Why Do We Like Cows?

Farm Life Sims and Pastoral Media

From Harvest Moon to Stardew Valley and beyond, we’ll go through the history of farm life sims and how they are part of a larger pattern of an age-old longing for simpler times and locales manifesting in works of literature, music, and more. And we’ll look at some cute video game animals, too.

We’ll go over all of the following:

  • The history of farm life games, beginning with Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons (and yes, we’ll cover the split between the games as well), the explosion of popularity in the genre that Stardew Valley caused, and the flood of farm life sims that have flooded the market since then, whether good or bad.

  • What pastoral media is and how it’s come up time and time again over the centuries

  • Why do these games appeal to us (besides the cute animals)?

  • Speaking of cute animals, we’ll look at a lot of cows. A LOT of cows.

This panel has been presented at the following conventions:

Ichibancon 2024