A few weeks ago, Farming Simulator 17 surprised us all by announcing that it has sold more than 1 million units. The niche game even outsold Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in its launch week. But perhaps the most surprising statistic so far is that most of the simulation game's 1 million copies was sold as physical discs rather than digital downloads.
GameIndustry.biz sat down with Giants Software's marketing and PR manager Martin Rabl to discuss those results and gain insight on a traditionally overlooked side of modern gaming.
"The Farming Simulator series has a huge and very diverse fan base," explained Rabl. "Farmers and non-farmers, young people and old people, families and friends. We also reach many people who usually don't buy a lot of video games, but like the relaxed and non-competitive atmosphere of Farming Simulator."
"So, while many titles are bought online and digitally, this group of people buys their games in traditional retail stores. This is especially true when they're looking to buy more than one copy - for example, one for you and one as a present for your kid."
Simulation games are usually shunned by most gamers as boring recreation of real life. Why spend your evening pretending to drive a truck through the highway in typical traffic conditions while abiding to the law when you can blaze through exciting locations in the most advanced Ferrari or fight off alien invasion with futuristic weapons?
Reality is, simulation games players are more of hobbyists than gamers. To them, buying a simulation game is akin of picking up a train set and adding DLC to it is no different from buying extra tracks and trains for a physical train set.
"While many of our fans would also call themselves gamers, for many it's also one of the very few games they actually play," explained Rabl.
You can read the whole interview at GameIndustry.biz.
