What can the medium of the video game tell us about our collective desires as a society? According to Alfie Brown’s essay for The New Inquiry, a lot actually. The author details how our fascinations with apocalypse gaming and pastoral farming simulations reflect two distinct responses to the hopelessness of capitalism:

Their picture of a lost era of tightly knit villages where humans lived in organic harmony with nature complements prophesies of a dystopic future in which humans are regimented components of a remorseless capitalistic machine. Farming simulators placate a need for a collective and organized past as an alternative to contemporary chaos.