Depression and Videogames

this Stardew Valley farm smacks of Marxism...

I wasn’t going to write anything this week because I’ve spent the last month or so feeling really depressed. It’s just a part of my life, and something I expect to show up around this time every year.

I don’t always feel sad during a depressive episode, which can make it difficult to understand that it’s happening. I’ve learned to recognize the early signs as it comes on: I’ll start to cancel plans and flake on social events. If it’s a particularly bad bout, I’ll miss out on a lot of work responsibilities too.

Depression feels like a lack of motivation: at some point, my brain stops feeling good when I attend a concert, walk the dogs, or send an important email. I can’t picture the dopamine reward at the end of the activity. What’s the point of doing the things I typically enjoy if they won’t feel interesting or satisfying?

One thing does feel satisfying: the videogame I’m inevitably getting addicted to during the downswing.

Over the summer it was Stardew Valley again. I logged in every day to cultivate a farm, raise livestock, and court the love of my life, Leah. Last month I played Valheim, where I sunk endless hours into chopping down trees and mining ores to construct an elaborate Viking paradise.

One of my Valheim builds: could a depressed person make this?

I tend to focus on “grind-y” games, which involve doing a lot of small and sometimes repetitive tasks to progress the story. I know there are even grindier games that are more popular than the ones I’ve played, but please do not send me recommendations, because I will lose entire weeks of my life in them.

Whether it’s washing dishes in The Sims or completing quests in Runescape, there’s something about work and chores in games that just feels better than real life. I am not the first person to make this observation. My cousin Corey is a game designer, and he gave a speech on this topic several years ago.

I remember Corey saying that grind-y videogames are proof that work can be incredibly rewarding on its own. In Stardew Valley, it’s exciting to plant a field of pixelated pumpkins, water them every day, and finally reap a harvest. You get to exchange your crops for their worth in gold, which is enough to invest in exciting technology or new types of seeds. The cycle repeats as you willingly return to the field, knowing you’ll enjoy the fruits of your labor and continue to build a beautiful life on the farm.

If Stardew Valley’s economy were more accurate to capitalism, you would tend to your pumpkin crops in exchange for a small amount of gold every day. No matter how many pumpkins you harvest, or how delicious and high-quality they turn out, your daily wage would never change. In fact, the wage would be so meager that you’d barely make enough to pay rent, let alone invest in new items. Meanwhile, you’d mail the lion’s share of gold from each harvest to the capitalist who owns the farm, but never does any work. The daily routine would quickly lose its appeal, as you’d start to wonder: what’s the point in working hard?

What makes videogame labor so exciting is the chance to fully enjoy a reward for your efforts. You put in what you get out of it, in a very direct sense. The most satisfying games are actually fantasy simulations of living out a basic Marxist value: labor is entitled to all it creates.

The joy of videogame work seems at odds with the central premise of neoliberal capitalism. In the US, policy-makers and corporatists agree that humans are only motivated to labor because they’re threatened by an alternative of poverty and death. Our welfare state, or lack thereof, is built on the myth that if basic needs like food, shelter, and medical care were completely free, nobody would show up to work. Instead of being motivated by the reward of our labor, we must operate out of fear and scarcity.

When you start to unpack and challenge that myth, it’s no surprise that capitalist order needs to be violently imposed to remain dominant in society. Our brains are wired to feel satisfied after our work is done. We experience a spiritual bliss along with a physical reward, whether we’re eating what we’ve grown or wearing what we’ve sewn. That natural cycle is interrupted when the reward is stolen at the end of every work day, and we see only a fraction of the profit returned to us. Alienated labor is unnatural. It’s the exact reason why nobody wants to work.

Videogames offer a comforting alternative to the real-world grind, in which there is no linear progression from sweeping the factory floor to becoming CEO. Real capitalist labor does not guarantee a reward for going above and beyond; especially for employees without unions. After spending forty years of your life at work, you’ll be exceptionally lucky to retire with a pension. Maybe your boss will throw you a pizza party.

Depression (and videogames) are a very reasonable response to the life of labor that capitalists impose on the working class. I’m grateful to games for providing a glimpse into a different kind of world, where we can experience a taste of all the liberation and joy that could be possible. It’s just important, eventually, to log off and not settle for the virtual edition.

Socialism will be better than Stardew Valley.

My Final Fantasy XXIV character meeting a frog.