Although we don't want to trivialize the hardships that so many people endure in developing countries, the 3rd World Farmer game does help bring to the forefront some of the issues that people deal with. The goal of the game is to go through demographic transition and create sustainable affluence.
Simply put, what were the most difficult aspects in this game? Why was it so hard to get out of poverty? If you could change one thing about the game (variables that effected your success), what would you change? How does this apply to real world situations?
You must comment your responses t the above questions no later than Monday Oct 17th 11:59 pm.
the game refuses to load on any computer i try it on. so that would be what i would change if i could. this apply's because my wifi connection is a first world problem something third world farmers don't have to deal with.
ReplyDeleteThe hardest part of the game was having to deal with the variables they out you through (bad year for crops, disease to your animals, ect.) because you could be doing pretty well but one bad year can effect you a lot. Especially if it's in the beginning, I ended up restarting multiple times until I was able to get a good crop year, because if you don't get a good amount to start with, it's hard to keep your family healthy, while making a profit.
ReplyDeleteI would change the fact that there is no way to do research to predict the pricing of crops for the next year. There should be some sort of chart of the global market helping you predict the pricing of different crops. In 3rd world countries, farmers want to be as efficient as possible, so instead of planting multiple dif crops (as you might have done in the game) being able to predict the prices can give you an upper hand and maybe tempt you to go all in on a certain crop (may be good or bad depending on how well you did your research).
My experience was very frustrating because the corrupt government soldiers took everything from like four times. But I powered through. The game has many different outcomes to each season you go through, be them positive or negative, that always teach you a lesson of what to do, or what not to do next year. I would probably change the fact that you can't breed animals together after you buy two of the same animal, which would make the game first off, more realistic, and also a little easier seeing as it was very difficult to get started.
ReplyDeleteThe most difficult aspects of the game were the random events that would happen every year, but they were really only a problem when you were starting up a new game. When you’re justing starting out and have barely any money, a bad year (corn and peanut harvest fails, chicken disease, etc.) can instantly put you into debt early on. It is hard to get out of debt or poverty because the only way you can really gain money when you don’t have enough to purchase any crops or animals is by getting random job offerings (like planting opium). If you don’t get one of these jobs or tasks, your family will continue to get further and further into debt due to the cost of living. If I could add a feature to this game, it would be some sort of global trends chart, or some sort of news article feature that lets you predict market crashes or current events so you can prepare for them instead of making blind decisions in the beginning of the game.
ReplyDeleteThe most challenging part of this game was the yearly event mechanic. Unfortunately most of the random events that struck the farm each year were absolutely awful, and could ruin my chances at making any sort of profit (or even breaking even, if certain crops or the bank failed). It was also extremely rare for a good event to occur - I only got the bountiful harvest outcome maybe once. I could never get out of poverty mostly due to the bad strokes of luck which caused either indiscriminate damage to all of my crops or animals at once, or which ruined me financially when corrupt soldiers took my money or the banks crashed. I could get around occasional crop or animal failures by keeping a diverse variety of different crops around, so if one failed the others would still make money, but there was almost no way to protect myself from the effects of an airstrike or some such damage.
ReplyDeleteIf I could change this game, I would not only remove these blanketing bad events, but I would also make sure that there were some more good events included. For instance, maybe a certain plant’s harvest goes extremely well rather than extremely poorly, or some animals are inherited from an outside source.
Unfortunately, in the real world, it is nearly impossible to escape bad circumstances that stem from a failing country. If farmers were only subject to the conditions of their environment, there would be far more success stories (early settlements and healthy native civilizations, for example). But under the effects of a poor, corrupt, war-torn country and government, everyday farmers suffer greatly, and rarely stay out of poverty.
I feel that the hardest part of the game was that you never knew which crop to plant at a time. For example, one game I would plant corn and it would give me a lot of money. But the next game corn did terrible and in order to not loose I would have to see what crop did best that game. Which led to poverty, which was impossible to get out of because I could not plant many crops at the same time. Sometimes only planting 1 crop at a time. And taking those offers was the only thing I could hope for. When I was low on money they wanted to use my land for trash and knowing that that was not a good idea I had to accept it because I had no choice. I would have died if I didn't take those offers.
ReplyDeleteI would change nothing, because this game is obviously going for realism and that is pretty realistic. If you think about it, in real life you don’t know whether the crop will grow or how much it will be worth in the long run. You also don’t know if there will be a huge fire or no rain to water plants. And in the game they portrayed that very well.
This game was exceedingly risky. I felt like I was constantly taking chances, constantly sacrificing, and constantly ending up with little. The factors that made this game the most challenging were the mishaps that occurred at the end of every year. In one round I'd have a remarkable amount of animals and tools and in the next instant close to all would vanish. Once again I'd be stuck trying to make ends meet.
ReplyDeleteAs far as improvement, I'd be interested to see a built-in guide with tips and suggestions through-out the rounds, so therefore you can make informed decisions just as the real farmers would. Unless of course, the real third world farmers receive minimal guidance. In which case I would leave the game as is to maintain the reality of it.
The entire game was difficult. It was definitely designed for all of the aspects of the game to come together and create a very difficult and quite realistic game that was hard to excel in. Unless you knew the tricks and strategies of the game. Much like the real third world farmers of the world, many of us playing the game did not know the tricks, the strategies, what to do when. The unknowingness as to what will happen after the year was a powerful factor in the downfall of the player. One year you'd plant a crop that was previously very successful. The next year that crop would completely fail. In the reality, as a third world farmer, life is unpredictable. In most situations in the game you would only be able to plant one or two crops and pray that you can feed your large family. The one thing I would change about the game would be apply statistical charts and ranks to crops so the farmer would have a basis of knowledge as to when and why you should plant certain crops. That would defeat the realism of the game however. The game was designed to closely mimic the hardships and situations the real farmers are put in all the time. They are stuck in certain situations. They have to take every opportunity that they can even if it means sacrificing some of the most important things to them, or sacrificing their family. Another thing I noticed was that while I was playing I tried to have plenty of kids while still being able to provide for them because I was hoping I'd be able to get them married and bring a lot of money to my small family. This is a very real situation for third world farmers, and general families. The children are their security, and the more you have, the more future opportunities you have to make more money or have more help on your farm.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, every aspect of the game was hard in its own way. Planting crops was hard because every year their prices were different/you didn’t have enough money to afford them. Maintaining livestock was hard because they kept getting stolen after a few years, and keeping your family healthy was hard because it was too expensive to treat them. There was no way that you could survive unless some of your family died.
ReplyDeleteIt was so hard to get out of poverty because the price/value of crops changed every year. It was also hard because every year the family faced some sort of challenge, no matter if it was livestock being stolen, or if a family member died, meaning that all the other family members had a larger work load.
If there was one thing about this game that I could change… Honestly, I don’t think I would change anything. Though the game is not a perfect representation of what living in a third world country would be like, anything that I would change would completely change the situation of the game and the kind of outcomes that would be had in comparison to where the game is taking place.
It applies to real world situations because the economy in the game changed every year. The prices/values of crops changed every year. The game also applied to real world situations because there was nothing that you could really do to change the situation that you were in. You could only buy your crops, and hope that you would have enough money to buy more crops the next year.
To me, I found it hard that basically everything early on was based on luck. In the game, if it was only a few rounds in and you had a crop failure, you were doomed. With no built-up affluence to fall back on this meant that potentially all of your savings were lost on a round of crops, and there was nothing to do but die. On the other hand, if you got lucky enough to have good crop success and develop savings, rather than spend it all each year, then fairly quickly you would grow your affluence exponentially. This leads to essentially beating the game and making a bunch of money.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the point the game producers were going for, is that if you are a farmer in a third-world country, it’s very hard to rise up into a more westernized society and to succeed in that; also to show that life and the striving for success in a developing country is really just a game of chance. In the society that we as Americans live in, even if there is an economic downturn, or if your business idea doesn’t go as well as planned, at least you’ve got the majority of the country who still is making a large profit to support you through things like Social Security, and various organizations and shelters. In a country where the lower class is the overwhelming majority, government-run programs aren’t as common, and a lot of aid that comes is from 1st world organizations who in reality can’t help everyone, and are sucked dry of their resources by the masses of poverty they visit. Basically what I’m trying to say is that in the situation that we have, unexpected changes and events have much less of an effect on us, and we have the ability to dictate our lives a bit better than impoverished countries do. This is a direct result of the additional wealth that is here in the US, which can be used as the provider of a safety net for fixes to unpredictable problems that people without extra money simply don’t have.
I personally thought the game was fairly accurate to the life of a 3rd world farmer. At the same time, this opinion is coming from the mouth of someone who’s never experienced a life of poverty and struggle, especially anything near the life of for example a rural family in Sudan. An aspect that was taken out from this game though was time. In a few clicks, an entire year was up. In reality, struggles like this are daily, and these additional burdens must make daily life such a challenge for these poor people. Maybe if there was a better way to portray the fact that a year doesn’t go by in the blink of an eye that would be better, but other than that I thought it was fine. Also maybe if you could buy more land to grow more crops, but that would make it even easier to be successful once you get past those first huge hurdles.
For me I felt it was difficult to keep my money. Omni matter what, if I had $400 or $-2, I would still lose the money. It might have been helpful to know all or the strategies of gaining more money if I had more knowledge to begin with than "grow crop". I mean that kinda happens in real life too, people only grow up knowing one thing, and aren't educated enough to know what they could do to survive/ become more wealthy. A lot of uncontrollable factors also played into why it was hard to get out of poverty. Weather was a main issue against my main income source. If I were to change one thing it would be the setting, and change it up to other 3rd world country lands. Not every 3rd world country is in Africa. It may be easier to live in another place with more reasources. A lot of places aren't in poverty because of their farming, they're in poverty because of their government and the divide between poor and wealthy. I can see how this game may compare to actual situations, but it may not be like this all the time. I wouldn't know if it was or wasn't because I'm not there experiencing it. What may be bad for one person isn't bad for another. However also these situations do and have occurred, and it shows me what type of situations they have to go through.
ReplyDeleteThis game was pretty frustrating because some people seemed to find the perfect formula to maintaining a successful farm and I had trouble getting it just right. It seemed to me to be part strategy and part luck, based on what happened during each particular year with the crops. It was hard to get out of poverty because you couldn’t plant the things you needed in order to save yourself and you ended up selling your possessions until you got too deep into debt to come back. To be successful you had to do well right off the bat, it was very hard to come back from a rough patch.
ReplyDeleteIf I could change anything, it would’ve been to make buying a shack or barn in order to purchase livestock unnecessary. I found that this step often pushed me over the edge and was too expensive to get done without losing all my money. This can be applied to the real world because it was a simulation very much based in reality. The scenarios presented to us are things that really happen to farmers. Things like bad weather and crop yields. Never being in that situation myself, it’s hard to know what living off of the products from your own farm would be like. However, a parallel can be drawn between how hard it was to make enough money in the game, and the cycle of poverty that takes place everywhere around the world.
The most difficult aspect of third world farmer was the random devastating events that happened most years. This affects the gameplay so much that is seems unfair. However, this is not a flaw, this was the deliberate goal of the game. The whole point of the little events that happened each year were meant to show how difficult farmers have it in less developed countries, with corrupt government officials, corporations and outside influences that take advantage of their land, diseases that are not researched, environmental disasters that could be preventable and others.
ReplyDeleteThe main reason it was so hard to get out of poverty, at least from my perspective, was that you had to go all out every year and just hope everything works out. There is no playing it safe and it is extremely difficult to attain a comfortable level of affluence, especially if you are unlucky with events. The game is set up to make it very hard to get out of poverty, just like in real life.
I do not think I would change anything about this game, mostly because I see it as being more about a message than being about having game that is fun to play. As I have stated earlier, this is relevant to real world situations in less developed countries around the world where it is incredibly hard to get out of poverty because of factors outside of their control.
In the game, it was so easy to be taken advantage of. This happens all the time in 3rd world countries. Because these families start out with so little, catching a break and being able to make a demographic transition, was almost entirely chance. Or maybe i was just bad at the game. But I digress. When the family was running low on funds, a militia would come through and offer a small sum to stay on the land, or a little bit of money would be offered to store toxic waste. These often lead to more problems down the line but when you’re faced with starvation and disease, the immediate fix doesn’t sound too bad. Being impoverished leaves very little options and props the door wide open to be taken advantage of.
ReplyDeleteI found this game frustrating and hard to master. I thought that I would get it every time however I had no such luck. Each year something would happen and I couldn't seem to plant the right crops to fit the economic crisis of the years that emsued after the planting. One of the hardest parts was simply keeping everyone in my family alive and healthy. I found that as the years continued my family would grow increasingly more ill whilst at the same time my income and success diminished. This happened repeatedly.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I found anything increasingly agrivating as to how the game was arranged, it seemed to follow logical steps and acutely demonstrated the current situation facing farmers in less developed countries.
I think the most difficult part of the game was the bad events like disease, civil wars, a bad crop year, or a crash in the national bank because everything could be going well and then with one bad crop year I would have nothing left and would be destined to lose. Then the game would offer something like opium or a work opportunity and it would help in the short term but would hurt in the long run. I think it was hard to get out of poverty because even if everything is going right, when one thing goes wrong it makes it like impossible to win. As I mentioned above if there is even one civil war or crash in the national bank it is almost impossible to recover. What I found was that the only way to win was to go all in on peanuts. Every time I used anything else I would lose and most of the times I used peanuts I won. If I could change one thing I would make peanuts more risky and I would make it easier to win using any other crop. I would have more down years for peanuts and more up years for other crops. Especially later in the game, this would be nice because I felt like once I got $2,000 I would always win. I think my change would make the game more realistic because only planting one crop in real life in extremely risky and in reality it is possible to succeed with more than just one item.
ReplyDeleteThe most difficult and frustrating aspects of the game were the annual events. They made it hard to build up any kind of monetary reserves. The events were based on luck, and most of it was bad. They create this cycle, where if you have the resources to protect against these disasters you can keep most of your property but in order to gain protection you have to have money in the first place. This is part of the reason it is so hard to escape poverty. It takes money to make money, and if you don’t have it initially it’s hard to climb up the socioeconomic ladder. If I were to change one thing about about the game, it would be that you could breed and slaughter animals. This seems more realistic than buying animals every time you wanted more and if you needed some extra money you would have the option to slaughter the animal and sell the remains. The animals should also age and die instead of lasting for an indeterminable amount of time and should also become less productive as they age. All of these changes would make the livestock portion of the game slightly more realistic. I would also change the annual events to occasionally include more than one thing. When there is a drought, there is probably more crime due to others suffering from the lack of food and a higher chance of an economic disaster.
ReplyDeleteThis game was very unpredictable; you never knew when there would be a crop failure, a war, or the animals getting wiped out. It was basically a guessing game to determine what the family needed to survive. As what you would think would be a beneficial opportunity for the family by accepting money for holding toxic chemicals on you land, it lead to illnesses, diseases and eventually death. And with the cost of healthcare being astronomically expensive, it adds up as the whole family becomes more and more sick. And with all the money going towards health care, there was no more for crops and animals, so money runs out and the family dies. It was impossible to get out of poverty with all the expenses adding up and family members dying, which makes the workload higher for the others leading to sickness, and exhaustion, and eventually death also. As for education, this is not even an option with it being expensive, and losing a pair of hands for working on the farm. The main focus is to support and help out the family on the farm. Third world farming in the real world is unpredictable. You can’t tell if crop season is going to be bad or if a disease spreads within the animals until it actually happens. I would have liked to see statistical charts of previous crop or animal trends, so you can predict what would and would not thrive in a certain season.
ReplyDeleteThis game was very frustrating for me to play. The first two times I died after ten rounds. The third trial I was able to survive thirty round. It was extremely difficult for me to succeed in this game because the game started out with very little little money. I usually ran out of money and went into debt after the fifth round. The price of the crops were very expensive. It was very difficult to gauge what the price of each crop was going to be, because it changed each year. I found that the best crop to use was cotton and peanuts. I usually did not lose any money when I planted them.
ReplyDeleteThere were many factors that affected the growth of crops and income. Outside sources such as the military, bandits, and civil war. Diseases, economic recession, and famines greatly increased my lack of revenue. At times I even has to sell off my children in order make money. I think that this game could be similar to the real world. The game could be exaggerating a little, but as someone living in a highly developed country, it is a good example of how farming in a third world country could be like.
As many people pointed out, this game was extremely frustrating. The sad part about this, is we could easily turn the game off, but in reality many people have to live with the factors. The most difficult aspect of this game was having so little money to start with. It was really difficult to get anywhere, make a future or invest in more efficient farming, when we started with such a small amount of money. If I could change anything about this game I would give the farmer more money so that he could invest in tools and education for his children. This would allow the farmer to be able to survive more easily.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest hinderance to my success in 3rd World Farmer was the lack of consistency, whether it be the crop prices fluctuating greatly or the yearly events, militia, drought, or any of the other catastrophes. A lot of times things seemed to be going well, I was saving money and everyone was healthy, but then all of a sudden something would happen and I’d have to sink all my money into some random event. I think this is an accurate, although slightly fictionalized, depiction of the kind of issues one may have while trying to sustain a family in a third world. One particular example was the schooling system, I never prioritized it because it was always too expensive with no immediate payoff, and I can see why real people in this situation would forgo schooling and instead would rather have the extra farmhands. If I could change one thing, it would be to standardize the prices of crops so it was less of a gamble each year.
ReplyDeleteThe game seemed to be largely based on luck, like in the beginning if a crop didn't do well you would just lose money. The family was constantly getting sick and dying which was frustrating because it then took more money to help them. It was hard to get out of poverty because when you didn't have a lot of money you couldn't plant as many crops and wouldn't earn as much money. I was really impatient and didn't really read anything on the game when it would tell me things, but it worked out alright for me. I just randomly placed things because for me it was just a computer game, but for people in third world countries who actually make their living as farmers they can't just do a bunch of random things and hope for the best because their lives and their families lives are at stake.
ReplyDeleteThis game actually frustrates me so much. There are so many different crops and animals to choose from that I kind of got confused. I also realized that it is all based on luck and that anything can happen at anytime. For example at one point I had 4 people in my family with 1000 dollars in cash and then the very next turn 2 of my farmers died and i only made 7 dollars like how does that happen. Another thing you have to cope with is not spending all your money on just one thing and dispersing your money equally. One thing I would change about the game is is that you can’t expand your farm like if you’re doing really well you should have the option to buy more land. One more thing i would change would be the ability to store money like you should be able put money in a bank so if you have a bad crop season you still have some money left over
ReplyDeleteI excelled at Third World Farmer although I do not think that the game is an accurate representation of my success if I was a farmer in the third world. If it was, I would possibly consider being one. My trick to the game was to buy as many crops as I could at the beginning of the game leaving very little money in my pocket because you have to spend money to make money. As my paycheck became larger, I invested in tractors and sheds right away. Although it was frustrating when I bought an animal and the next round of the game, it disappeared because of a natural disaster and other causes out of my control. A lot of these farmers have such little control of their situation. Other student's experiences with the game felt like they were always taking one step forward, then two steps back. Being a third world farmer would take having a lot of endurance during hard times and not giving up, especially since mortality rates are so much higher there. Obviously playing the game did not simulate the emotional hardship that would come with losing a family member. When you send a person to school in the game, the person gains knowledge and brings in more profit to the game. This was another key to the game. What would make this game better is if you could endure some real life consequence when a disaster goes wrong at the beginning of each round. If this game was an interactive game and not on the computer, it would be easier to resonate with the farmer. The consequences would not be to the extent that actual farmers face, but maybe a player would have to fight to protect their crops and animals. This is a very ridiculous idea, but my main point is they should add more emotional attachment to the game.
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