Funny - Farm Simulator is said to have 150.000 preorders

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Hello, everyone,

this is impressive. German mag "Gamestar" writes that the German "Farm Simulator" has 150.000 pre-orders.

http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/landwirtschafts-simulator-2011/news/landwirtschafts_simulator_2011,46447,2318448.html

Who'd hought of this ? I didn't.

Which gives us an interesting insight into what people probably may want nowadays …

One comment I read there is this : "Well, the target group, to whom this game is adressed at, doesn't know a thing about pirate copies." Could be right. ;)

Alrik

[dteowner]

There's a wildly popular MMO called "Farm-ville" (I think that's the name, my knowledge of it is at the "friend of a friend of a friend" level). I'd say that game is an attempt to leech on to the MMO's customer base.

Besides, you Germans will buy anything in the builder/sim genre. ;)

[Dwagginz]

Aren't games like that quite big in Germany? We've got a fair few over here, too, like Forklift Truck Simulator (The hell?) and a large number of trucking simulators.

@dteowner; I'm pretty sure farming simulators have been around longer than Farmville.

[GothicGothicness]

They just have to use the Napoleon 13 song........ They are cooming to take me away... for this... they are coming to take me away to the funny farm that is.....

[pibbur]

There's a whole lot of simulators out there:

In addition to flight simulators and train simulators and their add-ons there's a lot of other exciting sim games out there:

trailer simulators
forklift simulators (Ahh, you beat me to it, Dwagginz)
fishing simulators
hunting simulators
destruction simulators (tear down the wall!)
bus simulators
digger simulators
ship simulators
tow truck simulators
mining and tunneling simulators
bungee jump simulators (I wonder if you can simulate the rope snapping?)
blasting simulators
snowcat simulators
woodcutter simulators
…

There are also games where you get to play a vet, but they are somewhat pinkish, probably directed at a more selective audience. Still I wonder: Do you get to put a dog, a horsie, whatever to sleep?

There's of course also the World of Warcraft simulator (World of World of Warcaft) where you get to play someone playing WOW. It's announced by Blizzard, but I'm not sure it will ever see the light of day.

[pibbur]

They just have to use the Napoleon 13 song…….. They are cooming to take me away… for this… they are coming to take me away to the funny farm that is…..

Where life is beautiful all the time
And I'll be happy to see those nice young men
In their clean white coats

Hmmm. Where's the asylum simulator?

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Besides, you Germans will buy anything in the builder/sim genre. ;)

Yes, we do. ;)

And I mean this rather seriously. ;)

Here's a German-language article on the differences in gaming Germany/Europe vs. The Rest Of The World : http://www.pcgames.de/Panorama-Thema-233992/Specials/In-Deutschland-top-in-den-USA-ein-Flop-Wenn-Spielkonzepte-nicht-weltweit-funktionieren-793836/

Interestingly, there seems to be quite a "culture hiatus" between both areas. Germans rather prefer games where one has to think, whereas action games seem to be rather popular everywhere else.

This leads to German games not being that successful within let's say the U.S. .
This could be a hint towards why rcania was made to be so much action-oriented : It might be specifically developed for the world market, and NOT for the German market.

This might become a draught : Germans perhaps won't get "their" games anymore, but rather "international" games, which they don't quite like that much.
But with German developers then concentrating rather on the international than on the national market, people might feel being draught off "proper" games.
Except from smaller studios.

[dteowner]

I don't doubt it, Dwagginz, but that MMO was the first farm game with a big enough buzz to reach my ears, even here in Corn Field, Indiana. It's purely anecdotal, but it would appear any similar games prior were at the "micro-indie" level, which don't demonstrate the customer base required to attract a main-line publisher like Farmville does.

Maxis (the Sim City guys) did a Sim Farm many years ago, which I believe sold no less than an amazing 12 copies. I think it got a second life as educational software available to schools for free. That sort of fan base certainly isn't going to attract a major publisher these days.

[pibbur]

There's also the "political machine" by Stardock, where you get to simulate a campaing to get elected to something. I'm waiting for the "Florida Presidental Election" addon before considering this.

[skavenhorde]

Don't forget about Simant. (http://www.mobygames.com/game/simant-the-electronic-ant-colony)

It seemed to get some decent reviews for being such an odd game. Might get it if it ever comes to GoG.

[Dwagginz]

There's of course also the World of Warcraft simulator (World of World of Warcaft) where you get to play someone playing WOW. It's announced by Blizzard, but I'm not sure it will ever see the light of day.

World of World of Warcraft was an Onion spoof :p It's not a real game in the slightest ;)

[pibbur]

World of World of Warcraft was an Onion spoof :p It's not a real game in the slightest ;)

Yepp. I know. The Spinal Tap of mmorpging.

[DArtagnan]

To each his own ;)

[Gorath]

The original story isn't over.

The direct competition to Farm Simulator entered the charts at #1. But unfortunately for them the shipped product was not what was promised on the box (*). So the Farm Simulator publisher had their legal department send them a C&D, which the other publisher found himself unable to shoot down. So they signed it and pulled the product to fix the problem.

(*) This is not about good, bad or buggy. The only relevant question is whether or not the product holds the promises made on the box.

[BillSeurer]

Farmville is the *second* largest game ever based on numbers of active players. The largest is "Happy Farm", a Chinese Facebook game.

See, for instance: http://xkcd.com/802/

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Nice map ! :)

I'd like to see at least a little bit of that in RPGs. A weird dream, I know. ;)

I could imagine players replying : "This [farming] is not hardcore enough."
My reply to that would then be … the quotation of a comic strip about Haegar The Horrible : The toughest of all toughest Vikings are actually those who are MARRIED … :lol:

[BillSeurer]

Nice map ! :)

I'd like to see at least a little bit of that in RPGs. A weird dream, I know. ;)

I could imagine players replying : "This [farming] is not hardcore enough."
My reply to that would then be … the quotation of a comic strip about Haegar The Horrible : The toughest of all toughest Vikings are actually those who are MARRIED … :lol:

On that map's scale RPGs would probably be that little island directly below Twitter.

A hardcore farming simulator would have you randomly just lose.

[GothicGothicness]

Farmville is the *second* largest game ever based on numbers of active players. The largest is "Happy Farm", a Chinese Facebook game.

See, for instance: http://xkcd.com/802/

Facebook was blocked in china...... or did they unblock it again?

[BillSeurer]

Facebook was blocked in china…… or did they unblock it again?

Dunno. Happy Farm is available on facebook and its host is a Chinese (Hong Kong) company.

"Happy Farm is a massively multiplayer online game based on farm management, played predominantly by users in China and Taiwan, and is the most popular MMOG in terms of players. There are 23 million daily active users, logging on to the game at least every 24 hours. Approximately 15 million urban white-collar workers are estimated to spend more than five hours a day on Happy Farm. Because of its popularity, the game's host, Tencent QQ, has capped the number of new players per day at 2 million."

[Alrik Fassbauer]

By the way, I've never ever heard of QQ before I saw the map.

[skavenhorde]

Facebook was blocked in china…… or did they unblock it again?

List of sites blocked in China. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_People%27s_Republi c_of_China) Could not find any mention that Facebook was back.

No such problems here in Taiwan :)