The rise of cosy gaming: is this the closest many young people will get to home ownership?

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More than a quarter of 20- to 34-year-olds still live with their parents. No wonder they are escaping into virtual properties that they can decorate and furnish as they like

Name: Cosy gaming.

Age: Has its origins in social simulation games such as Harvest Moon (1996) and The Sims (2000).

Appearance: Virtual, mindful, far-fetched.

You mean video games? Yes, but cosy.

What makes this gaming cosy? The kind of gentle, low-stakes time-wasting – the virtual farming of Stardew Valley, say – that people find relaxing.

I relax by shooting zombies. Everybody’s different, but gentle, non-violent world-building continues to be a big trend in video games: in 2020 just 19 cosy games were released on the distribution service Steam; in 2025 there were 616.

And what’s new in cosy gaming? Home-owning.

Come again? The latest cosy games include Hozy, which allows players to “clean, paint, and decorate abandoned homes with satisfying mechanics and intuitive controls”.

It sounds like serving a community sentence. Think of it as making the world a brighter, tidier, more aesthetically pleasing place, one abandoned house at a time.

But not really. No, it’s just a game. But some people find painting virtual walls very rewarding.

The kind of people who have never painted an actual wall, I’ll wager. That irony goes some way to explaining the subgenre’s popularity: games such as MakeRoom, Unbox the Room and Renovation Plan offer a form of satisfaction to a generation that may never own homes of their own.

Never? Unemployment is high, and the young people of today are priced out of the housing market, possibly for their whole lives.

Is it really that bad? It really is: in the UK, 29% of young adults between the ages of 20 and 34 still live with their parents.

If it helps I’m sure Mum and Dad would be happy for them to repaint the kitchen, or sand a few floors. It’s not the same.

No, it isn’t – real decorating is boring and hard. In uncertain and challenging times, cosy gaming offers young people a level of control they rarely experience in real life.

This is so depressing. Why? At least the millennials and gen Z get to experience the joys of home-owning virtually.

Actual home-owning is not all it’s cracked up to be, by the way. There’s a lot of frustration, panic and heartbreak involved. OK, boomer.

There’s tax, subsidence, dry rot, party wall agreements, broken boilers … You carry on – I’m just going to sit over here and move some bookshelves around on my phone.

Do say: “Cosy gaming provides players with a calm, predictable sanctuary that helps them manage their stress levels.”

Don’t say: “Sorry I’m late – I was at my pretend house waiting for a virtual plumber to turn up.”

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