> Sometimes you just want to tend a garden or walk a forest

I do both of these things a fair amount IRL, I'm not trying to single you out I just want to understand motivations for playing these games, is there a reason you do these activities in a game as opposed to IRL?

You can start a game instantly. No travel. No travel expense, either. No packing. No un-packing. No arranging for someone to watch your pets if it's going to be long enough for that to matter. No dealing with taking the kids with you, or finding some other place for them to be. Your spouse doesn't have to want to go.

No spiderwebs on your face. No biting and/or disease-carrying insects. No oppressive humidity. No getting soaked by a sudden rainstorm. No sunburns. No twisting an ankle and having a horrible time getting back out. No taking a wrong turn and ending up having to go much farther than you'd counted on, to get back.

Much or all of the game world may be crafted to be interesting. Even very nice natural areas have boring bits, and you can't fast-travel past them.

You can do it even if you're injured, or tired.

If the game has tasks, they usually have far faster reward loops than their real-life equivalents. The real-life versions might have more clean-up or mess. You have to actually physically do a bunch of stuff where the game might have a button press. You also have to know how to do it, and have the tools (if any) to do it. This is why obsessive players of games that feature gardening or farming usually don't become avid hobby-gardeners in real-life.

> No un-packing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1135690/Unpacking/

Even that game skips a lot of the tedious bits from unpacking stuff though. There's no packing stuff first. there's no moving van. there's no discarding empty boxes.

For me personally I'm starting to accept that natur means putting on sun cream, accepting ticks and mosquito s etc.

I don't want to become like the girl in the latest blade runner who only lives in her room.

I do gardening in my spare time but I also enjoyed playing Stardew Valley - a game where you bring back to life an abandonded farm.

Video games have faster feedback loop compared to real life. You progress and get rewards much faster. For example, I could finish an entire growing season in one long evening of playing. And it's not just scaling time. The tasks themselves are simplified to balance complexity, difficulty, and fun. You only have a handful of tools that never break. You don't have to worry about plant diseses, pests, droughts, floodings, or freezing temperatures in spring. The only thing you need to manage is watering (which you have an infinite supply of) and crows (which are repelled with a scarecrow).

The barriers of entry are lower too. There are games that let you drive a truck of fly a plane; things which would be prohibitively expensive in real life.

It's cheaper (no need to buy supplies) so you can do things you'd never be able to afford IRL. Which also allows you to experiment with more things. This also lessens the consequences of failure.

You can do the activity when there's free time (like at night) with no real planning.

You can put the task down for months on end without negative results because time is constrained to the game world. Or put another way, constant upkeep tasks and their results can be perfectly saved.

Game worlds can be tightly controlled if you wish it. Reality is uncontrollable.

> You can put the task down for months on end without negative results because time is constrained to the game world. Or put another way, constant upkeep tasks and their results can be perfectly saved.

After a very brief taste of Elder Scrolls Online I realized I really, really dislike when game time rules seep too much into real life and start contaminating my schedule.

Nowadays I can't stand even the simplest habit-forming daily rewards loop of mobile games.

If the goal is visual evidence of accomplishment, then one gives you that while relaxing the other gives you that while bending over and tiring out your core/upper body.

I won’t make moralistic judgements on which is better, but I will say all else equal, a lot of people prefer physical passivity.

A few potential reasons: In games the rewards are much more immediate, even if we play a game that requires waiting. Gardens and forests may not be near, available, or accessible when gamers are ready to relax. Gamers may not be physically able to partake in such activities. You might need to pay or buy something (shoes, a car, a park pass, garden mulch, tools...) to participate.

People live in flats with no garden, or don't live near a forest or anything beautiful really, or finish their shift when it's already dark. Or maybe it's just raining or 105 F outside.

I also go hiking in real life when possible, but that is a minimum commitment of four hours and by the time I get off work that isn't usually doable.

On the other hand, it only takes about five minutes to boot a game and be walking the PNW.

While I do go for walks here, the nature in the Netherlands is mostly very boring.

True in very large stretches of the US, as well. Though we also have a bunch of huge regions with beautiful, varied, striking natural environments, of course.

They don’t drive anywhere polluting the planet to walk in a forest. That’s a big difference.

Do you sometimes like to eat apples and sometimes like to eat oranges?

You would need to have a garden to start with.

Ticks.

> Sometimes you want to feel an adrenaline rush. Sometimes you just want to tend a garden or walk a forest.

And that's where Rust comes in. You're tending your garden, keeping your base in order and then people come with rockets and C4.

The only difference between that and what GP said, is that in Rust you don't have any player agency in deciding when people come after you or not. Switching between adrenaline/calm single-player games, you get to decide at your own pleasure :)

Same exact deal here. I LOVE powerwash simulator mentioned in the article. Also love sweating out hours in payday 2 getting raided by horde after horde of enemies.