Tractor manufacturers are now looking to the Farming Simuator series as a powerful marketing tool. Developer Giants Software gets so many requests from companies that it is enough to cover development costs.
Giants Software told The Guardian that it receives hundreds of requests a year from tractor manufacturers to have their equipment featured in Farming Simulator. Some companies even launch their products at the same time they appear in the game.
“In the beginning, we had to ask manufacturers to be included in the game,” Giants marketing manager Wolfgang Ebert said. “Today, we have to consider who we can integrate and what benefit there is to the game — we have many, many brands waiting to be included.”
Manufacturers not only want their tractors and other equipment to appear in Farming Simulator, but they also share detailed engineering drawings with Giants Software. These partnerships is also an important revenue stream for the studio, helping it cover production costs.
Farming Simulator 22, the latest game in the series, sold 1.5 million units in its first week, later hitting the 3 million mark. The title also peaked at 105,636 concurrent users on Steam (via SteamDB), with tens of thousands of people still playing it every day. So it is a quite popular game, which is also available on Xbox and PlayStation.
Giants Software is a Swiss game developer founded in 2004. Its main franchise, Farming Simulator, has sold over 25 million units globally. Interestingly, the studio has also been self-publishing its products since 2021, so it doesn’t have to share revenue with other companies.