“These games are organized around a mad rush, dash, hustle, or hop to complete repetitive tasks in a limited amount of time. However, as the titles also indicate, playing at these “dream” occupations is not entirely a sentimental endeavor, but also a mania.” (Anable 5).
As my train zipped by my stop, I felt this mania. My finger’s speedy swipes and clicks along with Diner Dashes’ dreamlike music put me in trance. I found myself ‘in the weeds’. The work affect had gripped my reality, and as my 6th customer walked out on my shift, I whispered under my breath, “I hate people."
I paused in a moment of realization that the Diner Dash customers were only animated representations. However, the game’s affect distorted my reality and reproduced an atmosphere I only felt during my post-high school waitressing days. What aspects of the affect engendered feelings of discontent toward all Homo Sapiens? Was it the sounds of dissatisfied ‘ahems’, the diminishing blinks of red hearts, or the endless sea of clicking and swiping?
Arguably all of these and much more contribute to the overall work affect, but why do only some pink-collar games produce dissatisfaction in their work space? The first game that came to my mind when thinking of pink-collar was none other than the infamous Sims Mobile.
The Sims’ barista career is not unlike the work found in Diner Dash. Both games require the player to serve customers with a series of repetitive clicks and choices under the pressure of time management. Sims’ characters even attempt risky interactions, ending up with dissatisfied customers that produce sounds and symbols of disdain. These risk moves even cost energy for the player that slows the completion of the level. Furthermore, both games take on Bogost’s definition of Kitsch of aesthetic sentimentalism and aspirations of class mobility as well as Anable’s definition of an affect through the representation of work and experience of labor through feeling, mood, and emotion (Anable 4, 11).
True, the types of aesthetics differ in relation to color scheme and art, but the overall aesthetic of a ‘kitschy’ work environment remains present. Despite the similarities between Sims Mobile and Diner Dash, one important mechanic of the game may change the overall work affect experienced by the player. The Sims character can not fail. No matter how many dissatisfied customers, the Sims character always reaches the next level with a jump for victory. Diner Dash not only allows the character to fail but also calls attention to that failure with a pop-up box featuring a crying cook. The single change in mechanics generates a divide between the feelings, mood, and emotion experienced in the games. Sims Mobile generates general satisfaction. Diner Dash sticks the player with that forever ‘in the weeds’sentiment. However, neither of the endings discourage the player from playing the game.
No two games will ever produce an identical affect, but the analysis of these games’ simlitaries does call into question the impacts that impending failure could have on work atmospheres. If feelings, mood, and emotion generate different types of work affect in games, could the dissatisfaction caused by calling attention to failure impact the overall affect oft an employee’s experience in the pink-collar workplace?
On the jerky train ride back, I attempted level 25 of Diner Dash once more. I could feel the pressure of my last energy riding on my shoulders as I scuttled from table to table. My frantic fingers clicked and swiped, but as customers zoomed out the door, my impending failure drew my attention to the lost-ratio at the top of the screen. The crying cook popped up on the screen. I missed my stop again.