The way in which the characters in Stardew Valley interact with the environment is simultaneously reflective of our consumerist culture and unreflective of the realities of an agricultural lifestyle. I will tackle each point separately, given that they are somewhat unrelated.
By the late 1920s, consumption came to focus less on sustenance and more on the accumulation of resources.1 As Americans became more preoccupied with acquiring resources, they got stuck in a
cycle of buying, using, discarding, and buying again. This trend remains very much alive in the modern day, where we don’t seem to realize that resources are not unlimited, and that the continued exploitation of these resources has disastrous effects. For instance, chopping down trees leads to deforestation, overwatering lawns exacerbates droughts, and overfishing disturbs the marine ecosystem.
Based on what I have experienced of the game thus far, the way in which characters interact with the environment in Stardew Valley seems to reflect our consumerist culture. When I play the game, I spend most of my days chopping down dozens of trees to get logs and fishing in the river to get fish to eat or sell. When I wake up the next day, new trees have magically grown on my land, waiting to be chopped down again, and the fish remain as abundant as ever in the river and sea. In essence, I spend the entirety of the game accumulating resources from the environment with no consequences. There seems to be no such thing as chopping down too many trees or catching too many fish: I can consume and consume without even thinking about how I may be harming the environment.
These characteristics of Stardew Valley represent the way that we often look at the environment: as an endless resource. The consequences of viewing the world in this way, as mentioned previously, are catastrophic. In order to encourage environmental conscientiousness, I would expect Stardew Valley to make (at least some) resources limited. For instance, if you chop down trees, maybe they won’t grow back unless you plant new ones. Or if you fish too much, maybe a message pops up saying: “fish stores depleted, try coming back to fish in a few months”. While I understand that Stardew Valley is not exactly realistic, sending the message that the environment is a disposable resource only fuels our consumerist culture. As such, I believe that it could make an effort to represent the environment in a more realistic way.
In a similar vein, I would argue that Stardew Valley paints an unrealistic picture of the agrarian lifestyle. Having farmed myself, the ways in which the characters harvest food and other resources is idyllic but not practical. For example, in real life, soil needs to be treated in certain ways to make it conducive for growing crops, crops need to be weeded, and actually harvesting the crops takes a lot more energy than the characters in Stardew Valley seem to expend. In addition, the environment is not always favorable: storm systems can destroy crops, insect infestations can put a farm out of business, and temperatures can have a significant impact on crops’ survival. While the game makes farming out to be this effortless, enjoyable task, it is, in reality, an incredibly difficult, variable, and labor-intensive process.
To be fair, I understand that Stardew Valley is a videogame, and, as a videogame, it aims to provide an enjoyable environment for the player. But, as I pointed out earlier on in this paper, it would serve the game well to be a bit more realistic about the environment. By incorporating things such as the depletion of resources or destructive weather patterns, the game would be both more realistic and more challenging. While it is certainly fun to grow crops and harvest them without having to deal with environmental obstacles, incorporating such obstacles into the game could actually be fun. After all, who doesn’t love a challenge?
The point I hope to have made in this short analysis is that the way in which Stardew Valley portrays the environment (and how it has the characters interact with it) at the same time does and does not reflect the way that we view the environment and interact with it in real life. While it mirrors our consumerist culture, it does not represent the realities of the environment. As such, Stardew Valley should attempt to portray the environment in a more realistic way in order to discourage consumerism and encourage environmental awareness.
Reference:
1 “How the World Embraced Consumerism.” BBC Future, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210120-how-the-world-became-consumerist.
