Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Fun ways to waste time!

Confession time - I'm as addicted as the next person to Facebook, particularly to the various apps (applications, for the uninitiated) they offer, despite K's amused disapproval and warnings on what great time sucks these are. But these apps are fun; they're relaxing; and there are times when you actually get to learn things about people you thought you knew - who's competitive, who's obsessive, who's bitchy, for instance.

Farmville, my favourite - and that, I suspect of thousands of others - is, as the name suggests, all about farming and the farm life. You have your own plot where you grow cereals, fruits, vegetables; plant all sorts of trees; and tend to your livestock. The trees and animals/birds mostly come as gifts from friends, who are your Farmville neighbours, while the seeds you buy from the market. You buy at lower rates and sell at market prices, thus increasing your store of FV coins and cash - with that money, you grow your farm, buy all sorts of essentials (like wells, hay wagons, fences, etc.) and buildings (like your own little cottage, or a barn for the cows), and steadily climb up levels (because all this activity rewards you with experience points). You work on your neighbours' farms for coins and XP, which is fun - and it also gives you an opportunity to see what they've been up to on their farms. It is competitive, since you are climbing levels, after all - and you can crow over each achievement on your home page - but on the whole, it is a peaceful, happy, friendly game. Unlike some other farming games (yes, there are more - many more!) where you can actually sabotage your neighbours' crops and steal their animals! (closes eyes in horror)

Sorority Life, on the other hand, is not so - well - friendly, or peaceful, or happy. As the name suggests, it is about joining sororities, and asking your friends to be your sisters - you can dress your avatar in cool clothes, get a cool job, and 'socialise' for money and influence points, which again helps you climb levels. But here's the flipside - it is fiercely competitive, and downright bitchy. You can 'fight' other girls - especially those with houses smaller than yours - and each win nets you cash and more influence. And, as my house is pitiably small, I tend to be 'fought' rather often, and 'destroyed' with dismal frequency. You learn some rather amusing details of American life - for instance, a waitress makes more money than a research assistant, and therefor is a more lucrative career option; and being an art gallery intern, however exciting that sounds, ranks way down than a wedding planner. The game cleverly stokes the competitiveness that's unfortunately inherent between women while harping, at the same time, on sisterhood and solidarity - and while Sorority Life is the only place where I (or my avatar, to be precise) can dress in Christian Dior, wear Manolo Blahnik sandals, carry a Prada bag and drive a Cadillac Escalade in this lifetime, this game is getting a tad too annoying - and boring - for me.

But why, as I was asking K recently, do resolutely urban people, who take pride in their country's rapid urbanisation, their mushrooming malls, branded clothes, pedigree dogs and fancy cars, get addicted to a game about farming and tending animals? Granted, you're not really expected to muck out or get down and dirty in real fields - everything's done with the click of the mouse in air-conditioned confines - but still, farming?? Seriously? Because it represents an idyll, K said, that we all secretly - and some of us not so secretly - long for; or is perhaps because you can be in total control of what goes on in your farm, without having to contend with, say, the vagaries of the monsoons, a control you cannot extend to any other aspect of your life; or perhaps because a gentle, friendly game like Farmville takes one away from the relentless competition and expectations that permeate most people's lives.

Or perhaps I'm reading way too much into an essentially mindless game that is, above all else, FUN! :D

7 comments:

COMPOS MENTIS said...

i couldn't have agreed more with what you have said, including K's opinion that we all long for the idyllic.

Unknown said...

Considering my current favourite games are Sims 3 and Hitman: Blood Money (stealth/action; where I'm basically an assassin!!), I guess I cannot get high and mighty about farming games. ;-)

I've tried long and hard to figure out why we like the games we do -- do we want to live our lives in different ways? do we really want to be hired killers? do we want to know what it's like to bring up kids without having any? -- but I figure the easiest thing to accept is that it's just FUN! Plain, mindless fun where you're not accountable for the consequences if your farm animals get stolen, you forget to feed your baby, or if the wrong person gets killed!

A very cool cat said...

CM - So join Farmville, then! Be my neighbour! :) I mean, we're already sorority sisters! :D

PD - There's this game on FB called Mafia Wars, which sounds sort of like your Blood Money - I've been receiving invitations, but I really don't think I can handle any more games when there are deadlines to be met as well! I think part of the attraction is definitely doing - and being - someone we're not, and something we'll never do - like murdering people or being a wealthy, snobby sorority babe. But yes, I guess at the end of the day it's about relaxation - and that's why I find the thought of spending real money to get Farmville cash or brownie points so absurd. Let's not forget that it's just a game!

Mukta Dutta said...

Think i can now safely say that i am in the waning period of farmville addiction - i am now at the stage where i concentrate more on beautification than on gaining experience. hmm i dont think i ever really thought i was living my dream of farming in my own farm or even planting flowers in my garden (even that seems too much to hope for these days) while i was farmvilling. it was the sheer mindlessness of the game - the most i needed to exert my brains was when i calculated whether i was maintaining a profit margin - that made me check my farm between work. Guess life is so hectic that its a respite to have things to do which involve least heart ache and exertion...hmm and i guess the friendly competition initially with you and the rest of my neighbours also offered some excitement ... until some began to lag behind and others got so much ahead that it was difficult to keep up. But i think if fv competition had been aggressive and dirty i wudnt have had as much fun. i mean i dont want any more aggression in my life than i have to deal with already inadvertently..

A very cool cat said...

Mukta, if this is your waning stage, then I honestly can't imagine what your aggressive stage must have been like!!! Right now, I'm one of those seriously 'lagging behind'! :D

But ya, what really appeals to my about FV, which is by far my favourite game, is the friendliness - instead of attacking people and making rude remarks and fighting, you actually get points for helping out your neighbours! And I love this new crop fertilisation thing! And, of course, I love it that my avatar moves around, as do my animals and birds, instead of being this stationary cut-out!

Unknown said...

This, a comment from someone who's never been even on the outskirts of Farmville. I've had a look at Pro's farm - and it's, like, cute, very cute, and involving. But it's also very plastic: it reminds me of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, where animals (and crops) are bionic creations, cloned by order for humongous sums of money. I want a farm, yes, but I want it with the sweet smell of crop and the stench of compost. Farmville is ridiculous for the simple reason that it pulls people into a world that most will never have, leave alone approximate, but one that they would lop off their right arm for. And for that reason alone, as my better three-quarters - my infinitely beloved and infinitely altruistic wife - says I think it is, it's a timesuck, a way to heighten my sadness about a world that is not and, given our suicidal destructiveness, will never be.

And now that Farmville has green 'alien' cows, how much more absurd do you think this will get? Alien turnips? Or genetically modified homeless platypuses? When do Farmvillians get to choose which crops to plant, according to socioeconomic impact?

And why are so many people moving out of FV?

A very cool cat said...

People are moving out of FV? Seriously? Most people on my list are joining in - my neighbours keep increasing. And many who'd just joined and never really played are now suddenly playing with a passion.

Yes, FV is plastic. Yes, it's a purely computer-generated notion of a farm - and that, really, is why I think it appeals to people. Do you think the ones addicted to the game would ever agree to live on a real farm? To wade in muck and slush, milk cows, clean out bovine and equine and porcine shit, spend blazing hot days in the fields, go through the heartbreak of losing crops to natural calamities? I don't think so. And that's the point - no one expects it to simulate reality. It's a game, a fun game - which is why the bright green alien cows (which I love, btw). I agree it's a waste of time, and has a curiously dumbing-down effect - I feel stupider on days I spend most of my time playing - but it's just a game, it's relaxing, it's fun - and it's friendly.