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“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” was released during the beginning of a global pandemic and quickly found its calling as an escape for millions when they lost the ability to interact with the real world. Gaming is an incredibly popular hobby and pastime, but society has developed a particular fascination with farming simulators, preferring to unwind from a hard day of work by picking up a virtual shovel and grinding away at tasks. From getting that coveted K. K. Slider concert in “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” to restoring grandpa’s old farm in “Stardew Valley” to designing the perfect base in “Minecraft,” virtual labor provides a sort of instant gratification completely unattainable when measured in proportion to real-life efforts.
The popularity of simulation games is not a new phenomenon but “Stardew Valley,” “Minecraft,” and “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” are still some of the most popular games on the market today. This may be because they, as part of the subcategory of farming simulators, fulfill many of the needs players are being deprived of in the real-life game of staying alive as late-stage capitalism sets in. Part of the success of this sub-genre of simulators may come from the qualities of its parent genre of simulation games, including the ability to exist within and alongside a multitude of other genres and categories. To examine that relationship, it is helpful to start at the beginning.
The Origins Of Simulation Games
Willy Christian Kriz — founder and advisory board member of the Swiss Austrian German Simulation and Gaming Association (SAGSAGA) — explains how the origins of digital simulation games are more relevant to the present day than one might think. Unlike many objects and activities that evolve to eventually render their predecessors extinct, one of the earliest simulation games to exist continues to sell, earning 1.76 billion USD in 2020: “Monopoly” (( Carter, Chase. “Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly had their ‘biggest year ever’ in 2020, Hasbro says.” Dicebreaker. Last modified February 9, 2021. Accessed May 6, 2022. )).
In 1903, Elizabeth Magie created “The Landlord’s Game” based on real estate and taxation. This game, Kriz explains, “is generally regarded as a direct inspiration for the well-known game ‘Monopoly.’” It was originally designed as an educational game to teach players how landlords grew rich at the expense of tenants who remained entangled in poverty. Magie hoped the game would “illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies” and that “playing her game would lead to an understanding of unfairness” (( Kriz, William Christian. “Historical Roots and New Fruits of Gaming and Simulation.” Simulation and Gaming, 5th ser., 48 (2017): 583-87. )).
Kriz goes on to outline exactly how “The Landlord’s Game” became “Monopoly,” which involves very little transformation between versions: “In 1934/35 Magie sold the patent to Parker Brothers who started distributing ‘Monopoly,’ named after the economic concept of monopoly (the domination of a market by a single entity). Players move around the game board buying properties, developing their properties with houses and hotels, and collecting rent from their opponents with the goal to drive all opponents into bankruptcy.” In fact, the largest difference seems to be that today’s “Monopoly” is “played mainly for fun and entertainment [whereas] it was originally designed as a serious learning game” (Kriz 2017).
What Is A Simulation Game?
There is a simulation game for almost everything. Players can become pilots, soldiers, athletes, surgeons, teachers, architects, captains, musicians, parents, artists, or even animals. That list, despite covering a ginormous range of professions, activities, and roles, is quite brief.
The immense popularity of the genre has paved the way for some of the most niche games on the market (this well-reviewed “Rock Simulator” being one), some of them not even existing to mimic reality, but rather to inhabit sheer parody. With the popularity of sites like Twitch where content creators need to not just constantly keep their streams interesting to new and returning viewers, but actively turn those viewers into paying subscribers, simulator parodies have proved to be a hit. Writing for The Gamer, Camron Miller posits that only a few of these “manage to rise to significant notoriety across the world of gaming, usually thanks to popular streamers,” but that “there are hundreds of oddities that can go under the radar” (( Miller, Cameron. “10 Strangest Simulator Games Everyone Should Play.” The Gamer. Last modified December 1, 2021. Accessed May 7, 2022. )).
Such an almost incomprehensible range of content can be difficult to confine to a single category. The label of “simulation” is relatively lax and can theoretically be applied to a range of games so long as they — in some form — simulate an activity. While “Monopoly” may not be the first game that comes to mind when thinking of simulations, experts generally agree that it is considered so because of its efforts to simulate economic and social processes (Kriz 2017). Similarly, “Rock Simulator” does indeed simulate the experience of “being” a rock. Both of these simulators are a far cry from games that might be considered more typical simulators like “The Sims” franchise. With that in mind, there are generally two types of simulation games.
Unrealistic Simulators
A simulator does not necessarily have to be one grounded in reality. “Plague Inc.” is a popular strategy simulation game where players create and evolve diseases with the goal of eliminating all human life. Since its release, the game has engaged over 130 million players (( Totilo, Stephen. “When a Gaming Fantasy Is Easily Close to Reality.” The New York Times. Last modified April 8, 2020. Accessed May 7, 2022. )).
During the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak, journalist Stephen Totilo interviewed players of the game, which had inadvertently become a much more realistic simulator than the developers had intended. Michigan warehouse worker Jimi Mawer had not played “Plague Inc.” for some time when he decided to pick it up again “to see how it would feel to play” after experiencing Covid-19 in real life. “‘It was bleak,” he said, recalling how his virtual success at spreading disease triggered the game’s news ticker to stream fictional headlines about a quarantine in Italy and a breakdown of American society. ‘But even in those moments, if just for 10 or 20 minutes a round, I was the one in control’” (Totilo 2020).
Realistic Simulators
Alternatively, the simulated activity can be hyper-realistic. “Farming Simulator” covers, in grueling detail, the duties of a real-life farmer. Players buy equipment, plow the earth, choose, plant, fertilize, harvest crops, and even raise livestock. NPR’s Jonathan Ahl interviewed gamers and farmers about the popular game, finding a striking similarity between the reasons each group enjoyed the simulator (( Ahl, Jonathan. “This Farming Video Game Is So Popular, People Pay To Watch Gamers Play It.” NPR. Last modified June 22, 2021. Accessed May 7, 2022. )). A.K. Ramming – a gamer and writer with a soft spot for simulators – reviewed “Farming Simulator” and claims the game is “a lot like real farming,” explaining, “The monotony, the tediousness, the length of time it takes to plow a field in a farming sim, it does give you an appreciation for what real farmers have to do, from my experience.” Ahl notes that “monotony” and “tediousness” are “not the kind of words you usually associate with something that people would do for fun” (Ahl 2021).
Despite this, the nitty-gritty details of “Farming Simulator” are one of the biggest factors in its popularity. Ahl explains that actual farmers play and enjoy the game. “Wisconsin farmer Ryan Kuster says he can see why some people love the game. ‘Basically, it’s your own little world where you can plan anything and everything that you want. I think this would be really useful for designing farm layouts, even.’” When he tends his farm in real life, there can be issues, obstacles, and hardships. When he plays “Farming Simulator,” Kuster says, “…it’s real, but not too real. There’s no droughts or floods or insect infestations” (Ahl 2021).
Farming Simulators Without The Farming
Perhaps the strongest connection between unrealistic and realistic simulation games is that players can use them to escape into a situation where they are in full control. Whether they are an astronaut visiting a new planet or renovating a house, players are able to exist in a space with no ambiguity, no responsibilities, and — maybe most importantly — no consequences. There are simulation games for all interests and all levels of skill, making it an incredibly accessible genre.
Farming simulators are not just the literal simulation of cultivating the land. The verb “farm” has evolved to mean many things besides agriculture-related activities, but these definitions do typically follow the same basic premise. Essentially, farming can refer to the — often repetitive — gathering or collecting of something physical or theoretical. For example, in “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” the player farms resources like wood, stone, and iron to craft items, but they also farm relationships with the villagers on their island in order to receive special items. This process gives the player an incredible amount of control over the game’s most basic aspects like what to gather, when to gather, and how to use items gathered. This is unique to farming simulators specifically because if there is a storyline or objective, it is going to be separated from the act of farming. That is to say, farming is typically what players will use to establish and grow revenue or relationships that will then, in turn, allow them to engage in a storyline or objective.
Instant gratification arguably plays a major role in the success of farming simulators no matter what they may be focused on. Players can sit down with a game and emerge mere hours later with more progress than they could make in a lifetime in the real world. Resources replenish in the blink of an eye, crops grow as the player’s character sleeps on a loading screen, and when one fish is caught another appears instantaneously. There is no risk of major physical injury, no risk of confrontation with other people, and — perhaps best of all — no risk of realizing an expensive investment isn’t exactly what you had in mind after all.
“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” And Self-Determination Theory
“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” is arguably the best example of how and why farming simulators are so popular today. Unlike most other farming simulators, ACNH has no real “goal,” and — once players pass a certain point — there is also no storyline. Despite this, there is still a clear path of progression that players can enjoy for essentially an unlimited amount of time.
Once all of the items have been unlocked and crafted, the museum has been fully completed, and the island has been completely terraformed to the player’s specifications, the game can simply be restarted and completed with an end result being an island with an entirely different theme and layout. While it is debated whether or not Nintendo intended for the game to be used in this way, it is an incredibly popular play-style, with players finishing one cycle of the game where their island is a replica of New York City only to turn around and recreate Disney World.
Writing for Screen Rant, Steven Richtmyer describes ACNH as “difficult to compare to other video games” (( Richtmyer, Steven. “Animal Crossing’s Massive Popularity ISN’T Just Because Of Quarantines.” Screen Rant. Last modified August 25, 2020. Accessed May 7, 2022. )) for this same reason. “Players simply move to a remote island and decorate it and their homes to their heart’s content. Doing so, however, can actually be a clunky and needlessly grindy experience. A plethora of the game’s decorative items need to be crafted using resources found across the island but gathering them borders on mindless tedium.
Smacking rocks to gather iron or hitting trees to collect wood isn’t nearly as engaging as solving a complex puzzle in ‘Breath of the Wild,’ or pulling off a devastating combo in ‘Smash Ultimate.’” Because of this, Richtmyer goes on to ask, “Why has ‘Animal Crossing’s’ sales numbers mopped the floor with both of these killer app Switch titles seemingly overnight?” (Richtmyer 2020). In the end, he comes to a similar conclusion, explaining, “Plucking fruit and fishing may be extremely simple tasks, but they work well in ‘Animal Crossing’ because the game rewards players for the time they put into it. As players gather resources and expand their collection of items, they find themselves with far more options for how to design their island than ever before” (Richtmyer 2020).
Launching during the Covid-19 pandemic may have boosted ACNH sales because so many more people were at home and seeking a safe activity that provided socialization and stress relief. Dr. Pete Etchells — a professor of psychology at Bath Spa University and expert on how video games affect mood and behavior — describes “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” as having “no endgame, no final boss,” saying, “[T]his is your own little world, to do with as you please” (( Etchells, Pete. “Why are so many people playing ‘Animal Crossing?'” Science Focus. Last modified June 29, 2020. Accessed May 7, 2022. )).
According to Dr. Etchells, there is a psychological reason why a farming simulator like “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” is so popular: Self-Determination Theory. Developed in the 1980s by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, Self-Determination Theory suggests that some behaviors are driven by external motivation while others are “shaped by more intrinsic forms of motivation — that is, we do some things simply because we enjoy them” (Etchells 2020).
Dr. Etchells describes intrinsic motivation as being built on the foundations of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. He explains that, since the early 2000s, research has shown that video games satisfying these three needs are the most successful. “Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s” nature as “a simple game that doesn’t require a steep learning curve” and having an “open-ended nature of the way that it plays out means that most activities you choose to do in the game you do so for the intrinsic value of doing something relaxing, positive or constructive” (Etchells 2020). He also credits features like not being punished in-game for choosing to avoid certain activities as well as the ability to connect with other players online as two large reasons why the game is such a “soothing, social and imaginative experience” (Etchells 2020).
Ultimately, “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” has taken the world by storm and works as a perfect example to demonstrate why grinding away at farming simulators provides such incredible stress relief from the everyday grind of life.