Stardew Valley was a game that I got to play for the first time thanks to this class. Though I was only able to spend about an hour or two per day for a week to build my farm and relationships with the town members, my personal investment in the game grew by the day — had I had more free time after the week in which we played it, I could definitely see myself pouring hundreds of hours into the game. For me personally, a large part of why I could see myself being hooked by the game was the reward system that is so intrinsically tied to capitalist ideologies.
I found the reading paired with this game to be really interesting, as it illuminated the ways in which the representations of the world and activities of the game are so closely tied to capitalism, and it made me wonder what this game might look like if it were to be stripped of capitalistic ideologies entirely. I can certainly envision a middle ground — if Stardew Valley were to take the elements of Story of Seasons that emphasize the ideas of long-term collectivism such as having rival farmers that help and compete with you, and make the existing independent elements such as rebuilding the community center more communal, Stardew Valley could be a game with fewer capitalistic elements/ideologies built into it with more of a communal aspect to it. Now this sounds like it’d be a really fun game! (in my opinion, at least).
But as a thought experiment, let’s imagine what this game might look like at the extreme end of the spectrum of anti-capitalism. The money system would probably not exist, or if it did, the mechanism of earning or gaining money would likely be independent of the activities you did, and the amount of money you might gain would be fixed regardless of whatever you did that day. You also would likely not have the resources available to deck out your personal farm into something extravagant. Would you be rewarded any differently than a normal day for rebuilding the community center, even if you were helped out by the entire town community? Perhaps this is an oversimplified and a not fully comprehensive perspective on what this game might look like in this hypothetical scenario, but let’s run with it for a second.
I suppose one thing that may not be affected is your relationship with the town members. This is certainly an element of the game that is fun that might not be inherently tied to capitalist or anti-capitalist ideologies. But that aside, if most of the other features of the game would be affected as I hypothesized above — would this type of game still be fun? For me personally, I think not as much as the way Stardew Valley currently stands. A huge part of the fun is the feeling of ownership over your own farm, being rewarded for the work that you put in, and being able to realize that work through tangible representations of it in your personal farm that you can call your own. Perhaps this is just the capitalist ideologies that are so prominent in United States that have been impounded in me since I was a child, but I feel as though this type of fun is inseparable from capitalism. There are ways in which capitalist ideologies can co-exist with ideas of collectivism and community solidarity, as we have seen in Story of Seasons and my hypothesized middle-ground version of Stardew Valley, and I think that to aim for a cohesive mix of both is a good goal for any game to try to achieve.
It is interesting to think about whether capitalism and fun are inherently intertwined. I personally believe that it is possible to feel fulfillment and enjoyment without having to exist within the confines of capitalism. For example, what if the game focused more on deepening our relationships with the characters in the game instead of using its simple heart-based friendship tracking system? Or what if the game made the story quests more fleshed out and made them a bigger focus of the game? I think I would be intrinsically motivated to complete certain objectives not for money, but to deepen my relationships with characters or to move an interesting storyline along. In fact, after a while of playing, I eventually became kind of uninterested in continuing the same old pattern of just making more money with my farm and felt like I was itching to do something deeper in the game.
Hi Jiwon,
I loved reading your blog post and your hypothetical! I think a game where you strip the capitalistic ideologies would end up something similar to Minecraft (minus the trading system). I feel like what makes a capitalism-based game fun are the simple reward systems tied to it, which you did talk a bit about already. Being able to purchase X, Y, Z to progress in the game can make the fruits of your labor worthwhile and feel fun! I do want to try the other game the reading discussed and compare the differences myself too… maybe in a future RWP iteration possibly!
I liked thinking about how what Stardew Valley might be like if it was more anti-capitalistic and commune-like. It was interesting to think about how this game could strip away the capitalistic tendencies, just like how Catan can take away the colonial elements. I think that it’s also interesting that while this game is a critique of capitalism (Jojo Mart) it also does reinforce certain standards, such as you have to make money in this game and the min-maxing that often occurs for high-level players.
I really enjoyed reading your take on a hypothetical version of Stardew Valley! I would agree that it might be very complex to design a game that has less embedded capitalist values, and it would be different from the current game. On one end, a more communal game might involve bartering instead of some shared currency, but then what constitutes an equal exchange? With your hypothetical, I’d be curious to see if a more community-centered game would result in much more difficult design choices.