Voice of Real Australia: Why computer games really are an educational tool

Every bone in my journalist-trained body is telling me every good story has a solid introduction. So here it is: I'm here to talk about agricultural gameplay in non-ag-marketed games.

But the rest of my bones want to paint a flowery picture.

When I was about 10 years old I remember walking through the shopping centre, clutching my mum's old wallet which now held my birthday money - carefully counted and prepared for a big morning of spending.

I'm sure my mum was anticipating a long (and probably painful) morning of my indecisiveness culminating in a toy I didn't need and clothes that wouldn't fit me in three weeks at the rate I was growing. But she was wrong - very early into the trip I spied a game I had seen my friends playing on their home computers - The Sims.

It started what could loosely be called a 20-year addiction with a game which is now at the fourth generation. Not long ago, they released an expansion pack called Cottage Living.

It promised to bring agriculture to the game (which is a mix of architecture, town planning, creating people and having them live their best lives). With it, came crops, chickens, cows and llamas (don't ask). Also a lot of flannel, foxes (a bit too real when they get near the chickens) and picnic baskets.

It's idealistic - you can really only have a maximum of two or three cows, and every day they need to be fed, washed, milked (they're all dairy cows), and can be dressed up in clothes.

What it's not is realistic. Never once has the neighbour called to tell me my cattle were out on the road, or asked the rainfall total for the night.

But at the end of the day, an entire generation of Sims fans are learning that crops grow better/bigger with the right kind of attention and fertiliser, and cows need to be milked daily.

They may be buying into the farmers-wear-flannel-and-plaid stereotypes, but they're utilising gameplay where they are growing crops and cooking them and trading their animals for meat.

Farming is no new concept to gaming (remember the FarmVille craze of 2009?) and it's interesting to see how different games incorporate the industry.

I was surprised to see The Sims attempt a farming expansion pack. It was controversial, with animal activist groups opposing the entire idea.

I hope there's a 10-year-old city kid with their birthday money, begging their parents to let them buy the game.

Maybe they'll learn a little bit about fertiliser, or where their eggs come from.

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