Strap yourselves in for the most incredible AAA title of 2016…Bus Simulator! Okay just kidding, but seriously, why on Earth are these niche simulator games so popular? It just doesn’t make sense.
Allow me to try and answer this question, as well as explain to you why I think most, if not all, simulator games suck. Bear in mind I am talking purely about sim games like Truck Simulator, Flight Simulator, Train Simulator, etc – not games like The Sims.
If you’re a fan of the simulator genre then fair enough, I am certainly not going to begrudge anyone for liking a specific gaming genre. However, I am definitely not one of you, myself. For me, a game is a release from reality, an experience that can help you escape from a mundane day to day lifestyle with an engrossing story or a fun multiplayer experience. The last thing I want to do is play a game that drags you back into the ‘real’ world and frankly, simulators do exactly that.
Simply put, they are so bloody boring.
With the release of Bus Simulator’s launch trailer (see above), I was wondering just what makes simulator games popular. You always see them being churned out year after year, to such an extent that games were created with the entire purpose of making a mockery out of the genre. Goat Simulator was a hilarious fad, made famous by numerous, prominent YouTuber’s, causing it to go viral. The same could be said of Surgeon Simulator and I can understand their popularity as these two examples are so bad that they are good.
PewDiePie’s GS series has gained a combined total view count of around 68 million!
This has led me to believe that the main reason simulators are in any way popular is because these internet personalities make ironic videos of these games – this in turn causes thousands of people to go and buy them, simply for a laugh, i.e. to see how bad the games really are.
I would argue that no-one can truly think these games are any good at all. The graphics are certainly not ground breaking, the controls are usually clunky and frustrating and as I said before the gameplay is incredibly dull! There are, however, some people who genuinely enjoy playing these games.
A quick Google search led me to Reddit, which in turn led me to a Gamasutra article from 2013. They asked the question ‘Who was buying these games?’ and found out that the genre was popular with the 8-12 and 35+ age groups, but there was very little enthusiasm from anyone else. There is no way that the age groups mentioned above are prominent enough to create a stable economy for game developers who create the Farming Simulators of this world.
Apparently, many people like a relaxed gaming experience and I can understand this to a certain extent, but not enough to sway my opinion that these games are terrible. There are plenty of games that can provide a similar but far more interesting and immersive experience – Elite: Dangerous is a space sim game that does this exceptionally well.
I am not the only one that thinks this either. An article posted on Kotaku in 2014 addressed the same thing. It is now 2016 and new sim games are still being produced. If you can think about a normal everyday job, that involves a vehicle, then there is probably a simulator game for it. As the article states, it’s getting out of hand.
To sum this little rant up, I firmly believe that it is YouTube’s influence that makes these games popular. YouTubers will continue to make videos because making a mockery out of the genre makes views and thus money. These games are not good, they are simply the product of a system that is based on people buying the games as a joke. This naturally makes the developers money and gives them an incentive to keep producing new sims.
What are your thoughts on these niche sim games? Do you love them or do you agree with me and never touch them? Let me know in the comments!
