Gaming has never been so cozy!

A diverse definition

So what does it actually mean for a game to be cozy? The genre has a wide range, but Kat of A Casual Gamer describes cozy games as those that bring up feelings of comfort, warmth and fit into a broader mindset of self-care.

“My kind of cozy games are very no-stress, non-competitive, wholesome in story and cute in design. Think the polar opposite of something like a battle royale, where you’re restricted to playing one way, you have a time limit, and you have to compete with others to be number one. Cozy games are very approachable for everyone,” she says. “They help me step away from what might be a very stressful day, and I can just simply be.”

Kat also acknowledges, however, that coziness is subjective. There’s a reason roundups in the genre include everything from narrative to adventure games!

“Cozy games might look different for different people. It is very much about how it makes you feel rather than just judging a game by how good it might be on a technical level or review score. Cozy to me might be a farming game where I just repetitively plant, water and harvest crops, or where I could spend hours just redecorating my home.. but maybe you find comfort in exploring a huge land, foraging, building a shelter to survive and slaying beasts, and that’s great too!”

A trend decades in the making

Though the “cozy game” genre may seem trendy, the concept has been around much longer than the name. Eeowna shared that her love of gaming traces back to playing Wild World on the Nintendo Wii with her mom and Animal Crossing on her DS.

“Especially when I was younger, I was not a very good gamer, so I found a lot of peace in games that don't require much skill and instead embraced just having fun,” she explains. “I’ve always gravitated towards this genre and just didn’t realize it.”

Eeowna started her channel in 2020 while pursuing a PhD in Chemistry. Unable to go into the lab and with plenty of free time on her calendar, she turned to YouTube in the hopes of connecting with like minded gamers but was disappointed in what she found.

“Every single time I was interested in a game and I'd go to look it up, the feed was just full of men and some of the games I was interested in, no one was talking about at all! Even for the Switch itself, I was mostly watching men unbox and review it. Especially with handhelds, it's different for people with smaller hands. Your experience is different,” says Eeowna. “I just decided that if I couldn't find anyone like me talking about the games I love, then I’d become that person.”

In the last three years, Eeowna’s channel has grown to 103k subscribers and it doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon! More than seeing views and subscriber counts increase, Eeowna has truly built the community she once dreamed of.

“I have this vivid memory of when Animal Crossing got announced, I was sitting at my desk at university and I turned around and there was no one to speak to about it. I had no one to go, ‘Oh my God, did you see this?’ No one texted me, no one said anything and ever since, I wanted to make a space where people can come together and be surrounded by others who are also really hype and really excited.”