In the game Stardew Valley, you clear fields overgrown with weeds. You smash stones and chop down trees. You till the soil. You plant and water crops. You harvest. You build new additions to the homestead. You care for animals. Day in and day out. Sure, these responsibilities are punctuated with the levity of fishing, town festivals, cave explorations, courtship, marriage, and raising a child, but this never-ending cycle of digital labor is the beating heart of Stardew Valley. While it certainly doesn’t compare to the difficulties of actual farming, the rote gameplay can still be very chore-like. So why do hundreds of thousands of people want to spend their real-world leisure time working?
Psychologist Jamie Madigan, writing for his website The Psychology of Gaming, believes it all comes down to personal choice. Actual work may be stressful, but imaginary work like the kind in Stardew Valley is much more satisfying, Dr. Madigan argues, because it removes “the worst of the uncertainty, helplessness, ambiguity, and consequences for failure that come with those real-world jobs” from the equation.
“Because they specifically can’t offer you a paycheck,” Dr. Madigan posits, “video games have to rely on the kinds of experiences that every employee longs for and every enlightened manager wishes she could provide: engagement and internal motivators. Why does a gamer slay that giant, radioactive scorpion? Why does he keep trying until he can beat his friend’s best time on a race track? Why does she keep mining materials so he can eventually upgrade her spaceship’s hyperdrive? Because he wants to. Because she has chosen to.”
Put simply, video games provide “clear goals, unambiguous feedback, winnable…
Read the full article here