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> Cozy games are therefore a centrist1 critique of capitalism. They present a world with the prosperity, but without the cruelty. More importantly though, by vi

> Cozy games are therefore a centrist1 critique of capitalism. They present a world with the prosperity, but without the cruelty. More importantly though, by virtue of the fact that people actually play them in large numbers, they demonstrate that the cruelty is actually unnecessary. No, they demonstrate that games are not real life. And the people who play Animal Crossings are just a subset of real people.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Indeed. In animal crossing, the player doesn't feel the characters cold, hunger, head aches, sleep deprivation or flue. The player doesn't really experience the dreadful responsibility for a kid not to die, the requirement to fill forms, queue with irritated people, be stuck in traffic or the sub every day, etc. And above that, the interactions are in this context. Nobody tries to hit on your girlfriend who you built your life with, no divorce can take half of your house, no firing send you back to your country because your visa depend on it. You don't have an asshole boss, an entitled customer, an asshole clerk or a depressed librarian. Prosperity is easier when things are predictable, you have low risk and people are homogeneous. E.G: it's easier to live as a Swiss in your own country than as Tunisian refugee in china.
- wharvle 3y ago
  You don’t get dirty when you plant a tree in Animal Crossing and have to do a bunch of extra laundry. No grit under your nails that sticks around for a couple days and sometimes ends up in your food. You don’t pull a muscle and spend a whole week miserable. You don’t get blisters. You don’t want to go plant a tree but then you can’t for real-life days on end because the weather is bad. You don’t get mosquito bites, or worry about ticks maybe giving you a debilitating illness. You don’t have to go find the shovels, mulch, scrap cardboard, whatever. Maybe craft a shovel, but that may take less time than walking to the garage. It’s a minute or less to reach the spot you want to plant it. You will not dig and hit a big rock and have to relocate, or have to worry about hitting utilities. The tree’s roots will not trash your sidewalk if you plant it in the wrong place. The tree will not fail to grow. “Work” in video games is rarely anything at all like real life “work”, even before you layer on workplace bureaucracy and regulations and stuff. There’s no mess, no danger, (generally) no actual costs, and usually you can’t really screw it up, and if you do, there are no actual consequences. Stuff like travel times or how long it takes to do boring tasks are usually compressed.
goatlover 3y ago
This. And laziness certainly exists in varying forms. Some people don't want to be part of the social contract at all.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  > Some people don't want to be part of the social contract at all Don't these people either have much less or work much harder (alone) by opting out? By my significant other's standards, I was very lazy in Animal Crossing... all I wanted to do was plant flowers. They wanted to build a neighborhood and collect all the furniture. I didn't grind as much, but I also wanted less.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

Indeed. In animal crossing, the player doesn't feel the characters cold, hunger, head aches, sleep deprivation or flue. The player doesn't really experience the dreadful responsibility for a kid not to die, the requirement to fill forms, queue with irritated people, be stuck in traffic or the sub every day, etc. And above that, the interactions are in this context. Nobody tries to hit on your girlfriend who you built your life with, no divorce can take half of your house, no firing send you back to your country because your visa depend on it. You don't have an asshole boss, an entitled customer, an asshole clerk or a depressed librarian. Prosperity is easier when things are predictable, you have low risk and people are homogeneous. E.G: it's easier to live as a Swiss in your own country than as Tunisian refugee in china.

wharvle 3y ago
You don’t get dirty when you plant a tree in Animal Crossing and have to do a bunch of extra laundry. No grit under your nails that sticks around for a couple days and sometimes ends up in your food. You don’t pull a muscle and spend a whole week miserable. You don’t get blisters. You don’t want to go plant a tree but then you can’t for real-life days on end because the weather is bad. You don’t get mosquito bites, or worry about ticks maybe giving you a debilitating illness. You don’t have to go find the shovels, mulch, scrap cardboard, whatever. Maybe craft a shovel, but that may take less time than walking to the garage. It’s a minute or less to reach the spot you want to plant it. You will not dig and hit a big rock and have to relocate, or have to worry about hitting utilities. The tree’s roots will not trash your sidewalk if you plant it in the wrong place. The tree will not fail to grow. “Work” in video games is rarely anything at all like real life “work”, even before you layer on workplace bureaucracy and regulations and stuff. There’s no mess, no danger, (generally) no actual costs, and usually you can’t really screw it up, and if you do, there are no actual consequences. Stuff like travel times or how long it takes to do boring tasks are usually compressed.

goatlover 3y ago

This. And laziness certainly exists in varying forms. Some people don't want to be part of the social contract at all.

micromacrofoot 3y ago
> Some people don't want to be part of the social contract at all Don't these people either have much less or work much harder (alone) by opting out? By my significant other's standards, I was very lazy in Animal Crossing... all I wanted to do was plant flowers. They wanted to build a neighborhood and collect all the furniture. I didn't grind as much, but I also wanted less.