Have you ever wondered how a unique title gets pitched and made? We sat down with Martin Rabl, Head of Marketing & PR at GIANTS Software to talk about Farming Simulator 23, how it was pitched, and what the future holds for the ever growing franchise.
How did Farming Simulator as a franchise come to be originally? How do you pitch a unique concept like that and how was it initially received?
Christian Ammann and Stefan Geiger originally worked on creating a game engine and a friend suggested “to do something with a tractor.” At that time there was nothing else within that niche so they decided to go for it and create an entire game based around the concept of farming. During development, they had a great response from their online community, which showed there was demand out there for a game like this and helped to spur them on to finish the original game. They founded GIANTS Software and when the game was launched it proved to be incredibly popular and was received so positively.
How big was the team at the start of the series, and how big is it now?
It was literally just the two founders, Christian Ammann and Stefan Geiger. They were responsible for everything initially. Over the years the team grew with each new release and as the series expanded onto more platforms. Now we have four branch offices across four different countries and about 100 employees.
Moving forward to more recent times, what was the motive behind making Farming Simulator 23 portable only? Did you always have the Switch in mind or did it start as Mobile and grow into the Switch Platform?
As the series grew in popularity the shift to more platforms was the logical next step. We wanted to enable more people to play our games and Farming Simulator 2012 was the first entry for a mobile device. Today, the Nintendo Switch is a perfect platform for enabling players to maintain their farming empire from absolutely anywhere.
What were the main considerations the dev team needed to take when moving the series from PC/Home Console to a portable format?
The first consideration is always ensuring that the game works intuitively on a new control scheme and equally important is getting the game to run on all of the different hardware with varying specifications. Those are always the main considerations when we begin work on a new platform.
Having only recently joined the online Farming Sim community, it’s clear there’s a very dedicated and passionate fan base. How important is the fan feedback for shaping the series?
It’s very important having a passionate and dedicated community out there. It’s so rewarding to hear their feedback and support for our games and it’s a great way to get feedback on each release. We’re so lucky to have a fantastic community of players and we love catching up with them at events like FarmCon and hearing how they feel about our games. We welcome their feedback and often organise surveys so that they can tell us about their experiences with the game.
The modding community seems very active within the game, and I know your team actively helps with mods. Would you say mods help increase the popularity and longevity of your titles?
Definitely. The modding community is a big part of the series now. As of April this year we’ve had over 2.5 billion Mod downloads which shows just how creative and passionate our community is and what a big part of the Framing Simulator experience the modding feature now is.
Do you plan on releasing mods or DLC for Farming Simulator 23?
Of course. We have plans in the works for continued support of our games with more content.
Farmcon has just passed this year with record attendance, how does it feel interacting with gamers at these events?
We love events such as these. It’s so good to meet with fans of the series and hear their feelings about the games. It’s an amazing event and we really value the feedback we get from everyone when we attend events like FarmCon.
Having played over 100+ hours of Farming Sim 23 on my Switch, I haven’t really encountered any bugs (except for the type I need to spray for) was the development of the game relatively smooth?
Yes, it was a smooth process with no major issues I’m happy to say.
Were there any features or content you would have liked to add in the Switch version of the game?
We always want to include as many vehicles as possible but I’m afraid size is always a consideration. So we had to limit the final amount which meant there is not quite as many vehicles in this mobile version compared to our main line game Farming Simulator 22.
Finally, Is there any information you can share about what the future holds for Farming Simulator 23 on the Nintendo Switch
We’re looking forward to providing support for a long time which will include new DLC. The last mobile release was Farming Simulator 20 in 2019, so we intend to support this new release for many years to come.
Thank you so much for your time!
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You can purchase it digitally from the AU Nintendo Eshop here Farming Simulator 23: Nintendo Switch™ Edition/Nintendo Switch/eShop Download
