[HN Gopher] The Anthropology of Farming Simulator
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The Anthropology of Farming Simulator
Author : CapitalistCartr
Score : 56 points
Date : 2022-10-03 14:52 UTC (8 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.sapiens.org)
| adra wrote:
| With so few death cage fighters, why are there so many brawler
| games? With so few wanting to be soldiers, why are there so many
| shooters? Pedantic question to pedantic answers.
|
| But my real answer would be that some people are over stimulated
| at work, and some are over. The understimulated one's I think
| gravitate to the "grand feats" type of games while those who are
| overstimulated at work are more looking for either laid back or
| mundane games to play. All these "_ life sim" games are generally
| in that mundane category and that's the audience most captive for
| these forms of entertainment.
| mradek wrote:
| Experience the risk without actually taking any risk.
|
| Although, I can offer an anecdote. I really enjoy playing truck
| simulators, namely American and European Truck Simulator. I had
| to drive a large box truck recently and I found it super easy -
| the high up position, looking at the mirrors to back up and
| parallel park perfectly, and the joy of the open road. Then I
| realized that truck drivers do this every day for weeks on end
| as a job. Really appreciate the folks who keep our economy
| moving.
| jerf wrote:
| I think one of the underappreciated issues with the 21st
| century economy is how many of us do the same thing, day in,
| day out, hyperoptimized to the point it's economically hard
| to justify switching tasks. (Or, perhaps more accurately, the
| 20th century economy, which is still largely with us.)
|
| Do a little of this today, a little of that tomorrow, even a
| little of this and that within a day, and I feel like we
| could all tolerate a bit more mundanity (for lack of a better
| word) in our lives. Cut vegetables, drive a truck, pump
| sewage, work a factory line, it'd all be easier if we weren't
| doing the same thing all the time, 40+ hours a week.
| m463 wrote:
| > economically hard to justify switching tasks.
|
| I vaguely remember some factories would not let workers
| change jobs once they got good at them, to their detriment
| (with carpal tunnel and other RSIs)
| bluGill wrote:
| That is less so now that factories are more automated.
| The factory I used to work at (not in, but same building)
| bragged that within 3 months everyone had done every
| station once. While a little productivity is lost because
| of experience, the boredom factor means less people quit
| and so overall they do better
| registeredcorn wrote:
| Generally I get what you're saying, but do keep in mind that
| there are some life sim games that are _extremely_ high on
| stimulation.
|
| Endless ATC, Firefighting Simulator: The Squad, Transport Inc.,
| Cold Waters, The Invisible Hand, and 112 / 911 operator, and
| Tin Can come to mind. There's also "study sims" like DCS World
| which push you _really_ far into the simulation thing, both in
| requiring a high degree of competence and in the amount of
| stimulation you have flying a mission.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| It can't just be work, given the popularity of video games with
| kids who don't have jobs yet. I guess you can speculate under
| or over-stimulation of life in total, but that definitely
| doesn't comport at least with my personal experience. I played
| a bunch of sports as a kid and played video games about sports
| on top of that. When I was a real Soldier in a tank unit, a
| whole bunch of the tankers played video games involving tank
| combat. Plenty of infantry played first-person shooters.
|
| Some people just enjoy what they already do and want to do even
| more of it in a way that doesn't create additional physical
| hardship and risk.
| flashgordon wrote:
| Actually I never thought of it this way. When I feel very
| understimulated at work (most of the time) I tend to have a ton
| of side projects and/or play the action kinda games. Bringing
| balance to stimulation is definitely an interesting
| persepecive.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I thought age was a factor. In my youth I had way more patience
| for the likes of Harvest Moon, and enjoyed the roleplay.
| However, I didn't know what to expect. I wanted to develop and
| customize the virtual property, pursue virtual relationships.
| At a certain point you can't help but see the games for what
| they are. I quickly grew bored with the repetitive menial
| tasks. I liked the "idea" of a game like that, but not what it
| amounted to. Now I can say the same for most jrpgs.
| shagie wrote:
| I don't play Farming Simulator (though an older copy of it is
| sitting in my steam library)... I do play American Truck
| Simulator.
|
| For ATS, there's a certain relaxing of "just driving". You've got
| a goal, and simple, well defined tasks - go here, pick up the
| load, go there, deliver the load. The 'go there' part is largely
| an autopilot of a few decades of driving experience with a bit of
| "ok, this is different" when dealing with something that has a
| large trailer.
|
| For the most part, its something I can play without needing to do
| any deeper problem solving. To that end, the game is relaxing.
|
| With the nature of the game, its also something that one can "do"
| - there are few impossible tasks unlike what one encounters with
| a day job. The consequences for not completing something is a few
| points however they are measured - but rarely game ending (and in
| many cases, that's resolved with a save file).
|
| It is about getting something 'realistic' _done_ in today 's
| world of ever increasing demands.
|
| (very late edit)
|
| My current gaming binge is Hardspace Ship Breaker - which is a
| game about being a shipbreaker for space ships. Its got the "this
| can be routine" (though if you mess up the reactor it can get
| very interesting very fast).
|
| Ship breaking ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_breaking ) is
| in the category of most dangerous jobs and space ships are
| obviously not realistic. But it's the game that you can just get
| into the grove and _do_. One of the best things about the game
| (for me) is that it is 15 minute shifts. So you can easily say
| "I'll play this game for 15 minutes on lunch break" and as long
| as you stick to one shift, that's 15 minutes. The shift _ends_
| and its done.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Its obviously not as light on the problem solving, but this is
| why I keep playing Kerbal Space Program.
|
| I'll admit, I play with the Mechjeb autopilot for doing most
| maneuvers because they get so repetitive. But it's fun to have
| an alarm clock full of different missions and switching between
| the different things you have in progress.
|
| Then I ran out of places to go so I wrote (and eventually
| handed off) the Kopernicus mod to allow for more planets to be
| added and the community keeps making more interesting places to
| go!
| ok_dad wrote:
| One of my favorite things in KSP a while back used to be
| building whole communications systems to slowly blanket the
| system with automated rovers and ships. I would program
| flight computers using mods on them and never actually
| controlled any of them directly at all. It was pretty easy to
| program missions where you did standard "take off, go into
| orbit, transfer to another body, land, detach rover..." etc.
| I miss that, and perhaps I need to invest in a gaming PC
| again and sell my console before PS5's are ubiquitous in
| stores.
| bm3719 wrote:
| I feel the same about ATS. In fact, I wish it was even _more_
| boring, like real driving is. ATS has an unrealistic amount of
| curves and shortens the distances between cities that in real
| life would take many hours to travel between.
|
| It also is devoid of any of the (often catastrophic) downsides
| of making a mistake in real life. Turns out driving can be
| relaxing and fun if you remove anxiety involving death, injury,
| and property damage. Perhaps the same applies to farming sims.
| mr_cyborg wrote:
| You need to check out Desert Bus.
| m463 wrote:
| lol
|
| > The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson,
| Arizona, to Las Vegas, Nevada, in real time at a maximum
| speed of 45 mph (72 km/h). The feat requires eight hours of
| continuous play in real time to complete.
|
| > If the player makes it to Las Vegas, one point is scored.
| The player has the option to make the return trip to Tucson
| for another point, a decision which must be made in a few
| seconds or the game ends.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller%27s_Smoke_and
| _...
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| > In fact, I wish it was even more boring, like real driving
|
| A realistic driving simulator from Omaha to Cheyenne would be
| pretty boring, I'll give you that.
| Tade0 wrote:
| How about from Tucson, Arizona, to Las Vegas, Nevada?
| tialaramex wrote:
| Note that in reality this is probably rather _less_
| boring than Desert Bus makes it look because the game
| deliberately over-simplifies the route. For a start
| Phoenix is in between Tucson and Las Vegas, but if you
| head that way you 're also going over the Hoover Dam
| which is a bit more interesting than Desert Bus.
|
| Now, you could head south of Phoenix, and mostly avoid
| anything interesting, but you still have a few
| intersections and so on, this is not one endless road
| into the desert.
|
| Which isn't to say it'd be a compelling experience, even
| the Hoover Dam route would be extremely boring for most
| of the duration.
| davesque wrote:
| I think one reason people like farming games (and games in
| general really) is that they're fair. You perform a set of
| actions and get a reward. Sure, some games feel sort of unfair if
| they're poorly designed. But I think all video games are fair in
| the sense that they're deterministic. And I know that when I've
| enjoyed playing farming games, I enjoy the sense of growth that I
| know is guaranteed to those that learn the rules. Real life is
| not the same. You can follow all the rules, play fair, and still
| lose.
| speeder wrote:
| For me it is because I found no way to own a real farm. I would
| love to have one, but couldn't figure out how to get one.
|
| Sad part of that is that I have a bunch of relatives that do own
| farms, but have no interest in farming, the only reason they have
| those farms is so they can wait the land price to raise before
| they sell it eventually.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Yeah farming is a several million dollar investment in land and
| equipment, for the dubious privilege of being lower-middle-
| class
| bequanna wrote:
| Lower middle class?
|
| Come to Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, etc and visit a farm.
| Their reported annual income may be small because of
| amortization/depreciation, but net worth is very typically
| several million.
|
| If you're a poor farmer, you're not doing it right.
| AngryData wrote:
| Their net worth doesn't really reflect their income though.
| Most farms are running on sub 1% profit margins. You dump 5
| million dollars on your fields and you would consider
| $50,000 profit a successful year.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Yes exactly my point. Net worth is because of the
| enormous up-front investment. Cash flow does not justify
| that investment.
|
| And yes, I'm from Iowa.
| pwinnski wrote:
| "With so few ghosts, why is Pac-man so popular?"
|
| "With so few alien invaders, why are video games about invading
| aliens so popular?"
|
| "With so few NFL teams, why are video games about managing NFL
| teams so popular?"
| emrah wrote:
| Because a lot of people want to buy a farm and grow their own
| food and cattle, live with nature in nature yada yada. But they
| realize they either can't afford it or it's too difficult
| physically. Games offer an alternative. It's not the real deal
| but the brain makes it sort of real and that's good enough for
| some. They can live the fantasy without any of the cow dodo
| ISL wrote:
| Precisely because so many people would like to farm, small-scale
| farming is a brutal economic environment. In that respect, it
| isn't terribly different from academia -- people are doing it for
| love and the experience, not for money.
|
| Simulating the farming experience without the massive financial
| risk (and the back-breaking work/unforgiving hours) gives some of
| that joy without most of the downside.
|
| If you're willing to volunteer to cover night-time calving for
| cattle in snowstorms in February, you can probably get the real
| experience for free.
| junon wrote:
| I love dogs. I don't want a dog (yet, I guess). It's a huge
| commitment. If I get a chance to periodically interact with a dog
| - just the good parts, especially, such as petting, playing,
| running around, etc. - then I'm going to take it. It still
| doesn't mean I want to adopt a dog.
|
| Apply this to being a farmer, which is a lot of work, and weigh
| this against the barrier to entry of being a farmer for just a
| few hours every so often, vs. doing it digitally.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| These games almost never include the really shitty parts, even
| the "realistic" ones.
|
| Running to the farm & feed store (perhaps an hour round trip,
| or even more, depending on where you are, and it's getting in
| the way of getting actual work done) for something or another,
| mending fences, grading drive-ways and other roads, cleaning
| yourself and your clothes and boots up after you get covered in
| mud, cleaning equipment, getting tractors un-stuck, _repairing_
| tractors, and so on.
|
| And what they do include is a button press, not a process. Hook
| up a discer? Back up to it and press the button. No getting
| out, screwing with chocks and some kind of device or another
| for raising the tongue into place. No pinching the shit out of
| your hand because you were careless.
|
| No weed-eating around equipment that's parked outside. No re-
| painting the barn. No re-sealing some screw holes in the sheet
| metal roof that've been leaking. No diagnosing and fixing a
| slipped belt on the combine. No tossing square bales onto a
| trailer.
|
| No cuts on your arms from corn leaves. No itchiness from
| handling straw. No hay (ha, ha) fever. No spending an entire
| morning getting one damn cow or another in the chute for the
| veterinarian.
|
| These "realistic" simulators still almost always cut out all
| the worst crap that's the reason people don't have tons and
| tons of fun doing it in real life. The stuff you do in the game
| is maybe 5-10% of what you _really_ do.
| htrp wrote:
| Man I can already feel the anger at having to repaint that
| fence.....
| dylan604 wrote:
| You just described having grandkids vs having your own kid! A
| niece/nephew is similar as well. Be the cool aunt/uncle, be the
| grandparent that feeds the kids sugar just before the parents
| come to collect them, or any of the other ways of enjoying the
| time with the kiddos but being able to get back for all the
| times the kid/sibling was an ass to you!
| ksec wrote:
| Not only that. The economics side of it. Not everyone could
| afford a dog. It is quite a bit of money, from the space
| required for living to the food and medical care.
|
| Also in farming. I do think there are people who like the hard
| work and simple life. But as a business it is terrible.
| zdragnar wrote:
| $400 a month in food (two large dogs, both turned out to need
| specialty diets) gets old fast.
|
| That said, I dearly love my dogs and am trying rather hard to
| not think about the tens of thousands of dollars I will end
| up spending _just on food alone_.
| josefresco wrote:
| >If I get a chance to periodically interact with a dog - just
| the good parts, especially, such as petting, playing, running
| around, etc. - then I'm going to take it.
|
| I had a couple of dogs who died of old age. I couldn't bring
| myself to get another dog so instead we dog sit! We use the
| Rover app and it's been pretty awesome. You get to be a "doggy
| grandparent" for a couple days, spoil the crap out of them and
| then poof! They go back to their owners and you don't have to
| deal with all their BS (because let's be honest: almost every
| dog his it's own BS)
| liampulles wrote:
| My father was a farmer. Pretty stressful business in real life -
| not fun when your ostriches get bird flu. But a farm is certainly
| a beautiful break from city life.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Transforming a piece of land and raising animals is fun and
| rewarding, hence why people garden and have pets. Unfortunately
| modern farming requires you to sacrifice the aesthetic and humane
| in order to be profitable unless you can build a dedicated
| clientele of people willing to pay a 400% markup for your food,
| or your farm's actual business is agro-tourism/goat yoga/etc.
| bequanna wrote:
| Not true.
|
| Organic agriculture/horticulture on a scale large enough to
| survive is definitely possible and best practices are usually
| well-documented by your state's extension.
|
| Conventional, factory farming is "easier" and more widespread,
| so there is more comfort in numbers doing that.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Videogames allow you to do stuff you wouldn't in real life. There
| are a lot of non-farmers out there.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| A huge difference between a game and a job is that you can quit
| the game at any time without consequences. That creates an
| entirely different state of mind.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Imagined social relations.
| makz wrote:
| Because videogame farming is unlike real farming, the boring,
| tedious, hard parts are taken away.
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| Have you played farming simulator? I'd rather do real farming,
| but I don't have the capital to invest in that sort of
| equipment, so I guess farming simulator it is then.
| nightski wrote:
| I'm not even sure it has anything to do with that. Boring &
| tedious parts exist in many video games.
|
| IMO, It's that you don't need to buy millions in assets using
| debt to generate a profit at great risk based on many factors
| that you have no control over.
| croes wrote:
| Knowing the difference between a job and a game.
| throw0101a wrote:
| _Penny Arcade_ had a comic on this recently:
|
| * https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2022/09/16/farm-minimizat...
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Yeah, why aren't there more games about making spreadsheets and
| powerpoints? Obviously, there's EVE Online, but that's only one
| game.
| josefresco wrote:
| I read an article a while back that asked a farmer why he works
| all day and then comes home to play a farming sim. He basically
| said in the "real world" things constantly go wrong, but in the
| sim it's much smoother/easier etc. I _totally_ get it.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| From this I gather the reason is quite simple: air conditioning.
| NDizzle wrote:
| For me, it's Snow Runner. Mud Runner had a more challenging UI.
| Snow Runner is a bit better. Not perfect, but better.
|
| You have simple tasks and an open world for you to decide how to
| accomplish the task. There's typically an easy way, which
| requires more time to complete due to the travel distance
| involved. And then you can scale all the way up however difficult
| you want.
|
| And then there's the recovery effort, when your "it didn't look
| that deep/muddy/steep" plan falls through.
|
| I do like the farming games though. Or at least I did, until I
| bought 5 acres in the country and got out here. Now if I get the
| itch for a farming game, I do some kind of project.
| mbfg wrote:
| The idea of farming is very alluring, Be your own boss, live a
| healthy lifestyle with family, produce something very useful for
| society.
|
| The reality of farming is that of a death trap. Brutal work, low
| pay, total imprisonment.
|
| (Except potentially for the biggest of operations, don't know
| about that).
|
| There's a common quip...
|
| It is very easy to become a millionaire as a farmer, it's a two
| step process.
|
| 1) Be a billionaire 2) Buy a farm
| mywittyname wrote:
| > The popularity of farming simulators points to people's
| enduring engagement with farming as a way to understand our
| relationship with the natural world, not just a system of food
| production. Farming has been fundamental [...]
|
| This is really overthinking the subject.
|
| Simulation games often have really tight, addicting game play
| loops. The player starts with nothing and has to do everything in
| a grueling, manual fashion. But each iteration of the game loop,
| the player gets a minor upgrade that makes them slightly more
| effective and/or adds an additional challenge to consider. After
| a few hundred iterations, the player has built a gargantuan
| automata that handles the core gameplay loop, freeing them up to
| focus on ancillary projects like decorating or collecting.
|
| This is exactly the kind of situation that hammers on the
| dopamine receptors of a lot of people. Do something challenging,
| get a reward, then invest that reward to get a better one the
| next time. It's basically gambling.
|
| Farming happens to be a subject that carries a lot of
| preconceptions, allowing players to pickup the game concepts a
| lot more quickly without as many tutorials. But there are plenty
| of simulation games out there with different subjects but similar
| game play loops.
|
| I spent like 40 hours playing a game about salvaging space ships.
| I don't have any particular desire to be in space not do I like
| space ships or anything. It just happens to be a game that
| follows this formula, so it's fun.
| Apreche wrote:
| Because with virtual farming you don't have to shovel poop. You
| can also harvest an entire field with one mouse click. Pretty
| obvious why few people want to actually become farmers. Despite
| all the mechanization, it's still difficult, dangerous, and
| dirty.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Right, because when you fail in a game, you just insert another
| $.25 and continue. When the crops fail for a real farmer, there
| is no spawn point to start over. It might literally cost them
| the farm.
| bequanna wrote:
| Not exactly.
|
| In the US, subsidized crop insurance lowers the risk of low
| yields and provides a nice safety net.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Yes, this is why so many small family farms are being sold
| out to corpFarm left, right, center.
| bequanna wrote:
| I guess I'm not familiar with this. I live in northern
| midwestern farm country (corn/soybean fields) and can see
| some consolidation, but still almost all family farms.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Besides "Americas army" there really arent any video games with
| an intention of bringing you to the profession. It's really just
| about having fun. I do recall a US general talking about how this
| doesn't work and the overweight/obesity epidemic amongst gamers
| is a huge impediment to enrollment. Video games aside.
|
| Really the question, why so few farmers?
|
| Government education has specifically trained and discouraged
| people from becoming farmers, intentionally reducing the number
| of farmers.
|
| Biosciences has made farming quite unprofitable. The use of
| fertilizers, gmos, pesticides, etc have made a small time farmer
| basically unprofitable compared to the farmer with 80,000 acres
| and large machines.
|
| There are better professions to earn a living. Hell, the cost of
| startup is ridiculous. ~86 acres near where i live is $5 million.
|
| You also cant really live near cities. There's no rockstars
| coming to rural canada. You have to live in toronto to get those
| rockstars. Good internet is also not in rural areas.
|
| But then you also have governments actively taxing farmers to
| tremendous degree. For example, Carbon taxes disproportionately
| impact a farmer's old diesel in his massive tractor compared to a
| econobox tiny car. Farmers obviously don't care. A wide carbon
| tax like that ends up in the consumer's hands as food inflation.
|
| https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/food-inflation
|
| Basically nobody has normal/low food inflation because of this.
|
| Then you have the 'fertilizer reductions'...
| https://wheatgrowers.ca/advocacy-resources/fertilizer-reduct...
|
| IF you work in an industry where the government is actively
| screwing you over so much. You choose a new profession right
| away. Hence no farmers.
| cybaz wrote:
| I met a guy once who was a roofer. He told me "Putting on roofs
| is the easy part. It's the making a living doing it that's tough"
| h2odragon wrote:
| Just like flight simulators: how else can you smash millions of
| dollars of precision machinery into a building without severe
| consequences?
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| As someone who got a pilot's license because of flight
| simulator, I'm honestly shocked actually at how much the
| virtual experience can successfully scratch the itch of the
| real thing. Sure, there's a thrill that cannot be matched and
| despite a high-end VR set up at home, the graphics in real life
| are better, but there's a good amount of the joy I get from the
| real thing -- the technical challenge, the navigation, the
| brief escape of being immersed in this activity and not
| thinking about much else, etc. -- that nowadays you can very
| faithfully recreate in the sim. And, unlike real life, it is
| comparably 0 cost activity in terms of setup/price/time.
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| Just like GTA: How do you realize your wildest dreams without
| having to actually commit crimes?
| mikkergp wrote:
| I watch a lot of the historical farming series, Victorian Farm,
| Edwardian Farm
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_historic_farm_series) And,
| despite the many different ways people choose to live, there's
| still this idea that the way we live now is the best way. The
| title of this is article is a bit strange, but I've noticed in
| some of the, maybe it's hustle porn communities on Twitter,
| there's this notion that if you're not automating all of the
| manual labor in your life you're doing it wrong.
|
| But there's something very nourishing about the idea of living in
| a world where you're interacting with and directly influencing
| the physical world around you. Both to care for a plot of land
| and to make things by hand. I think there's also something nice
| about living in a small world. No grandiose interconnectedness.
| You, your family, your community, your livestock and the land
| around you.
|
| It's so hard to get some of that I think unless you're also
| willing to completely give up living modern life and move out to
| the middle of nowhere ala Life Below Zero, or if you're wealthy
| enough to own land close to town (I'm fortunate enough to have
| found a nice 2 acres close to town, but it costs a premium
| compared to other houses the same size). Simulation is a great
| way to get some of that in small doses.
| mason55 wrote:
| IMO the big difference is doing it at your leisure and being
| able to take a break vs. being required to do it 24/7.
|
| When I'm frustrated with my job and modern life in general it's
| easy to imagine running away and living on a farm. When I'm
| sleeping in on a Saturday or taking a spontaneous weekend
| getaway I'm very glad that I don't live on a farm.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| I mean, you could easily have a farm with enough communal
| labor that someone could pick up your slack if you took a few
| days off. Vacation isn't a modern luxury, serf farmers were
| basically off 50% of the time
| gmuslera wrote:
| Farming: The Good Parts.
|
| And some of those games include also the good parts of social
| interaction, fishing, foraging and more, in a simple enough way,
| not the complex, messy and tiresome reality. Probably some
| farmers enjoy those games, but the gamers may not like all what
| is involved in real life farming (and things that works around
| it, like i.e. economy).
| neaden wrote:
| I think a big part of this is that so many video games are based
| on violence, without many alternatives. And the ones that are non
| violent tend to be shorter and more story focused. I think a lot
| of people want a game that is non-violent, more open world, and
| has some grind. Farming and survival are two ways to do that, but
| I think something like a cafe-sim would scratch the same itch for
| many people.
| d4mi3n wrote:
| This is true of a lot of main stream video games, but there's a
| whole genre of games that are much more wholesome, slice-of-
| life experiences. Consider: Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, Slime
| Rancher, and Katamari Damacy--all of which are successful game
| IP without any of the stereotypical violence we see in AAA
| shooters.
|
| I've found the "cozy" genre on Steam to also be a great way to
| find games like these, though I suspect there are other terms
| that can be used to find them:
| https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Cozy
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Stardew has multiple dungeons with sword fighting. Even Slime
| Rancher has turrets and fighting (though very
| cartoony/gentle).
| potatolicious wrote:
| This is the crux of it for me. Don't get me wrong, I like me a
| shooter from time to time, but as I've gotten older I find
| myself not often liking the adrenaline-filled games being
| pitched.
|
| And Sim-type games really scratch that itch. They often have
| (relatively) deep gameplay mechanics that are easy to learn but
| hard to master, don't have a lot of time pressure (many are
| turn-based, or real-time but with no serious deadlines), and
| most importantly _aren 't multiplayer_.
| tmtvl wrote:
| A cafe sim? Something like VA-11 Hall-A? I personally haven't
| played that, but I have heard good things.
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| Obviously because it's an innate part of our being. It has been
| with us for thousands of years. If we mostly stopped eating food
| because of some sort of breakthrough supplementation, we would
| likely have a food simulator.
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| Can't wait for the persistence hunting sim to come out.
| harpiaharpyja wrote:
| There are a few of those already, the "Survival Game" genre
| mistrial9 wrote:
| Why are so few of the many capable people, able to farm?
| hristov wrote:
| It is not about ability, it is about opportunity. As automation
| and chemistry overtakes farming there is smaller and smaller
| demand for people.
| shagie wrote:
| Starting up a farm (even a hobby farm) is an enormous capital
| investment.
|
| https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/farm-loan-pro...
| and https://www.farmers.gov/loans
|
| > Farm Ownership Loans can be used to purchase or expand a farm
| or ranch. This loan can help with paying closing costs,
| constructing or improving buildings on the farm, or to help
| conserve and protect soil and water resources.
|
| > USDA's Farm Service Agency offers up to $600,000 for eligible
| borrowers through Farm Ownership Loans.
|
| > Farm Operating Loans can be used to purchase livestock, seed
| and equipment. It can also cover farm operating costs and
| family living expenses while a farm gets up and running.
|
| > USDA's Farm Service Agency offers up to $400,000 for eligible
| borrowers through Farm Operating Loans.
|
| Aside from the "grow things" there is an enormous amount of
| business sense and domain knowledge (what to grow when, how to
| fix that thing now, does this other thing need fixing?) that is
| needed to accompany it.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Technically yes, but you can do it on the small (for a hobby
| farm anyway). You could start a small commercial farm, but
| you'd basically have bought yourself a sub-minimum wage job.
|
| I live on a horse farm and when we bought the property it
| didn't really cost that much more than a nice house in the
| suburbs. My 10 acres and a large new house cost far less than
| a lot of small houses on tiny lots in places like Seattle or
| SF. If we had wanted to be farther out (I'm about a 50 minute
| commute to Minneapolis), we could have gotten more land for
| even less.
|
| The major adjustments are (a) it's very difficult to take a
| vacation, (b) the amount of income that goes towards taking
| care of animals and (c) the work never ends (see [a] above).
| Besides that, it's all peachy :-)
| rybosworld wrote:
| It's extremely hard to compete with the major farming
| conglomerates for one thing.
| eppp wrote:
| You could easily raise goats without competing. They dont
| take up much room and there is a market for them. You just
| won't make much money. Like farming in general.
| shagie wrote:
| http://www.goatops.com
|
| The issue is scaling. In order to make enough to live off
| of the income generated by the goats, you need a dozen
| goats, which themselves need food, shelter, and medical
| care. And for dairy goats, you also need the equipment for
| milking.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| A dozen goats is not a lot. Shelter you can build
| yourself and you just need enough so they have an escape
| from the sun & snow. Farmers do most of the medical care
| themselves except for the rare instances where you need
| to call the vet, e.g., we just had to put a horse down a
| couple of weeks ago.
|
| Food is the most important one because it's an non-stop
| expense, but it's not unmanageable since it scales
| directly with the number of animals.
| shagie wrote:
| That roughly agrees with my back of the envelope math. A
| dozen dairy goats should be able to provide about
| $80k/year and it doesn't _seem_ like they 'd need too
| much room (my parents house in the country has enough
| land out back to do this and the neighbors are far enough
| away to not complain about goats... and, well, the
| neighbors have cows and so aren't likely to complain in
| any case - this isn't an option for someone living in the
| suburbs though).
|
| Still, animal husbandry isn't something for me. It's not
| the animals, but rather the business side of it that is
| at issue.
|
| http://www.cs.uni.edu/%7Ewallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2
| 018... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26209541
| (and my commentary on it
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26215448 )
| odrekf wrote:
| A lot of the knowledge required to farm has been lost with big
| Ag. Try finding someone who actually knows how to do the job's
| definition. Things like harvesting seeds... Farmers just buy
| them from the store, and then complain about how farming is
| getting so expensive. They have become consumers/slaves, with
| only big Ag, big Oil, and big Pharma as the winners (at the
| expense of everyone's health and everyone's future).
| loufe wrote:
| The phrasing of this places blame on farmers for making a
| poor choice. Unfortunately to keep up in the market farmers
| needed to increase yields to remain competitive with their
| neighbours who embarked with this kind of thing first. It's
| great to have principals, but it might also bankrupt you.
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