Farming Simulator 22 farms off big names with relish, even outdoing a Forza Horizon 5 in Europe.
The Farming Simulator 22 entertains a huge community of players, that can already be seen on Steam. But how well the farming sim performs in direct comparison with the very big names of the gaming cosmos on the European market is surprising.
According to a tweet by industry expert Christopher Dring, who holds a senior position at Gamesindustry.biz, Farming Simulator 22 sold better in Europe than Forza Horizon 5, Guardians of the Galaxy, Monster Hunter Rise, Zelda: Skyward Sword HD and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
There are only two ‘new’ games in the Top Ten for Europe (GSD data)… Call of Duty: Vanguard and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl would be in there if those games were counted as one. Far Cry 6 still has a couple of weeks to make it
– Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) December 26, 2021
Dring does not provide precise data, but points out that this should follow soon in the 2021 annual report.
Measurable growth
The gigantic success of Farming Simulator 22, at least to this extent, comes as quite a surprise. Actually, one would rather assign hardcore simulations to the niche spectrum. However, the player numbers on Steam, which at peak times scratched the 100,000 mark, clearly speak of a great mainstream success:
Furthermore, Farming Simulator has been growing considerably in recent years: the 2017 version still came to around 31,000 concurrently active players on Steam at its release in October 2016. The 19 offshoot of the farming series already reached almost 60,000 virtual farmers in 2018. Now, the latest part of the series is scratching the 100,000 mark.
However, these figures only show how many players are active in Farming Simulator 22 at the same time. The actual sales are many times higher. In the release week alone, the game sold 1.5 million copies.
