Farming games harvest panopticon: a pragma-semiotic landscape analysis of Hay Day.

This article examines how farming simulation video games, specifically Hay Day (HD), shape players' experience of the social world through a pragma-semiotic landscape perspective. It argues that HD employs multimodal semiotic resources and game mechanics to represent and enact neoliberal governmentality by training players into entrepreneurial self-discipline, hierarchical surveillance, and continuous self-evaluation within a panopticon-like digital environment. The study analyzes HD's buildings, interactions, and procedural elements as social practices that segment time, space, and actions, thereby normalizing neoliberal values such as individualism, productivity, and meritocracy. It concludes that farming games like HD function as technological mediators that (re)construct social spaces and ideologies, calling for further research on diverse game genres and player experiences to deepen understanding of technology's role in shaping social realities.