Owlchemy Labs today announced that its tongue-in-cheek simulator game, Job Simulator (2016), has earned over $3 million in sales since its launch last April. According to Owlchemy Labs, this combined with the fact that Job Simulator has generated over 250 million views from videos created by the YouTube community, makes Job Simulator “the most popular VR title to date.”
Job Simulator was included as a launch title for HTC Vive when it was initially released in April 2016. With an early wave of built-in users, buzz surrounding the madcap VR simulator spread primarily through YouTube. Later, the game was included as day-one launch titles for both PlayStation VR in mid-October and Oculus Touch in early December.
Job Simulator was ranked the best-selling PlayStation VR game in North America for both October and November. Steam Spy reports the game has over 100,000 owners on Steam alone.
“When we started development of Job Simulator, it was a massive risk to bet it all on a project that could ONLY work in VR, especially with consumer VR hardware productization so far off and ambiguous” says Owlchemy Labs CEO Alex Schwartz. “It’s great to finally see the numbers show that even in such an early market, success can already be found. We’re incredibly proud of the fact that our game has struck a chord with so many players across the globe, both young and old.”
“I think a huge part of Job Simulator’s success comes from how fun it is to just watch someone play around and be silly in VR” says Schwartz. “Tons of people have seen their favorite YouTuber play around in the physics sandbox that is our game, and that’s great for showing everyone how interactive and magical VR can be. These earliest attempts at mixing real-life video footage with virtual reality are the best way to show people what it truly feels like to be inside of a virtual space so we’re letting streamers and content creators easily share VR footage that’s clear, understandable, and ready for mainstream viewers.”
Other VR titles from Owlchemy Labs include base-jumping sim Aaaaaculus!(2013) and a collaboration between Adult Swim entitled Rick and Morty Simulator: Virtual Rick-ality. Owlchemy is also beta testing their OwlchemyVR Mixed Reality system, an in-engine tool suite for creating mixed reality (MR) videos that’s reportedly much easier and faster to manage than previous MR setups.
