Disney Dreamlight Valleyplayers were seemingly once at war with one another over a mysterious golden potato. It’s about as ridiculous as it sounds, but thecontroversy highlights some deeper issueswithin the gaming community as a whole. For outsiders looking in, the whole situation was definitely a bit confusing. Even players that enjoy the game may be feeling a bit lost if they aren’t in tune with what happened on Reddit, Discord, and other social media platforms used for the game’s communities. It has died down since, but it’s an important lesson for the game moving forward.
At a surface level, the controversy revolved around a secret code that players in the officialDisneyDreamlight ValleyDiscord discovered within a promotional image shared by the game’s developer. The code could be used to receive a unique item called “Mysterious Golden Potato.“As of this writing, the potato still doesn’t have any use. It’s just a potato, one that is both gold and mysterious. That’s it. The reason such a seemingly innocent thing was so controversial is that some members of the Discord community didn’t want the code to be shared on other platforms. Although that is the basic idea of what happened, it does run deeper than that and is worth analyzing a bit more.
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Disney Dreamlight Valley - How Players Found the Mysterious Golden Potato Code
To fully understand this controversy, it’s important to start at the very beginning, about mid-October. The developer shared a promotional image to the game’s official Discord group that, at first glance, didn’t seem like anything special. The same picture was shared on the Facebook page and made its way around other social media platforms as well. As it turns out, there was something special about the version shared with Discord though, as it contained a hidden secret code that led tonewDisney Dreamlight Valleycontent. The code managed to go undetected for a little over a month before players in the Discord spotted it.
In the picture above, the code can be found etched into the bench right above the character’s outstretched arm. Since it’s so small, it’s no surprise that it went undetected for so long, but it quickly spread throughout the Discord server once discovered. It wasn’t long before everyone there was using it. Now players were concerned with figuring out what on earth to do with the Mysterious Golden Potato. The issues started arising when the code inevitably made its way to otherDreamlight Valleycommunity platformslike Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and the like.
Disney Dreamlight Valley - What Does the Mysterious Golden Potato Do?
Redeeming the code causes a Mysterious Golden Potato to appear in the player’s mailbox. Neither the letter text in the mailbox nor the item’s description gives much insight on what to use it for, other than to say that it should not be eaten and that it might contain some kind of secret. Naturally, players went through all the normal uses of items in the game first. It cannot be used as an ingredient in cooking, cannot be consumed to restore energy, isn’t used in any crafting recipes, and can’t be sold toearnDreamlight Valley’s star coins quick.
The only hint players have about its use is that the item is marked as a quest item. When players get items that are intended to be used for a quest, they are marked with apurpleDreamlight Valleyquest marker. Quest items can’t be dropped, sold, or used in any way other than for the quest, a property the Mysterious Golden Potato has as well. There are no quests in the game that require the Mysterious Golden Potato, but fans think that one will be added at some point in the future.
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Disney Dreamlight Valley - Why Was the Mysterious Golden Potato So Controversial?
Unsurprisingly, the code was shared on other platforms just a short while after it was discovered on Discord, and this is when things started to get tense in the community. Many players in Discord felt strongly that the code was shared there only for a reason. The Discord is the “official” community for the game after all, and things like theDisney Dreamlight Valleysubredditare fan-made and moderated communities. Many players thought since the code was shared with this group and they are the ones that did the work to uncover it, the item should be exclusive to them.
On the other side of the argument, players from other platformsbelieved that the item should be available to all players. To them, it doesn’t matter what platform the code was shared on or whether their community is technically “official.” They thought of it as simply a promotional item that all players are entitled to. This side of the argument holds that there is no reason to gatekeep information or items in agame that is as welcoming asDisney Dreamlight Valley.
Disney Dreamlight Valley - The Implications of the Mysterious Golden Potato Controversy
Firstly, it’s important to say that not every player in the Discord community felt the information should remain there. There are people on both sides of the argument on all platforms. While the Mysterious Golden Potato itself may seem like a silly thing to get upset about, it does bring up more important issues about ownership of information and divides among communities. Aside fromspecific platform exclusivity agreements, the question posed is if items in games be exclusive to specific groups?
Likewise, are discoveries made in a game and the information that comes with them owned by the one that discovered them? In the real world, attributing discoveries to the ones responsible for them is important, but by contrast, it’s difficult to find the names of the players that found the code first. It takes quite a bit of digging through Discord to see that Lareon, Mandini, and Sinny were the first to glimpse the code. These are all difficult questions that don’t have easy answers, and players are free to form their own opinions on them.Disney Dreamlight Valleyis full of unanswered questions, but it’s certainly odd that a potato has been the cause of so many of them.
Disney Dreamlight Valleyis in early access now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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