Gamers secretly love Farming Simulator

Want to play a game about driving a tractor, tending crops, and managing a farm? Apparently, a lot of people do.

Farming Simulator 2013 is consistently in the top 100 games played according to the Steam stats. In fact, it’s sitting just above the newly released Monaco as I write this and previous entries in the series did just as well. Despite being the butt of jokes and a number of too-hip Youtube Let’s Play videos, Giants Studio is doing something right with the Farming Simulator games.

The Penny Arcade Report interviewed Thomas Frey of Giants Studio to take a look at the popularity of this genre of games and examine why they’re so darned popular.

Frey pointed to the steady release of mods and new content from the community as one of the reasons the game keeps its audience so tightly locked in the act of creating farms. There is also the fact that there is no violence to turn off anyone in the audience. The theme is a farm. Some players like the simulation aspect of the game, children like playing with the giant machinery, and yes, farmers like playing the game to talk about farming strategy. A farm is attractive to any number of demographics, and the game’s appeal cuts across age lines as well.

“That makes our player base super large and is why we sold so many copies of the game.”

We have our own gaggle of Euro Truck Simulator 2 fans here on the Quarter to Three forums, which I’d put squarely in the same genre of blue-collar RPG. Maybe I need to tap my inner Old Macdonald and start baling some hay?