GameSpot Presents Rank: Street Cleaning Simulator (PC)

JemyM

Okay, now roll sanity.
Joined
October 26, 2006
Messages
6,027
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
6,027
This appears to me to be one of the "simulator" games sold here in Germny with quite some success.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,893
Location
Old Europe
Who keeps buying these things? This is not the first very odd simulator to be released as a game in recent years. Ever wanted to drive a combine harvester? You can do it in this game. There are also real time truck driving simulators, where you go from town to town (in real time!) loading and unloading goods.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
1,756
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
So-called "Farm Simulators" are hugely popular here in Germany - not among gamers of course.
Gamers both despise them and are puzzled about who might buy them at the same time.
It seems to me that these "Simulation Games" cover a "target group" that hasn't been targeted before. ;)
It must be a customer/buyer group completely parallel to the usual gamers groups, I think ...
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,893
Location
Old Europe
Not just Parallel to the usual gamer group, but also so far removed from it that we can't perceive its existence, outside of a few ripples it causes.
I've watched a few videos of these simulators on YouTube, and I really can't see why someone would play these games. Simulators of more glamorous or exciting jobs (pilot, fire fighter, police and so on) i can understand, but Road construction simulator actually managed to look less interesting than cleaning my apartment. What kind of person suddenly gets the urge to play a construction worker, on a computer, when all you do is some very mundane tasks?
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
1,756
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
Casual gamers, and I tend to believe its casual gamers of an higher age. People who just don't play Crysis.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,893
Location
Old Europe
Well, the gameplay looks more complex than some AAA games these days, to be honest.

Anyway, I don't know who the target group is (although I assume Alrik is on the right track), but it is clearly a viable niche. Just look at the portfolio of these guys:
http://www.astragon.de/simulationen.html
Heh - demolition company simulator could be fun… ;)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,508
GBG is "Rasmus Modsat" today ;)

That said, I always appreciate simulators like this - even if I'd never - ever - play them myself. I think they're worth it, just to give people an idea of how something might work in reality. Any actual knowledge taught to the interested (or, perhaps especially, the disinterested) is potentially a positive.
 
It's a Danish expression used to describe a person who says, thinks, or acts in a way opposite to everyone else :)

Oh come on! Bearded dunmer, street cleaing simulators - who could possibly resist! ;)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,508
I wrote from the last year's Games Com, where there was a banner hanging over the booth of such a Simulation-game developing firm, saying they had had more buyers than WOW ...
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,893
Location
Old Europe
So do you guys think this game's target group is much larger than the amount of gamers who aren't intimidated and terrified by things like character generation in an RPG?
 
Joined
Mar 24, 2008
Messages
188
Probably. Maybe we should just sell our niche as "Role Playing Gamer Simulator"! :p
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,508
If I understood it correctly, "dating simulators" actually do exist - for the Japanese market.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,893
Location
Old Europe
Back
Top Bottom