Farm simulator games are pretty popular in Japan right now. Two months ago, I asked some students to write a short composition about their weekends in the past tense and got two essays about how the weekend was spent growing crops, buying some new cows, etc. Pretty funny! Are they popular outside of Asia, too?I have no idea about games like this and haven’t been addicted to any games since my siblings and I used to play Savage Empire every day after school. I tried The Sims when it first came out and loved it for about 3 days, until I got bored of taking out the garbage for my pixilated family. I have the personality that could possibly get addicted to an online game, but my life is too busy to actually give in to a compulsion. That said, I also don’t want to start playing a game because I know that I could end up loving it and wasting my time.
The main Japanese game that deals with farming is called Harvest Moon. I think that was the original one. I’ve also heard that there are Facebook farm games called myFarm, FarmTown and FarmVille and that FarmVille is popular in Japan as well. There are other farm games like Farm Frenzy and Farm Mania and spin offs of Happy Farms where you can raise livestock and breed animals.
There is also a Chinese online game called Happy Farms that I’ve heard is so popular that they’ve had to limit their daily sign-ups to “only” 2 million people per day. The main reason it’s so addictive is because it’s an online game that allows you to steal from other people’s crops. That means that while a person is sleeping, his crop is at risk. Apparently, some Happy Farm gamers in China are so into the game that they set alarms at various times in the night to wake up and check on / defend their crops from thieves.
(I don't play any games these days, but past childhood game obsessions have been Commander Keen, Chip’s Challenge and Savage Empire. Games I have played as an adult have been Savage Empire, Red Alert 2, Capcom VS SNK and Street Fighter 2/4.)
★The picture above is of a Chinese girl playing Happy Farms.★
26 comments:
So.... stress release/relaxation/enjoying your time with friends if you don't have any money for anything else/et cetera is a waste of time?
What are you doing in Japan, again?
Facebook's game Farmville is super popular in Sweden, that's as far as I know. I had a time when I was super-addicted to the game, but that's over now. Why it's so popular I don't really know, but I liked it because it's a really easy game to play, and it is quite charming, haha! :)
The only thing I can think of thats close here in the states is Farmland on Facebook. I refuse to play such games, but I know many people on facebook are addicted to it. Kinda silly.
I read this article from Time a couple of days ago, since you mentioned Farmville it reminded me of it:
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1935698,00.html
This is so funny, my mother is addicted to the Facebook Farm game. But I guess, you can only get so far until they started making you pay for something. So it was not fun anymore for her. So she now plays a Vampire game off of Facebook. So weird.. I could never really get into games. Except Final Fantasy's, or Kingdom Heart's but after awhile I got bored and never finished the games.
omg thats like farmville on facebook hahaha I refuse to play it lol
the only farm game i know of is FARMVILLE on facebook.
and yes, i am OBSESSED.
Yes there are quite popular, but you have to be careful not to get scammed while playing these games. Some of them include options where you can "fill out a survey" or "answer a quiz" in exchange for "farm dollars" or whatever. Most of these surveys or quizzes will end up signing you up for a paid text message subscription service because you didn't read the fine print.
Yeah some games can be a waste of time but every now and again its nice to play for relaxation and sometimes you learn things from games. Some people prefer to read books or watch movies but I prefer to play games.
I'm from the States and can remember Playing Harvest Moon eight or so years ago. The game expanded on the farming aspects of planting crops and raising cattle to other social things, like wooing a towns-girl and starting a family. For some reason, I was hooked on this series. I wouldn't say farm games are particularity popular here, but I still see them in video game stores today.
Hi Julie! My name is Elena, I'm writing from Italy and I have been reading your blog since a lot of time, it's beautiful, I love the way you write and your pictures! Sorry this comment is not related to your post, I was just wondering, when you teach to young children, do you speak only in English or in Japanese too? If only in English, how can you make them understand? It's a dream of mine to teach to children, so I was curious about that! Ciao! Elena
This is the same anonymous with the 20-plus posts last week. Why do all these types only ever post anonymously?
Playing online farm games is "enjoying your time with friends" as much as spending Friday night on Facebook chat counts as "hanging out with my friends on a Friday night" and I feel sorry for anyone who disagrees with me on that point.
I'll play video games WITH MY FRIENDS, but in my own personal life, I think that sitting in my room playing an RPG is a waste of my time because I'm in Japan right now and should be doing other things with my free time, like studying/ hanging out with friends/ cleaning my apt/ cooking/ reading/ exercise/ etc
Nothing wrong with playing video games!! But playing farm games alone does not equal "enjoying your time with friends if you don't have any money for anything else" as much as you would like it to. Plus, I'm not broke. I can actually afford to leave the house and hang out with my friends.
Thanks Elena!
When I first got here, I worked with children and didn't speak Japanese. It was stressful and horrible and more like babysitting than anything else. I don't think it's fair for either the kid or the teacher if the teacher can't speak a word of Japanese. Both become frustrated.
If I were you, I'd study Japanese beforehand and then try your best to make friends with people who can barely speak English once you get here to help you improve quickly. And study, study, study. Go out a lot. Teaching adults is a lot more interesting than teaching children.
Good luck!
Thanks for the warning, Telica.
Thanks for the article, Jen B.
Lauren, wooing a townsgirl sounds fun! I refuse to start playing those girly DS games where you have to make two beautiful men fall in love with each other and have a relationship. Those kinds of games are so addictive and I don't want to start playing a game seriously.
xox
Hi Julie! Many thanks for your reply! I always read your blog with interest and hope I will be able to leave comments more often, but my English is not very good, anyway, remember you have a fan here in Italy!!! Ciao! Elena
I know so many people who are addicted to the facebook farm thing. The worst bit is that it's all they talk about.
I don't often play games but I'd much rather stuff like singstar and guitar hero.
Hi Julie,
I hope you don't take this comment to be malicious---it's not, I'm just wondering about your opinion, because I've thought about this myself and haven't really come up with a good answer.
With regards to your advice to Elena to make friends with Japanese who can't speak English, do you ever feel as though you're kind of taking advantage/being "elitist" (not really the right word, but the only one I can think of) by having mostly those kinds of friends?
When I was in Japan this summer, the majority of my friends couldn't really speak English as well as I could speak Japanese (by this point I'd been studying for about 3 years) so we spoke in Japanese. But I had a couple of friends at the University of Tokyo, especially one really dear friend in the Law Faculty who had spent a little time in the US who was preparing for interviews to work for MOFA, and so to help her we spoke English most of the time (there's an English interview as well for the position). And I was talking to her about how she feels about foreigners who always feel the need to speak Japanese,and she thought that it would be nice if there was a more equal exchange between English/Japanese when there's cross-cultural friendship. I also think it can get a little annoying if one partner always speaks in the target learning language if it's obvious that the other party can speak that person's native language (going both ways)
Anyway, so I also find it hard to balance my own interests (wanting to learn as Japanese as possible) with wanting to help out my friends, while at the same time avoiding people who just want English conversation practice. At same time, however, I wouldn't want to rule someone out as a friend just because their English is better than my Japanese. (I actually did that with a guy who grew up partially in Texas, and spoke pretty much fluent English. It was really annoying that he always spoke to me in English and to everyone else in Japanese---I was the only non-Japanese in the group, but when I voiced my displeasure, I actually ended up alienating myself from other members of the group.
Another point, though, is that if I come all the way to Japan, I should be able to practice Japanese, right? I'm always really careful now with my Japanese friends here (by here I mean the US) to speak very minimal Japanese because I remember my own frustrating experience.
So, basically (sorry for all the rambling) do you avoid English-speaking Japanese so that you don't have to deal with the dynamics I outlined above?
Looking forward to to your thoughts,
Iddoshe
farmiville is insanely popular in the us right now, and i have no idea why.
iddoshe,
What an interesting topic! No offense taken at all. I'm writing a response, so expect a reply soon. Thanks!
I'd hazard a guess and say that people need to be in touch with their Neolithic farming instincts through cyberspace.
I know a lot of people who play FarmVille on Facebook, and apparently it's really fun and addicting. I can't imagine wanting to farm anything in real life much less on the computer. I figure I have enough on the computer tempting me to come back all the time, another game isn't going to help.
http://thebusiestbee.blogspot.com/
I've never been a fan of video/computer games except for Oregon Trail. When I was in middle school it seems that every sleepover I went to ended in a massive game of Oregon Trail. This was in the late 90's.
During my junior year of college (this is SO embarassing I can't believe I'm admiting it) I became addicted to a celebrity paperdoll website. The website was filled with cartoon models of dozens of female celebrities such as Cameron Diaz, Eva Longoria, Britney etc., in their underwear that you could dress with wild abandon. Each celebrity had her own wardrobe with shoes, scarves, dresses, jeans etc. I turned my roommate on to it as well and we used it when we needed to take breaks from writing papers ( we were both english majors). Maybe I'll give Harvest Moon a try. After all, it's more stimulating that picking out a purse for J.Lo.
it is rather popular her in the US... my dad plays farmville all the time, and i remember playing harvest moon for the gameboy a year or so ago. a lot of my friends play farming games online, but some of them have recently switched over to an aquarium type game on the same premise :)
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Alena
http://onlinemariogames.net
I for one love farm games. The farmville game on facebook is one of my favorites. I am even addicted to it, the whole buying seedlings and planting and always wanting to go back and check on them to harvest them is quite exciting. Even livestock too are part of it and i just love'em.
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But farm games are so boring. I never understood how anybody can play Farmville on fb. Its so pointless and boring that playing it has been shown to kill brain cells.
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