> The popularity of farming simulators points to people’s enduring engagement with farming as a way to understand our relationship with the natural world, not j

> The popularity of farming simulators points to people’s enduring engagement with farming as a way to understand our relationship with the natural world, not just a system of food production. Farming has been fundamental [...] This is really overthinking the subject. Simulation games often have really tight, addicting game play loops. The player starts with nothing and has to do everything in a grueling, manual fashion. But each iteration of the game loop, the player gets a minor upgrade that makes them slightly more effective and/or adds an additional challenge to consider. After a few hundred iterations, the player has built a gargantuan automata that handles the core gameplay loop, freeing them up to focus on ancillary projects like decorating or collecting. This is exactly the kind of situation that hammers on the dopamine receptors of a lot of people. Do something challenging, get a reward, then invest that reward to get a better one the next time. It's basically gambling. Farming happens to be a subject that carries a lot of preconceptions, allowing players to pickup the game concepts a lot more quickly without as many tutorials. But there are plenty of simulation games out there with different subjects but similar game play loops. I spent like 40 hours playing a game about salvaging space ships. I don't have any particular desire to be in space not do I like space ships or anything. It just happens to be a game that follows this formula, so it's fun.