so I played a LOT of games for igf this year - even more than the large amount I normally do - and I'm kind of weirded out by something I saw a few of, which is a trend of a few games I'd describe - perhaps uncharitably - as "baby's first minecraft".
That is to say, the game's art style and protagonists are clearly targeted at children, and the concept is something about gathering resources and crafting/unlocking things with them.
But with all of these games there was a major difference, which is that where minecraft is fiddly in ways that IMO encourage some degree of thought - the obtuseness of setting up gardens and irrigation, the general colossal size of the world that encourages the player to take only what they need - in place of that was a very simplistic extraction simulator. Extremely small, limited environments where the player was encouraged to repeatedly harvest infinitely-respawning resource nodes in order to feed them into a system that basically just does everything for you (building, etc) when you fulfill their list.
And you might say "that's streamlined for young kids" or "really minecraft isn't THAT different" but I think there's a really distinct tonal difference to me in how you interact with the world when the goal is not to satisfy your own goals but to harvest the environment as quickly and aggressively as possible to fulfill a production checklist.
It's the difference of enjoying the space around you vs entering a new location and instantly thinking about how quickly you can reduce it to a pile of rubble and tree stumps. An interaction with the world that's purely extractive - the world doesn't exist for any reason other than to be a thing you strip-mine. It doesn't do anything on its own. It doesn't change. There's no concept of consequences or even a basic consideration of "maybe I'll keep this tree here because I like it aesthetically". It's meaningless. The tree will return in 15 seconds or less. You should chop it because to not would be wasteful.
Not to be Moral Panic or whatever but: christ, is this really the media we want to be making for younger kids? Games that encourage them to view the world as a collection of objects for them to feed into the maw of industry? God knows plenty of games for adults do this but I'd think we'd want even the tiniest bit of examination in this space.
This is all to say that I felt really uncomfortable playing these games. It's a deeply alienating experience to exist in a purely extractive space. It feels bad to exist in a place that only exists for you to eagerly reap it, like a disney world goofy watching you with its dead eyes, knowing that if you don't go up and hug them they're going to get a strike for not meeting their quota or some shit. GIVE ME MEANING. EXTRACT WORTH FROM ME
that's probably not actually how disney world mascots work but they always creeped me out
ANYWAY