The Transactional - And Optimizable - Connections Of 'Cozy Video Games'

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Cozy is a vibe. So much so that even video games have been getting cozy.

“Cozy gaming” - a genre of low-stress, relaxing video games focused on comfort and non-violent gameplay, such as farming or decorating - has grown into one of the medium's most popular and commercially successful trends.

In 2016, ConcernedApe released Stardew Valley and introduced us to the pastoral pleasures of farming parsnips and foraging for berries. The lightning-in-a-bottle moment for cozy gaming, however, hit in 2020 with Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It offered players an escape, if only virtually, from the confines of COVID-19 quarantine.

In many ways, this genre subverts typical video game traits by focusing on comfort over high scores, celebrating connection over competition.

But while cozy games offer players the comfort and connection of a social circle, they also structure relationships through systems of exchange where care, friendship and intimacy are earned through repeatable actions.

Rewarding repetition

So, what counts as a cozy video game?

Daniel Cook and other game designers agree that cozy games tend to have high emotional investment: they invite us to care. They also promote a slow pace of play and a focus on sociability, encouraging us to explore these game worlds and pay attention to feelings - not just our own, but also those of the fictional characters we meet.

Repetitive tasks, as the bane of the modern work world, paradoxically make games cozy. Completing small, simple tasks gives us a dopamine rush of satisfaction and achievement, especially when that success isn't tied to real-world stability.

While video game studies scholars have long argued that repetition helps players master difficult challenges in“hard-core” games, repetitive, easy actions in casual gaming can also make play feel meaningful - just in a different way.

Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, two of the best known cozy games of the past decade, demonstrate that planting digital crops and harvesting virtual friendships help us feel invested. Seemingly small gestures in these spaces have a big emotional impact: they remind us it's the little things that matter.

Simulating community

In Stardew Valley - rendered in nostalgic 8-bit graphics - your grandfather bequeaths you his small farm. Settling into the community, you quickly discover how gift-giving, reciprocity and everyday conversation build friendships and potential romances.

Farming, fishing, mining and forestry fit around your daily rounds as you interact with the townsfolk. Each inhabitant of Stardew Valley has their own favourite items, which you can offer to winnow your way into these characters' hearts.

Similarly, Animal Crossing: New Horizons encourages you to connect with your fellow islanders on a lush, deserted island getaway. Its universe is populated with an array of randomly assigned anthropomorphic characters (who also enjoy gifts). Everything, from bunches of weeds to harvested fruit, will earn positive responses, and you're likely to receive luxuries like clothing and furniture in return.

Animal Crossing also facilitates a digital community through island visits. Through Nintendo Switch Online, players can hang out on other people's islands.

This proved a boon during the COVID-19 pandemic, when its popularity skyrocketed - more than 49 million copies have now been sold. Virtually dropping in on real friends while the world socially distanced and restricted travel made many players feel less lonely.

Nintendo has banked on players wanting more of these repetitive tasks and social game play with its recent release, Pokémon Pokopia. As an addition to its lucrative Pokémon franchise, Pokémon Pokopia reframes its capture-and-battle game series about magical creatures through the cozy comforts of gardening, crafting and farming.

Players can curate a charming rural space, befriending Pokémon along the way. Pokémon Pokopia's promotional material exhorts players to“Get to know your Pokémon pals at your own pace as you all work together to build a cozy utopia,” using the marketable language of community and comfort.

Quantifying connections

Comfort, escapism and community have obvious market and player appeal.

And in this way, the rise of the cozy games genre may seem all positive, but these games also offer social ideals that need to be considered critically. Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, for example, encourage users to see intimacy and relationships as quantifiable, even transactional.

Players that accrue friendship points in Animal Crossing: New Horizons get interpersonal perks like nicknames and personal visits. While many neighbourly actions have point value, islanders prefer gifts. Friendship points are invisible in game play, but online guides track the six levels of friendship available. Maxing out friendships gets you gifts in return, and this pattern of investment and exchange shapes the player's activities.

Stardew Valley puts friendship progress on display through bright red heart icons. The game's“Gift Log” formalizes the expectation that players will buy villagers' favour, and its catalogue of loves, likes, neutrals and dislikes ensures gifting is impactful and cost-effective. With trackers built directly into the interface, friendships and romances are represented as achievable tasks, gamified to return new conversations, storylines and yet more gifts.

Managing and maximizing cozy community games' friendship systems may take time, but the end result is material gain.

The Pokémon Pokopia world is no exception. It locks players' access to valuable game resources behind friendships with particular Pokémon: Scyther has the chops to harvest lumber, and Hitmonchan knows how to smash rocks and might just teach your Ditto. By turning friendships into goals, players approach interpersonal connections as extractive, a way to advance in the game and not just a pleasure in itself.

This kind of cozy gaming is clearly big business. For instance, even with its $99.99 retail price, Pokémon Pokopia sold 2.2 million units in its first four days. The genre's broad appeal makes community seem accessible (even if the pricetags aren't).

As a respite from social isolation, economic anxiety or geopolitical instability, cozy games provide players with a soothing fantasy - which might say as much about their anxieties as it does about their needs - one handful of parsnips at a time.

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