This is meant to be a sample report to show the organization
and approach I’d recommend for a field report. Please don’t overfit to
it, and it’s a bit on the shorter side, even for a single person, but
gives an example of a descriptive post. Chunks in red boxes like this
are meant as guidance, and please see the syllabus for more
details.
The
Memes must grow: A brief exploration of Factorio Memes and Language
Use
Factorio is a video game focused on building a large, efficient
factory which produces products which both allow the expansion and
defense of the factory, as well as producing ‘science’ which serves to
unlock techologies, upgrade abilities, and eventually, serves as a
measure of factory productivity. It has been in existence since 2016,
and has a thriving community and strong core userbase, although it tends
to be rather polarizing, with many being indifferent or unenthusiastic
about the game, and some developing deep obsession with it.
Ethics and Positionality
Statement
This portion is simply a place for you to describe how you
ethically sourced these data. This should be used to discuss whatever
makes sense in your particular area of focus and work, and may be
anywhere from ‘barely needed’ to ‘as long as the rest’. Positionality
statements are wise particularly when talking about a historically
underpriveleged or discriminated against group of people, as it serves
to establish your ethos (or externality) when discussing language use.
But you are not required to disclose your membership in a given
group.
All data was collected here in publicly accessible spaces
(e.g. Reddit, or public discords). No observations here are sourced from
private sources or DMs, and although some of this is based on patterns
observed in several closed communities (e.g. the Patron-only discord for
Nilaus), but no private conversations are directly cited.
I am a member of the factorio community and regularly post, and
identify with this group. Thus, this can be considered an insider’s
sympathetic perspective on this community.
Sources
If you’re working from one particular site or network, here’s
a good place to discuss, but feel free to intersperse urls.
The majority of this work is based on observations as a community
member in the Reddit Factorio communities (particularly /r/factorio, the official
community, and /r/factoriohno), as well as
in the content of Factorio YouTube from creators like Nilaus,
DoshDoshington, or
Michael
Hendriks.
The following sections until ‘Time Log’ don’t need to be
present or used, this is meant to be a template for describing the
language and meme use in a given community. You’re welcome to do
anything you’d like below, as best fits the topic under
consideration.
Characteristic Language Use
Putting aside the language specific to the game (e.g. ‘combinator’,
‘inserter’, ‘blue science’) or specific to community expansions
(e.g. ‘seablock’, ‘SE’), there are a few specific terms used in ways
likely unintuitive to people outside of the Factorio space.
- ‘engineer’: A generic term for the player (who is an Engineer in
Factorio’s (limited) plot). Can be used to refer to enthusiasts too
- ‘wube’: the developers of the game, often used metonymically
(e.g. ‘Wube is working on it’). They are generous and community-focused,
and generally well-regarded-bordering-on-hero-worshipped.
- ‘spaghetti’: a manner of construction which is overly reliant on the
use of convoluted conveyor belts which interweave in difficult to
understand ways. Example
- ‘sushi’: A particularly difficult method of construction, itself a
meme, which puts many items on the same belt, which move past many
factory components for them to ‘grab’, rather than the generally
accepted practice of putting one item per conveyor.
- ‘spm’: ‘science per minute’. A measure of how many ‘science packs’
the factory is able to produce and process and consume to upgrade
(infinitely) certain abilities. It often serves as a self-imposed goal
in the late game (e.g. a ‘1000 spm base’).
There are no paralinguistic cues, specific emojis, or similar that
mark Factorio players, although the logo gear and research lab art are
often used in Discord servers as custom emoji.
Characteristic Memes
There are a few specific memes in the factorio community:
- ‘The Factory must Grow’: Because Factorio’s map is
practically infinite, as one increases your desired ‘science’ output
(which is the main goal), your factory tends to balloon wildly,
spreading across the map to ridiculous degrees. The solution to most
problems is ‘the factory must grow’, and thus, this phrase is a meme
which easily marks factorio enthusiasts and is used as an
acknowledgement of fellow players (e.g. ‘I play Factorio’ ‘Oh yes. The
Factory must grow’ ‘The factory must grow!!’)
- Spidertron: a late-game tool which is rather iconic
and forms a key point in one’s progression in the game. It is a very
common meme morpheme, and its creative pathing and character movement
makes for easy video memes (e.g.turntable
spidertron or this
stickbug variant. The Spidertron can be added to nearly any meme
template to Factorio-ize it.
- Game addiction: Factorio players are often joked to
spend inordinate amounts of time in the game, as the ‘just one more
optimization’ gameplay loop is particularly dangerous to programmers and
similar order-driven thinkers. This is, much to the author’s dismay,
completely accurate, and the author’s 920.5 hours in Factorio on Steam
is considered to be on the lower end (please note that the game is often
run ‘AFK’, with no active player, allowing the factory to run while the
author is on campus lecturing). Thus, joking themes of addiction,
difficulty stopping, realizing it’s 5am, or the vicious cycle of
addiction to factory games are common and represent shared trauma, and
the game is often referred to by players as ‘cracktorio’ (e.g. 1 2)
- Ecological Destruction: Factorio is, without
sugarcoating, a game whose main goal is directly aligned with
strip-mining of planets and xenocide of local aliens (‘biters’) who
attack when they sense pollution from your factory, and is an excellent
case study in environmental economics. Thus, memes about killing biters
(and problematically, comparisons to the US genocide of indigenous
people) are common, as are jokes about environmental destruction. An example
- Inefficiency: A common source of memes among
seasoned factorio players is the construction made by inexperienced
players, which is often spaghetti-ish, or include issues which are not
readily apparent to newbies, but are incredibly salient to experienced
players (e.g. using inserter units which are too slow for the required
throughput, or unbalanced belts). This is the bread and butter of /r/factoriohno, which is
often a mix of memes, intentionally badly designed factory screenshots,
and reposts of particularly tragic designs from elsewhere.
- Comparison to Similar Games: Factory games are a
genre (perhaps defined by Factorio), with other notable titles including
Dyson Sphere Progam, Satisfactory, Mindustry, Captain of Industry, and,
Factorio’s gateway drug, Stardew Valley. Many memes exist comparing
these games, often mocking
the other games, and also comparing Factorio to other programming
tasks (as it is, arguably, a visual programming language).
There are, of course, memetic elements of how players play this game,
and the easy sharing of blueprints for elements of a factory can lead to
rapid spread of particular designs and approaches (e.g. ‘city block’
arrangements where a train grid divides the map into cells and serves as
the transport mechanism). These are often driven by major YouTubers, who
effectively become influencers for certain methods of gameplay
(e.g. Michael Hendriks with a heavily manual, hand-feeding style, Nilaus
for mathematically precise city block builds, or DoshDoshington who runs
mods which force incredible, masochism-level complexity).
In the future, I’d love to spend a bit more time looking at the
difference between language use among relatively new or ‘community
external’ players and deeply obsessed players in established
communities.
Time Log
Please see the syllabus for more details.
4JAN2024 - 3pm - 1 hour - at home - Began researching and writing on
the memes of the wristwatch community, and started a field report, which
I was struggling with, feeling like it was a very atypical (and frankly,
old and under-memey) community for a demo writeup
4JAN2024 - 11pm - 1 hour - at home - Realized while playing Factorio
that this would be an excellent case study, then spent time looking
through /r/factorio and /r/factoriohno to attempt to catalog the most
common meme content
6JAN2024 - 8pm - 1 hours - at home - Worked on finishing this report
and fully commenting it.
