Are these games fun?

We've seen an explosion in simulator games. In addition to flightsims and trainsims and (perhaps) civilization sims (not mentioning the Sims game) we have:

Ship simulators
Truck simulators
Farming simulators
Forklift simulators
Tear down buildings simulators (actually, I'd like to try that one)
…

And..
Hunting simulators
Fishing simulators

Are these games fun? Seems very boring to me (even in the mighty Wow I usually stay clear of fishing)

There are also vet. simulators. Due to their somewhat pinkish appearance I think they're mainly targeting female teenagers, but I may be wrong. One thing I've wondered about with these games: Do you ever get to put a doggie to permanent sleep? And if so, because the owner didn't want to care for them any longer?

*ponders*

I know of people who think such games are fun.

What surprises me, is that most fans of such games are people who do those things in real life - and are passionate about it.

I would have thought that such people would think of a computer game as way too "unreal" and not being able to provide anything near the entertainment of a real life experience.

But it seems such enthusiasts just want access to as much that relates to their interests as possible, regardless of how games compare with reality.

Personally, I think the vast majority of games that I've seen like those you mention - are incredibly boring and hollow.

Seems like one German publisher cornered the market here.

Some of these are more or less serious...the Ship Simulator one has quite a following, so I guess they`re having fun.

Vet/Horse/Pet Hotel/Shopping with Barbie "simulators" are scourge of NDS (and probably Wii too)...sometimes it seems these are the only titles released (apart from lame film/cartoon tie-ins)

Dunno about putting-Spot-to-sleep-forever, but in "Life & Death", old surgeon sim, you could have fun with someone`s stomach...

If you are really interested in something you'll probably find a good simulator of it fun.... for example I enjoyed sim city a lot... or transport tycoon, or pizza tycoon, all of them are kind of simulations..... where you could build your city / empire / transportation syndicate... I've been planning to do all of these in real life too but didn't really have the time / resources for it yet.

For hunting it might not be hunting season and the hunter is bored..... so he begins to play a simulation of what he is going to do when the season finally begins. For the teen who are not allowed to have pets by her parents it is perfect to have it in the DS.

Furthermore some of these simulations are so good that you can actually learn from them. For some educations they only use simulations for your education.... to practice steering with a real oil-tanker tends to be too expensive for some reason.

So yeah I can see why these are popular and some of them I also considered fun.....

But there are also some simulators which are so boring that they would work very well if you have sleeping problems.... so everything have a purpose I suppose.

The farming simulator realy sells like ... what's the word for something selling insanely ?

It is a phenomenon. No-one knows really why it sells ´so much. The gamers in the forums of German gaming magzines just kind of despise this farkming simulation game - but one thing is clear : They aren't the trget group !

Someone else buys these games ! And they are NOT gamers !!!

This is insofar interesting, as it shows that there actually seems to EXIST a market for games OUTSIDE the "gaming market" !

The implications of that might hit serious gaming marketing researchers like a smack on the head : Making games for gamers just isn't the full thing ! There are people out there who are playing games and at the same time they are NOT gamers !

The implication of that is that gaming development narrowed too much on the "traditional gamer" during the last few decades ... A Nerd Thing, essentuially ... And this kind of funnel left all of the casual playing people out ... Most games of today are for gamers - for Nerds ! - not for people who just want to play a game once in a while ...

And now, these "casual gamers" strike back ... They show the industry that they not only exist - but also that they buy games that no *cough* "serious" gamer would ever want to buy !

It's like ... We say here "Parallel societies".

GamersGlobal thinks the Farm Simulator is a better than average and definitely not crap (in the context of a casual sim).

Astragon's Farm Simulator (whatever the exact name may be) is unbelievably successful. It was the best selling budget game in Germany last year, ahead of WoW.

The latest installment had 150.000 pre-orders!

AFAIR it also secured the no.1 spot in the French charts a few weeks ago.

The development budget on the other hand is probably extremely low. I bet many of these ABCD Sim games share the same code base, and the assets can look outdated in this market segment.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

The farming simulator realy sells like … what's the word for something selling insanely ?…

Click to expand...

We have an expression in Norwegian that fits perfectly here: "som hakka møkk" which (for those of you not familiar with the Heroe's Tongue) translates into "like chopped dung".

@GG: I think you're right - the main issue is the interest in what's simulated. I have to admit that I reeeaaalllly like travelling by train. And I have several train sims.

And maybe I should buy one of the really boring ones to use when I can't sleep. However, for that purpose iHave 34 miNutes of raiN on my iPod. (And sometiMes iLiSten to GoreckiSs 3rd symphony (of sorrowful songs) whiCh iFind very soothiNg).

@Gorath: I think you're correct about the cost/budget. The market has exploded with all these sims, which I doubt would sell enough to cover the development costs if each of them were designed from scratch.

BTW: What sims are lacking, and what would you like to see?

Sim Pathologist (been there, done that - part of med school was one do-it-yourself autopsy)?
World of world of world of warcraft?
Sim Game Developer?
Sim Butcher?
Sim Petrol Powered Lawn-and-everything-init mower?
Sim Great White Shark?
Sim Guitar Player (Oh, we got that one - WE HATES THEM!!!)

And..

And …

Sim Australian!!!
(Where you have to speak weird and barely understandable English while at the same time picking up deadly snakes and play the-unmentionable-sport with them)

pibbur said:

Sim Great White Shark?

Click to expand...

Ummm, been done, kinda

obviously what pibbur and the world needs is sim cricket....... imagine the sales in Australia....

To be a tiny bit more serious : I'd have niothing against planting and harvesting my own food in the next RPG I play ...

I'll never forgot how it was to harvest and make honey in Divinity 1 !!! That was quite a unique experience to me ... And no game did it the same way since then ...

dteowner said:

Ummm, been done, kinda

Click to expand...

Ok.

What about:

Sim Tiger Shark
Sim Bull shark
Sim Ocean Whitetip
Sim Spotted Wobbegong

There are a lot of sharks out there, you know. And not all of them have been shown on Discovery channel.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

To be a tiny bit more serious : I'd have niothing against planting and harvesting my own food in the next RPG I play …

I'll never forgot how it was to harvest and make honey in Divinity 1 !!! That was quite a unique experience to me … And no game did it the same way since then …

Click to expand...

You can plant and harvest things in lotro. And make food of it (except for the weed).

And back in the old days, the litmus test of a good rpg was: Can you bake your own bread? Like you could in the Ultimas.

Come to think of it, in U6 I think you could change diapers on the very young ones. Or at least throw dirty diapers at Lord British. Which he didn't like. Sim Baby?

GothicGothicness said:

obviously what pibbur and the world needs is sim cricket……. imagine the sales in Australia….

Click to expand...

NEVER mention that game again. You heard what Corwin said - the Americans will destroy it if it's brought to their attention.

And now Hunting Unlimited 2011 is available on Impulse for USD 4.99. Animal animations so real you can almost hear them coming!!

pibbur said:

And back in the old days, the litmus test of a good rpg was: Can you bake your own bread? Like you could in the Ultimas.

Click to expand...

Dropped in favor to more action ...

I try played few and didn't enjoyed but there's one that provided me a good fun, during 4 or 5 full plays (it won't live much more and probably less for most players), it's Game Dev Story.

Well it's difficult to find information about it but my understanding is it's an old PC game released only in Japanese and a Game Dev Story 2 followed. The Game Dev Story I quote is the Japanese port to iPhone and with an English translation.

So it's the English iphone version I played on an iPad. In short you develop games, could build few consoles, you hire from 1 to 8 employees with different skills and can train them or promote them or fire them, you could push investments on some area of a game, you choose between various game genres and types and find new genres mainly through your employees. Also you could hire external celebrity of game developing just to help develop a part of the game like the graphics or the story and scenario. You could also hire your studio to make some job for external company like developing the sounds and music for another game.

Also each year you can compete to GOTY and could participate to the big game show of the year and choose different stands levels from cheap one to big one with plenty charming girls as host at the stand and a celebrity to attract more people.

There's some funny details like the ability to release games before to have clean it from bugs, make sequels makes more easy to sell more, all along the game there's various consoles that pop up with names that are wink to real consoles released, and so on.

Quite funny for a simple sim game not looking for complexity, the thematic boost a lot its fun if you cooperate and get into the mood of looking what games and how make them to increase the fame of your studio, and how to win awards or make big sellers.

There was once a similar game here in Germany, it was called ... uh, I don't remember its title anymore ... But, well, it was about making and publishing software, too. PC platform ...

Alrik Fassbauer said:

There was once a similar game here in Germany, it was called … uh, I don't remember its title anymore … But, well, it was about making and publishing software, too. PC platform …

Click to expand...

The informations about Game Dev Story are quite unclear and unsure it's totally possible it got a German translation, the original games seems have been released at end of the 90's perhaps 1999. And the follwup one or two years after.

For sure I would be interested by any game trying this, but not in German.

Gorath said:

The development budget on the other hand is probably extremely low. I bet many of these ABCD Sim games share the same code base, and the assets can look outdated in this market segment.

Click to expand...

I saw one of the farm sims on Steam a few months ago. Looks like they have a LOT of product placement, too.

I can't understand them at all. Not even a little. A game where you watch the grass grow. Then you can drive a combine over your field… great… and what's going to make this even slightly difficult? Could there at least be a massive, crop-killing storm coming in so I have to make some decisions on what part of the field is worth harvesting?

P.S. Cricket computer game! Dibs!! It will be quite true to the real game… if you go in to the INI file and set the Version parameter to {ebaf-124423-95f0-9b13a}. Otherwise, it will use rules more recognizable to the American audience and, of course, round bats instead of those funky paddle things. Oh, and one of the teams will consist entirely of cat girls.