The Meaning of Time in Casual Farming Games

The Meaning of Time in Casual Farming Games

Alesja SeradaEuropean Humanities University

Visual Culture & Creative Industries

Two Viewpoints on Casual Farming Games

1. Silly people kill time by clicking cows.(…And they are not even gamers!..)(…And they are being exploited by greedy

and immoral developers!..)

2. Dedicated players exchange their time for the value they recognize, as an alternative to spending this time on even less rewarding (digital) labor.

(…And many of them enjoy it a lot.)

Time vs. Labor vs. ValueMarx: time →labor →value“Capital” (1867)

Lukacs: time →labor→space“History and Class Consciousness” (1923)

Bourdieu: time →cultural meaning →symbolic value →social capital“The Logic of Practice” (1980)“Capital is accumulated labor”“Forms of Capital” (1986)

This Is Casual!

The Structure of a Farming Game

Crop Growth Time

Player vs. Developer• Has the right to leave

the game at any moment.

• Judges ‘fairness’ of the game

• Chooses between paying and ‘earning’ rewards

• Gains social capital by working and/or paying

• Constructs engagement (years ahead)

• Controls the progress of the player

• “Sparks desire”• Capitalizes on the

gamer’s social capital• Is doomed by the need

for “endless content”

Games as a Service:

A High Level Game Quest

Commodities• Time-based

commodities• The player buys

“condensed labor”• The player could just

pay someone else to play for him/her.

• Desire-based commodities

• The player buys “objects of prestige”

• The player could do without these objects (but they are so desirable!..)

Game Economy• MMO RPGs: open

economy• There is space for free

market• Auction-based (or

demand-based) pricing• Frequent crises that are

managed post-factum• “Digital sweatshops”

(Gallaway)

• Free-to-play games: “plan economy”

• Platform limitations: the player can only buy from the developer

• All prices are set by the developer, and they are fixed

• Controlled inflation to monetize the game

• Lesser financial risks on both sides

Takeaway• The player's time is discrete and quantified, and

the process of its fragmentation turns the player's time into value.

• There is time-based capital accumulation for non-paying players and demand-based pricing economy for paying players.

• “Soft” and “hard’ currencies are an instrument of estrangement of the player’s labor in favor of the developer.

Play vs. Labor:Has There Ever Been

Any “Hard Line”?(Do we still trust Huizinga?)

Thank you!Feel free to ask me how to exploit people and take their money :)

alesja.serada@gmail.com@snavidna