of no relevance whatsoever.

The usual comments about hacking being fine as usual!

Lets hope the same holes they found in order to make fun things don't get used in other ways.

Maybe, like the photo mode glitch, they’ll add it as a proper item now

@dux The solution is to make them available to everyone, not remove it.

@Hagemaru Then don’t trade with hackers and don’t buy anything. It’s not some sort of virtual economy.

Imagine if Nintendo put as much effort into adding QoL improvements to the game that people want. Buying all my pumpkin starts today at 5 per go was ridiculously time-consuming.

Hahahahahaha

@Hagemaru Then if you buy those bells you’re only cheating yourself. There’s no competitive element to Animal Crossing, no winners and losers. Just don’t trade with strangers either, I literally haven’t been anywhere near the trading scene and I feel I’m playing the game and getting the same enjoyment out of it.

Why isn't there this much snotty outcry from other single player game fanbases. I don't remember anyone whining about people modding Skyrim. In fact Bethesda celebrates its modding community and it's added so much life to the game that people still play it to this day. Yet people add stars to trees in THIS game and look at all the toddlers who have to ruin that simple joy for everyone.

@Hagemaru ‘Protect the kids and easily exploitable’ is such a non-argument with this. Protect them from what? You have to actively seek out and engage with trades in this game, it’s far easier to buy MTX in 99% of games. This is hardly black market stuff, the online elements are secondary and it’s incredibly hard to get caught out.

hope this means they'll eventually add it as a legitimate item themselves. the same way to removed the glitch to hide the button guide on the camera app, only to add it as an actual feature later on

@Octane yeah but I doubt the way they could be implemented is the same way the hack implemented them, so, from a code standpoint, they'd have to be removed either way

@Hagemaru Good grief, people are paying real money for "virtual currency".....in Animal Crossing?!

I mean I kind of "get" it in MMOs....gotta stay up in level and gear with everyone else to do the raids and such...and if you totally suck it's a way around it....assuming you're loaded with cash and/or stolen credit cards.

But Animal Crossing? Where there's nothing to keep up with, the only skill you use is....fishing.....and maxing out on bells simply means you buy "all the imaginary stuff" sooner?

If the game bores you having to fish for all that money, the game's going to bore your even more not having to fish because there's nothing really left to do.... I don't get people.

@Hagemaru Please tell me how this damages Nintendo. Bells have no real world value and aren’t able to be bought and all DLC is free. Nintendo make their money at purchase. I find it all a bit silly but it doesn’t damage Nintendo in the slightest.

@Hagemaru ....what? That’s an answer to a completely different question? Nintendo have definitely been overprotective with their IPs, I’m just saying that it’s a bit silly as this behaviour in this game has zero impact on Nintendo.

@Hagemaru The injectors use the game’s code to add in items and villagers not on your island. You absolutely cannot execute malicious code through use of these tools. The fact you don’t understand this basic information says a lot. Everything hacked on here affects your island and your island only, unless another person actively seeks you out and you both agree to share the hacked data. You’re clutching at straws to find negative connotations when in fact, there really aren’t any. If consumers start worrying about a corporation’s ‘reputation’, their tongue is fully immersed in that boot.

@Hagemaru Nintendo treating their modding community with such a harsh tone is just stupid. Look at the scene for games like Skyrim and Civilisation, which openly encourage it and release tools to help. Fans will never stop modding Nintendo games, regardless of what they do so they should just embrace it, as there’s no advantage to be gained outside of online games with competitive aspects.

@Heavyarms55 and I’d argue against you in that Animal Crossing is about finding ways to do things that are interesting and fun that others haven’t thought of, including getting around rules. Whether perceived or rules that are explicit.

@Dysnomia You're right up until you start breaking the rules.