Warehouse & Logistics Simulator Is On Steam, Easy To Mock

Warehouse and Logistics Simulator has just been released on Steam. It contains "original Jungheinrich forklift", a "huge variety of quests" about lifting pallets from point A to point B, and no collision detection on the people idly milling around the warehouse.

There's a launch trailer below, and some thoughts from me while I attempt to resist all the easy jokes.

I'm in no real position to make fun of something like this, as I genuinely enjoy a whole range of nerdy simulation games. But as I've been reading about it, I wonder how much a game like this is intended to be "genuinely" enjoyed. The Steam reviews suggest its buggy, feature-light, and from a developer known for other similarly iffy games. The Steam forums are mostly populated by people who bought it 'for the lulz'; in other words, their enjoyment is ironic, and comes mainly from the game's mere existence. People are buying it as a kind of punchline.

Its publisher - who are also responsible for Agricultural Simulator: Historical Farming - must know that these people are part of their market. I want to know what the ratio is, between people who buy the game because they want it and people who buy it so they can tell people they bought it. I wouldn't judge either group, but it strikes me that the latter group's cynical enjoyment is dependent on the idea that there's a large group of the former. "People really like this stuff? That's cray." If its inevitable mockery is built-in, a deliberate part of the game's appeal, that seems considerably less fun an idea.

Exhibit A to suggest that's the case: there's also DLC available for the game, called Hell's Warehouse. It adds zombies.