Abstract
It is with glee that farmers in the virtual world of Farmville see the fruit of their trees ripen for picking or their crops ready for harvest; it is with some version of sadness that they see their crops have withered because they neglected to harvest them in time. There is something akin to real farming in the world of Farmville, and yet, the experience is a virtual one. What constitutes that virtual farming experience? What draws us to the mental life of this farming world? There is an element of safety in it in that if our crops wither, we may not suffer monetary loss (although we may suffer some depending on whether we have paid money to purchase Farmville dollars to purchase seeds), and there is an element of pride in growing prize roses, even though they are images on a computer screen. The life of a Farmville farmer is a mental one, one along the lines of experience explained by famous phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, a mental lifeworld experience that parallels the experience of the fictive world of the novel yet allows for our own interaction—and our own responsibility for the virtual world of our own creating. This drives the Farmville experience.
Presenters
Dr. Becky MeadowsProfessor, Philosophy, Galen College of Nursing, Kentucky, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Farmville, Phenomenology, Gaming, Philosophy
