The last 10 years have seen a rise in so-called ‘cosy-games’: often by smaller devices like laptops or a Nintendo Switch, games like The Sims 4 (2014), Stardew Valley (2020), and Animal Crossing (2020) create a feel-good sense of escapism. For the most part, the games have low stakes, there is no violence, no impending doom, no monster on the horizon, which makes you question their purpose as games at all?
Do we play video games to achieve something, to defeat some villain, to progress to the next level? If so, where do these ‘cosy games’ fit within this narrative?
Though I’ve never played Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley, I’ve been a fan of The Sims 4 for a few years now, but could never identify what it was about it I was enjoying. I loved picking their outfits in ‘Create a Sim’, choosing their jobs and creating them a family to come home to, decorating their house and choosing which neighbourhood suited them, even tailoring their pets to the aesthetic I had created for them. I’d then set them off into the world, follow them as they completed menial daily tasks like loading the dishwasher or brushing their teeth, and sitting with them for hours (in Sims time) as they completed homework for school the next day.
In my own life, these tasks are ones I’d rather skip, some I’d even lack the discipline of doing in the first place (homework), but on this smaller, more manageable scale, they became fun again.
In quite a dystopian way, the way The Sims 4 mimics everyday life makes it feel like I’m in control of some miniature version of my own life, where playing the game becomes a cathartic or relaxing gesture where I am granted full control, rather than a simple chore. There is something undeniably better about completing these tasks from my own bed, watching my Sim’s ‘need score’ slowly rising as I do them. There is a satisfaction in improving their tiny scale digital lives for them, a satisfaction that I don’t always recognise in my own life. As humans, we love to feel in control, and the ‘cosy’ (if not arguably quite mundane) tasks games like this provide for us creates scenario where we have this full control, and can manage and shape the lives of our sims in any way we like.
In short, there really is no purpose to these games at all, and that might be what makes them so enjoyable. There are no consequences to ‘cosy games’ like The Sims 4, no ‘wrong paths’ to take: it is mindless, purposeless enjoyment, slightly dystopian at times, but always undeniably fun.
