In defense of the JojaMart route in Stardew Valley (2024)

Stardew Valleyhas always given its players a choice: support a local community center or choose to give a lot of money to a fictional company called JojaMart.

For many who play the farming simulator, the JojaMart route seems contradictory to the premise of the game.Stardew Valleybegins when the main character, a disillusioned office worker at JojaMart, inherits their late grandfather's farm in the small community of Pelican Town. While building your farm, the player is given the choice of purchasing major upgrades for the town at JojaMart or by rebuilding a community center. To support JojaMart would be to betray your grandfather and to betray the opportunity to live a quiet, pastoral lifestyle - a lifestyle free from the influence of big corporations. Not to mention conning Pierre out of a local business.

This always made the JojaMart route seem like some kind of forbidden fruit, the 'wrong' way to play the game. At the time of publication, Steam showed that approximately 3.5 percent of players have unlocked the achievement for completing the JojaMart route on Steam, compared to 18.7 percent who restored the city's community center. When one of my mentors was exposed as playing the JojaMart route online, another colleague quickly condemned him as a “monster.” Based on this impression of the JojaMart route, I wanted to know what it was like to be sold out. So what do these "samples" look like? It turns out that the JojaMart route might not give away the game's original intentions after all.

Image: ConcernedApe via Polygon

Owen Herriman is a fan ofStardew Valley, who put more than 300 hours into the game. He told Polygon that he was "piqued" talking about how he's only gone the JojaMart route every time he's played. Harriman told Polygon during a Discord call that he felt "conflicted" about his choice to go the JojaMart route because he doesn't like Walmart or Amazon. He lives in Seattle and said that "[Amazon] is hell in my city."

What drew him to playing that way was that it was an easier starting point that made some of the more challenging aspects of the game more accessible. Certain activities, such as fishing, did not appeal to him. “For me, it's really just the benefit of getting those upgrades and not having to fish a million times.” (Herrimanisn't the only one who doesn't like fishing, one of the game's most recognized sore points.) He tries to balance his choice by supporting Pierre's General Store. "I just keep buying and rationalize to myself, 'Well, I buy all my seeds at the local store. Like I'm not going to put them out of business.'"

Image: ConcernedApe via Polygon

The conveniences of the JojaMart route are real. If you go the Community Center route, you'll progress through the game by donating bundles of items that you farm, collect, and find as you travel through the world. Many of these items require quite a bit of effort to acquire, as they are seasonal and rarely available for purchase in-game. The Assembly House route requires you to go through an entire season (the crops change in spring, summer, winter, and fall) and become relatively good at all aspects of the game, including fishing and combat. And as you complete each bundle you'll unlock a number of upgrades that advance the game, such as minecarts that speed up travel between parts of the city, as well as the bus to the Calico Desert.

In the JojaMart route, you simply purchase these upgrades, which gives you the freedom to play the game the way you want because you can make money by selling the items. The community center will be Joja Pakhuset. And that's about it, in terms of changes in Pelican Town. There aren't any major differences in gameplay, and it's not like going the JojaMart route turns Pelican Town into a gentrified small town house. Everything stays the same no matter what you choose, more or less. Although Shane, one of JojaMart's cashiers and fan favorite for his gruff attitude and gray face, will lose his job if you choose the community center.

Image: ConcernedApe via Polygon

Playing the JojaMart route usually gives players back time for other activities, such as making friends in the community or doing activities like farming and foraging for their intrinsic fun value. Like Herriman, Aimee Hart went the JojaMart route because she didn't want to collect all the items. She has always had difficulty multitasking. But with JojaMart she had more time because she "didn't feel the need to do all this stuff."

For Hart, playing that route allowed her to spend her virtual days however she wanted, such as fishing and bringing gifts like coffee to the townspeople. “I think in a certain wayStardew Valleyis a way of saying that maybe you only deserve happiness if you work on a farm. Which, you know, is the interesting thing to take away from it.

Not that this path is entirely without conflict. Hart said she usually marries Abigail, the purple-haired daughter of the local shopkeeper named Pierre. (In other words, the local company is competing with the larger JojaMart. "It felt wrong for me to do that with [Pierre]. Like, yeah, I'll marry you off to your daughter and put you out of business too. . My wrong . "

Image: ConcernedApe via Polygon

Ultimately, the JojaMart route is largely a matter of convenience. But it's also a convenience that isn't entirely at odds with the game's world, despite the setup at the beginning of the story. Ironically, playing through the JojaMart route gives players more freedom and flexibility to pursue what they want, in keeping with the ethos behind the game's opening - even if it comes at the cost of being a corporate veil. Of course you can playStardew Valleyas you wish. But the route to the community center lends itself to oppression and subsequent productivity anxieties.

As I played through the community route, I became so obsessed with checking off the next box and line of items that I ended up thinking less about who exactly I was building the community center for. Besides, who am I to say that my multi-million gold producing farm is of any benefit to society when I literally don't talk to anyone? Ultimately, it seems to be more about the way you interact with your community than the individual choice you make: the community or the JojaMart route.