Next Level: Simulator video games focused on real life are on the rise

Video games tend to offer escapism by exploring the unimaginable, allowing gamers to tune out for a few hours by getting in the shoes of super soldiers, the spurred boots of Western wrestlers, or even stray household pets. And living out their stories across sci-fi dystopias, vast fantasy worlds, or the deep expanses of space. But for some gamers, the escapism they're looking for is a bit more grounded,

how our imitating life can offer its own form of escapism, even in a virtual 9-5. The virtualized world of work simulators is a decades-old field that can be traced to the rise of the personal computer. Many of the earliest models shipped with some kind of flight simulator. One of the most popular, Microsoft Flight Simulator, was originally launched in 1982, and has given players worldwide the opportunity

to take to the virtual skies ever since. Over time, the company continued to update the game, and with improved graphics, satellite imagery, artificial intelligence, and other open-source data, Microsoft generated an increasingly lifelike representation of Earth for digital pilots to fly over, with accurate mountains, rivers, and over 1.5 billion buildings. There's more than 460 kinds of aircraft to be piloted, and 1,600 airports to fly to and

from. With the growth and advancement of these sorts of simulators, today there's no shortage of virtual jobs to be picked up. Recent games like Farming Simulator 22, which predictably allows players to roleplay as farmers, have been huge smash hits with audiences. Farm Simulators' experience is so sophisticated that users have to figure out what equipment they need to buy in order to plant specific crops and how

to best fertilize and harvest their resources. That's all in addition to selecting and taking care of a wide array of livestock for pastures. Euro-truck Simulator and its American counterpart have found huge success in developing a simulator that recreates the Longhall Trucking experience. Beyond being able to customize your rig and choosing the cargo you want to carry, the games are built to scale based on maps of

real trucking routes, meaning drivers will have to figure out what roads they'll need to take in order to get to their destinations, and how long those hours-long strips can take. All in order to make deliveries on time. There are much less complicated, more sure-intensive jobs to be done as well, like simulators that let you power-watch dirty public bathrooms, prepare elaborate dinners, and even build virtual computers,

all the way down to screwing out individual components of the devices. And in some cases, gamers and motors are already retooling already popular games to open them up to more role-playing opportunities. Much of Grand Theft Auto 5's continued success can be attributed to the increasing popularity of lobbies where participants are required to stay in character and perform certain roles within that universe, like acting as a

police officer. There's a sizeable audience for people to live stream their favorite streamers doing these mundane work games. During peak times, Farm Simulator 22 has seen as many as 90,000 concurrent viewers on steam streams for the game. American Truck Simulator has hit that 90,000 mark on Twitch, while it's European counterpart Euro Truck Simulator has racked up as many as 60,000 concurrent streamers. While there is some

popular appeal to simulator games for their novelty, players who clock in consistent hours say there's a therapeutic or zen-like element to completing work in a stress-free environment. You'd expect from a game that it tells you what to do. Go get that key, go to that door, kill that monster. Monday and vehicle simulators don't do that. They are open-ended. You make them into what you want. Personally,

I just find pleasure in just driving around. More or less aimlessly, waiting to get stuck in the traffic jam, then turning on the CB radio, listening to other people complain about the andics of other players. Lanyu notes that he's increasingly opted for the simulator experience, in part because of the role-playing nature of the game. So is this sort of ecosystem of different kind of activities which

feed into each other in interesting ways? And it's all sort of bottom up. It's not top-down created by the game designer. That's the beauty of it. Some people built their own real estate. Then there's the sort of social activities which gets really interesting. People run virtual trucking companies, where someone is the dispatcher and sends other players' admissions around the game world. Some players even have infrared

camera setups that allow them to turn their heads and see out of their side windows, a second monitor. Much of that critique of virtual worlds was based on this none of existential emptiness. Your truck is not existentially empty. Call it sort of player creativity or user generated something. But the beauty of it, that it's bottom up and for the players by the players kind of thing.

The rise of the popularity of these simulation games can feel niche, as many popular streamers will play the most outrageous sounding simulators for the sake of more eyeballs on their stream. But it also shows a diversification in how we interact with video games and the cultural relevancy they have over society. The bigger games out there, it's just that these connections to different mechanisms of production and

profit making are slightly different from office work as we know it. Tyler Adguisson scripts news Chicago.