Stardew Valley Under The Lense of Participatory Media, Modality, and Political Economy

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When playing Stardew Valley, we used the triangulation of modality, political economy, and participatory media as a social element to analyse the game, and how our play would be influenced. 

Modality

Each modality allowed us to encounter a different way of playing. During our first stream. There’s also the comparison between the various modalities of solo and multiplayer play. The way we play solo is the not the way we play multiplayer – there’s a greater degree of freedom because you have an extra person to labour with (also ties into the political economy concept), so you have more energy during the day to do the things you prefer to do (e.g. fish) as opposed to what you need to do (e.g. complete a quest). 

There are also various modalities located within the game itself. These are unlocked via the tasks of fishing, mining, farming, planting…