Last month’s announcement of an expanded Farming Simulator esports initiative generated a wide array of social media reactions from the competitive gaming community, including a fair bit of surprise and incredulity. However, it also seemed to yield plenty of positive interest, as well.

That’s partially because it is indeed an unexpected esport, and something out of left field—but also because Farming Simulator has a robust fan base that GIANTS Software has been cultivating for more than a decade. The long-running series keeps expanding to more and more platforms, bringing in additional players that are eager to plant crops, tend to livestock, and compete and collaborate online. With millions of copies sold to date, Farming Simulator has sown the seeds for potential interest in its esports push.

We’ll have to wait and see whether the Farming Simulator League can harvest that potential later this year, but for now, here’s a look at the franchise’s growth and expansion, current Twitch and YouTube viewership, and how the game’s esports scene is evolving.

Rising Sales

The series had humble beginnings with Farming Simulator 2008, which featured only a single crop type and one licensed vehicle manufacturer. However, the experience has been expanded and enhanced dramatically over the years, adding dozens of licensed brands, online play, various farming activities, and a larger map to explore and cultivate.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Focus Home Interactive announced that Farming Simulator 19 had sold more than 1M copies across all platforms within the first 10 days of release.[/perfectpullquote]

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For the past several years, Farming Simulator has been an annual release, albeit on alternating sets of platforms. Farming Simulator 17, for example, released for PC and consoles, while Farming Simulator 18 launched on mobile devices and portable game systems. The latest entry, last year’s Farming Simulator 19, returned the series to PC and consoles with overhauled graphics, new activities, and the addition of vehicles from leading brand, John Deere.

And it found a sizable audience: publisher Focus Home Interactive announced that Farming Simulator 19 had sold more than 1M copies across all platforms within the first 10 days of release. The series was already a multi-million-seller, according to the publisher, and Farming Simulator 19 boosted that tally while becoming the fastest-selling entry to date.

Current Viewership

Even so, Farming Simulator 19 hasn’t been a consistent draw on Twitch. The game hit its viewership peak on Nov. 25, 2018—a few days after release—with 287K hours watched in a single day. It hit a peak concurrent viewer (CCV) tally of 40K on Dec. 3.

Aside from one other day above 200K hours watched the following week, viewership hasn’t come anywhere close to that tally in the weeks since. Typically, you’ll find less than 1K total Twitch viewers for Farming Simulator 19 at any given time, spread across a wide number of channels. The leading Twitch streamer of late is “Sips_,” who streamed more than 10 hours of Farming Simulator 19 over the last week and generated 22K hours viewed, with a max CCV of 2.47K.

YouTube viewership for Farming Simulator Championship videos shows growth on esports programming, however. A short recap video from the first-ever event at Agritechnica 2017 has 91K views, followed up by 115K views for the competition stream video from FarmCon 2018, and 156K views for the stream video from the most recent event at Herofest 2018 in October.

Also, it’s worth noting that farming industry conventions like the biannual Agritechnica—both in 2017 and this year’s upcoming event—provide additional value to GIANTS Software by exposing that audience to the game while delivering a compelling in-person experience. That’s especially true with the number of familiar licensed brands in the game, and the promise of farm-tech companies sponsoring teams for the upcoming Farming Simulator League series.

Becoming an Esport

Online multiplayer has been a part of Farming Simulator for several years now, and GIANTS Software’s official esports push came from seeing players hold their own competitions within the game. “We saw this phenomenon,” said CEO Christian Ammann last month. “We just tried to build something, and then we started the first tournament. The feedback was quite interesting.”

GIANTS packed its Agritechnica 2017 booth wall-to-wall with viewers who watched the three-player hay bale-stacking competitive mode. From there, the developer held three more events, including at its own annual FarmCon convention, before assembling plans for this year’s larger-scale Farming Simulator League.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The league will also engage farming industry brands in a unique way, with multiple yet-to-be-announced farm-tech companies confirmed to sponsor teams. [/perfectpullquote]

The Farming Simulator League will span 10 tournaments across Europe, with a total prize pool of €250K ($283K USD). It will include stops at large gaming conventions like Gamescom in Germany and Paris Games Week, and the tournaments will focus on a new 3v3 team mode developed specifically for esports competition. Ammann and PR and marketing manager Martin Rabl suggested in January that it will be a more strategic mode that can enable more compelling matchups over the long haul.

The league will also engage farming industry brands in a unique way, with multiple yet-to-be-announced farm-tech companies confirmed to sponsor teams. GIANTS Software opted to not have those companies be overall league sponsors to avoid potential conflicts of interest, and instead has recruited endemic sponsors like Logitech, Intel, Noblechairs, and server hosting company Nitrado.

Competition kicks off this summer in Europe. While there’s likely to be some level of initial interest from viewers curious to see exactly how Farming Simulator esports works, we’ll have to see whether GIANTS Software can keep them coming back—and whether it can tap into its large core fan base and convert some of them into esports fans, as well.