Pierre has soured me on the whole Community Centre Ending

If Concerned Ape reads this, I want to thank him for creating a wonderful game and I'm thankful to have been able to experience it.

And I'm sorry for the wall of text. Also SPOILERS.

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Anyway, at the risk of being branded a Joja apologist, unless things change, I regretfully concede that I may never be able to pull off the Community Centre ending in good faith ever again. Sorry, Juminos - you little chaps did some great work.

And it's because of Pierre.

I'd like to believe that like most players, the opening cutscenes in the cubicle farm didn't do much to endear Joja to me. I was also outraged at Morris barging into Pierre's General Store and handing out coupons. As a boutique store manager in-real-life, that's just bad form in every possible way, and immediately, that put me in the "Joja are Jerks" camp.

But as time went by, the more I thought about it, the more I became disgruntled with the community "underdog". And that's because Pierre is also a jerk - and, in my opinion, a bigger one than Morris.

Everything the game has done so far early on is to establish JojaCorp, and by extension, JojaMart as this creeping agent of decay out to destroy community life and to be fair, Morris is unlikable in his few appearances (excellent writing btw. Morris really comes across as smarmy).

Four things in game establish Joja as the antagonists:
1) The opening cubicle farm scene.
2) The form letter explaining the repairs underway from Joja's landslide.
3) Morris and the aformentioned coupon scene.
4) Morris sends a spiteful letter to Pierre in his capacity as a Joja rep.

In game, mechanically, Joja's unfriendly pricing policy serve to discourage players from shopping there.

However, I would like to point to the following:
a) Joja Mart has never spammed my mailbox with advertising flyers. (Pierre sent adverts)
b) Joja Mart has never threatened me for shopping at a competitor [on a day when service was unavailable mind you] (Pierre showed up on my doorstep to solicit, then acted in a hostile manner)
c) Joja Mart never visibly discussed bribery of a public official (Pierre discusses buttering up the governor with liquor at the Luau)
d) Joja Mart never shamelessly solicited business at a town festival (Guess who tried to coax me into buying Fall seeds at the Jellyfish festival)
e) Joja Mart never sponsored a book at the public library to advertise product.

So if Joja is meant to be a looming evil, it's a very hands-off, distant sort of evil. If they were meant to be a threat, they're really bad at it. Pierre, meanwhile, spends the game in my face being a complete and utter putz.

Caroline mentions that she wishes Pierre would spend more time with the family at festivals. (Believe it was the Spring Festival). Pierre comments on inventing new festivals at the Feast of the Winter Star and leverages on traditions to move more stock (See the sponsored book at the library regarding his bouquets) and his constant comments about business, making money and setting up a store chain to make him rich constantly rub me the wrong way. His illegal stash incident didn't help much either)

The way I look at it, all signs point to Pierre being Morris if Morris was a failure. While Morris plays business hardball, I can see Pierre doing the exact same thing as Morris did, and worse, should the situations be reversed. And what makes this conclusion worse is the fact that I was right.

So. I completed the Community Center and was thinking to myself. "Yeah. This'll be good for the folks living here..." Morris barging in looking to find out where everybody is was a sweet moment of vindication - "the jerk is getting some comeuppance too."

I expect that Pierre's speech was supposed to be his crowning moment of awesome where he rallies the community to preserve community values - but the game has spent the entire past year and a half rubbing it in my face that Pierre is a complete dink. And while I did everything because I actually believed the community centre would have been good for Pelican town as a whole, the realization that I just put the shoe on the other foot turned it into a moment of absolute utter horror for me. Listening to him hijack what should have been a happy occasion to prosecute his war against Joja Mart makes me sick to my stomach to find out I was right.

Watching him hijack my moment of triumph to utterly destroy his rival in the guise of protecting the "Good Old Days" left me actually angry.

Because we've spent a year and a half establishing Pierre doesn't do things that don't benefit Pierre.

It was enough to make me fiddle with some stuff and try out the Joja Community Development route. Again, sorry little guys.

And then the animation plays - and Morris is there at 3am (maybe, I slept at 2 that day anyway) with his team supervising repair of the Greenhouse. Morris, the smarmy jerk, is there in a hard hat at an hour I wouldn't be awake at, supervising repairs personally. It's horrible complementing the company the game has tried to (almost pavlovianly) conditionioned me to hate, but while I might not like the man, but I can respect that work ethic - you sign on something, you see to it that it's done well. Joja deals fairly, does passable work and renders service quickly in my dealing with them.

And apart from the personal feud Morris has with Pierre, Joja has acted mostly professionally and kept to itself beyond that. Which is more than I can say for Pierre.

Anyway, having chucked my huge text dump here and ranted out my reason for being so disillusioned with the "ending".

I feel like I've just enabled one hugely spiteful jerk to hijack my actions to benefit himself at the expense of his rival and I feel played. I actually feel the Valley is going to be worse off with Pierre than with Joja.

Joja is amoral in the same way only large corporation can be - Joja doesn't care.
Pierre, on the other hand is immoral and actively engineering situations to his benefit, up to and including engaging in bribery through "gifts".

And as a result, I feel like a complete twit for placing him in a situation where he could pull it off.


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While this might purely be a personal point of view coloring things, I feel that if Joja is to be a proper antagonist, more needs to be done to make them LOOK like proper antagonists. Morris has basically one scene in the town and otherwise keeps to himself entirely. Likewise, he doesn't get fleshed out by the friendship system either. so he's basically a blank slate beyond his dealing with Pierre's General Store and his polite, if smarmy snake-oil salesman dialogue.

I'm not saying I would go out drinking with Morris, but I could actually tolerate him, since he's done nothing to me beyond exist (and in a different trouser of time, help supervise construction of a greenhouse).

I'm not saying that as the Jojamart rep, Morris needs to kick puppies and eat babies, but as it stands, beyond running an extremely expensive convenience store, I'm not really seeing what's wrong with Joja.


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TLDR: Pierre made me hate him personally, Morris did not.

 

I for my part think, that a lot in this game isn´t just black and white, but rather shades of grey
therefore, all actions you take may also have negative consequences.

As for negative consequences of the closure of JoJa market I can contribute those 2 things:
1. Penny mentions that her mother would be able to afford much more things due to the cheaper prices in JoJa market ... which, of course, stops when JoJa market closyes
2. Shane will become jobless

On the other hand, despite having higher prices, Pierre seems to sell more healthy food, contributing to a better health of the villagers of Stardew Valley
(which on the other hand is bad for Harvey, as he doesn´t get enough patients to pay his bills )

 

Pierre does obsess over his business, but it's his fatal flaw. No one's perfect, and the fact that Pierre is so worried and insecure about his little "mom and pop" shop actually makes me like his character more, because he feels more real that way: he's a good guy who has a bad hang-up, and that's far more interesting to me than if he were this flawless beacon of small-town hope and goodness.

Similarly, it's cool to see that Morris can be a good guy at times too, since he comes off as an almost comicly smug, mustache-twirling villain in a lot of the early cutscenes that he's featured in.

 

But in fact seeds are cheaper at Pierre's. The games talks about lower prices at Joja, but gives you higher ones.

Anyway, I agree with OP. Pierre's speech at the community center opening got on my nerves,

 

If we're thinking about the same event, I'm pretty sure that's meant to be his porn stash. Nothing illegal, just not something he doesn't want his wife to know about.

 

I kind of wish that the coupon scene was more humane on Morris's part where he is advertising on the town square instead of right inside Pierre's shop as well as a few scene that would establish him less as an outright villain and more of someone either doing their job or have more courtesy to the townsfolk of Pelican Town. That way it is less of a grey vs black and more of a green vs blue and that it is not as obvious or clear which side you should choose.

Also, can someone quote what Pierre's speech is about in the community center? I kind of fell asleep in the middle of it.

 

What do you expect Pierre to do? Joja mart is undercutting his prices and blatantly steal his customers. You expect him to sit back and do nothing while his business just dies.

No of course not because that would be stupid. He sends out advertisements and promotes because it's his way of trying to drum up attention for his otherwise faltering business. He considers smoozing the mayor because money is already tight for him as a result of Joja's infulence and his lost business and he needs to cut costs anyway he can.

And you criticize him for going after Joja mart. NO DAMN DUH!!! They did go after him first. They moved into the town, they undercut his prices, they blatantly went into his store waving around coupons for discounts simply to drive people away from him. So yes he goes after them and he has full reason to because they went after him first and as such he has full right to hate them for it.

Sure he's no paragon of goodness but he's doing what he has to in order to try to maintain his business and support his family. Meanwhile let's look at Joja's motivations.... oh right greed. Just greed.

Your condemning Pierre for doing what any businessman would do in the situation. Do what he has to to try and keep his business afloat, support his family, and holding a grudge against the greed focused company that is blatantly trying to run him out of business.

 

Figured that was what it was. That or he was on drugs.

With Pierre, I was less likely to be charitable.

There are two possibilities based on player choice. Either Pierre challenges Morris to a fight, then goads Morris into accepting by insulting Joja Corp after Morris tries to be the bigger man, or Pierre rallies the townfolk to boycott Joja using the rah rah sentiment you generated by restoring the community center and equating Joja with the deterioration.

Neither left me feeling particularly good about myself.

Ehh. I can't excuse that much, but that's my personal opinion on the subject.

I agree that Pierre is faced with a difficult situation, but he's gone about it in a entirely terrible manner.
Rather than compete and playing to his advantages - seed crop variety and price, Pierre spends his time being a... well... there's so much profanity I want to use on him.
Threatening a customer on their property is so much worse form than Morris' store intrusion in my eyes. Engaging in what can basically be summed up as corruption for kickbacks is just that much worse.

As a businessman, I would definitely not do anything of the sort that Pierre has done. There are ways to compete without descending below the level of a already somewhat loathsome retail manager.

But as much as it sounds like a passive aggressive cop-out (which it isn't meant to be), I'm of the opinion we will not see eye-to-eye on this topic.

Maybe I'm old and jaded, and I think you brought up a good point that Joja might have been the one pushing him into a corner, but then again, the way he responded actually made me feel Morris was the better man here. Which is like finding a way to slide below the lowest rung on the ladder.

 

He can't compete. That's the entire point of the scene with Morris in his shop. Joja mart is big enough and wealthy enough that they can offer the same stuff at high discounts without breaking a sweat.

 

Shaun working at the chicken farm, Sam works at the museum, Pam works as a bus driver, so they all have job after Joja mart closes down. He also becomes more happy talking about the chickens and feel like a family with Pam and Jas, so that's actually a good thing.

Harvey doesn't wish for people to get sick. Joja mart is cheap, but it destroys small business, people losing jobs which would affect the economy in the small town.

In term of Pierre, he's the breadwinner, he works his ass off every day, so while it's wrong to keep a secret stash from your family, he's somewhat deserved some compensation, we don't know what he uses the money for, it could be raining fund or it could be for personal usage, we don't really know. We can't judge if we don't know how Caroline handles the money, she could be a big spender or something.

 

i dont like pierre at all.
but he's doing what he can, the only way he can, to survive

i dont like morris at all.
but he's just doing his job, the way his company tells him to.

i dont like joja mart at all,
but its doing things because it has to show results to its owners.

and i cant blame the owners. they just own it and want profit.
thats the entire point of the system. you invest, you get some profit.

i dont like them, but i cant blame them.

 

That's kind of it. I don't really see that given Pierre is basically selling stuff outright cheaper and he has an awesome array of seeds. That one scene with Morris alone made me hugely supportive of Pierre and I ploughed huge amounts of cash back into his shop over the course of the game.
But another year of Pierre being Pierre just ground down my nerves. If a retailer can't compete, then it's time to get out of the market - no sense riding the ship all the way down while expecting customers to pity shop.

I'm not exonerating Morris. I'm saying Pierre was a huge jerk too.

It weighs in for me this way:
Pierre hates Morris. Morris hates Pierre. (I have no personal stake in this beyond a mild distaste for Joja)
Morris, while slimey, treats me professionally.
Pierre, irritates me intensely all the while expecting me to shop with him.

And that's why I'm advocating making Joja MORE evil because my personal dislike of Pierre as a character actually outweighs my stake in the Pierre/Morris feud.

 

He could try staying open on Wednesdays. Just a thought.

 

He does, after the Joja Mart closes down, he will send you a flyer saying that the store will open on Wednesday from now on. It's supply and demand, he can't open too often if there isn't much of a demand if everyone shopping at joja mart.

 

"It's time to get out of the business"

Really? And what's his family going to do. His daughter is taking college classes online which undoubtedly costs money, his wife is basically a stay at home mother, he is the sole breadwinner of the household and their home is in Stardew Valley. So your answer is to just give up everything he's worked to build throw out his sole source of income and move away from their home in the hopes that maybe something works out somewhere else? You're basically saying. Well let the greedy corporation win and go gamble with your families livelihood. How about no as that is an incredibly stupid idea. You don't throw away your current job unless it's sending you deep in the red or your have some other plan. Doubly so when you have a family to support.

And the fact that you have been shopping there doesn't mean that he's suddenly successful again. Bills, upkeep, purchasing goods, overhead, personal expenses of supporting a family. That kind of business isn't cheap to run and while you may look at it as "well I spent such and such amount on your goods" a large portion of that is just recuperating the cost he spent to purchase it and that's before part of what's left after that goes towards all the other expenses. Add to that the fact that only around 4 people other than you shop there and at least two of them (Leah and Elliot) live frugally.

And yes some of Pierre's goods are cheaper but that doesn't mean much when Joja can just walk up at any time and say okay 50% off on everything.

 

Well... I don't see it as "an incredibly stupid idea" from my perspective at least. That's business. My experience is that it doesn't last forever.

Pierre has basically said he can't compete with the new competition moving in. From where I see it, that's basically alarm bells to start preparing to bail and jump ship.
He got lucky that a farmer (who happened to coincidentally have magical jumino friends) moved into the area and basically became the town hero - and then proceeded to treat said farmer and hero of the community rather negatively.

I don't get it. Are there contextual or cultural things I'm missing regarding closing a business?

 

Not being able to compete and time to jump ship are very different points. As it is it's likely Pierre is still turning enough profit to hold on but not enough to be comfortable financially or actually successful. But if he were to just scap it then he's got less than that. No job, no income, but he still has his family to support and bills to pay while he hopes to find some kind of work that pays enough to cover that. In that kind of situation it's stupid to give up on something that's struggling to make money for something that makes no money but maybe will some time down the line. If he's lucky.

It's the same reason many people stay at dead end or minimum wage jobs. There's simply no sense in throwing away a rough living for a possible better one when there's no actual guarantee that the better one will actually happen. Add in taking care of a family and that's just not a good risk to take.

 

Lol, I really don't think it is.

 

Why did he open it on Wednesday after then? There must be more depend for his shop after Joja mart closed down.

 

I'm not sure this is something you can equate to anything that might happen in real life.

Since it's a game, it opens on Wednesdays after Joja leaves so the player can still shop on Wednesdays (now at Pierre's prices considering Joja charged more for their products) I think it's that simple.