I no longer self-identify as a gamer; the fandom started to attract too much controversy and as someone who didn’t really appreciate where AAA gaming was headed, I finally bailed out (no hate towards people who identify as gamers, though). I’m someone who doesn’t enjoy being involved in drama, and what I was seeing was truly beyond the minor geek drama we all know and occasionally like hearing about; women questioning the status quo started getting death threats, the industry attitudes weren’t really changing to reflect real-life demographics… I just felt unwelcome and a little bit nervous to boot. There are a lot of brave women out there who continue to engage with the fandom – Anita Sarkeesian is the “big” name (and a controversial one, but I like her videos and the type of analysis she does, haters gonna hate), and Leigh Alexander is one of my favorite writers on the subject, hands down. But I, personally, am just too nervous to directly engage anymore. Maybe that makes me a wimp; I like to say I have a well-developed sense of self-preservation.
I have, though, gotten into casual gaming over the last year or so. Anime is my main fandom and it’s where I devote the majority of my energy, but sometimes I just need a little break and if I can pop in for 10 minutes and play something, that helps me a lot. My recent favorite game for this purpose is a little something you might have heard of called Neko Atsume.
Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector is a cell phone/tablet game that you can download for free for iOS and Android systems (you can pay money for items in the game, but you can have plenty of fun for free). In the game, you have a yard that you can fill with things to attract the neighborhood kitty cats – cushions, scratching posts, toys, cat trees… the list of items is really extensive. If the cats enjoy what you’ve provided, they leave you fish – silver and gold – in exchange. You can then use those fish as currency to buy bigger and better toys, and the cycle continues until you lose interest. All of the cats eventually give you special trinkets if they like your yard well enough – they’re items that are technically worthless, like birthday candles, books of matches, and broken toys, but to a cat they are special gifts that demonstrate the true extent of their love. There are also “rare” cats that show up if you meet certain requirements, mainly by having special/unique items placed in your yard.
The game fits into a weird genre called “maintenance games” in which there really aren’t any end goals in mind or even a plot to worry about; the fun comes from cultivating a certain aesthetic, collecting things, enjoying the atmosphere, and appreciating the cute artwork. The Animal Crossing series of games are a much more famous example from this genre; anyone who’s played and enjoyed the games from that series will understand that what’s “fun” about those games are the exploration aspect as well as the satisfaction that comes from collecting all the items for the museum, designing and renovating your home, getting all the different fruits to grow in your town, and building up your infrastructure. It can be incredibly engrossing, especially for a genre that’s considered very “casual” and doesn’t get a lot of love from the mainstream gaming fandom.
I, frankly, don’t have time to play many video games. Neko Atsume is really the perfect solution to that. I have it downloaded on my Android phone and check in on my kitties a few times throughout the day (and occasionally during the night if I’m having one of those nights – one of my friends mentioned that she thinks the game might be on “Japan Time” since that’s where it was developed, making certain cat appearances likelier to happen when we’re asleep in the US). I refill the cats’ food dishes, switch out items in the yard, take photos if something cute is happening (one of the things you can do is have a photo album for each cat), and see if the kitties have left me anything. On paper it’s completely low-stakes; nobody gets hurt and there’s no tension or hard goal. You can play the game how you want. But I always have a positive feeling when one of the cats leaves me something special or a new cat visits my kitty playground. As someone who could be a crazy cat lady if the stars aligned a certain way, playing this game helps fulfill that desire without having a house full of cats.
I think some people appreciate having a concrete goal in mind when they’re playing a game. I find that I have a lot more fun when I’m the one deciding how to have my fun. Just like enjoying the freedom that games like Minecraft and the Elder Scrolls series provide, I like being able to define my own success in games like Neko Atsume. It’s a nice change from the daily demands and expectations of boring old real life.