Simulation games often draw quite a niche audience. Their mixture of complicated, deep gameplay with steep learning curves/cliffs, often means that they need a special form of dedication to succeed in, that most games don't require and that turns a lot of people off.
The fact that the subject matter is often quite dry compared to a lot of explosive action titles is a big contributor too.
So with that in mind, you'd expect a game like Farming Simulator wouldn't be one of the hottest selling games of the year, but you'd be wrong. It's managed to shift more than a million copies, leaving it with many thousands consistently playing it on Steam and even regularly having more players than games like Call of Duty Infinite Warfare.
Even more surprising is that Farming Simulator also seems to attract a crowd of physical disc buyers. While much rarer these days, in-store versions of Farming Simulator were the most popular in France and Germany, according to Eurogamer.
What's even more impressive, is the million copies sold were shifted in the first month after the game went on sale. Considering it took two years for the previous version to sell three million copies, there are high hopes for farming simulator 2017.
Have you been harvesting any corn lately?
