While I’ve been known to enjoy a few of them in my time, I tend to view a lot of more mundane simulator games in the same way I view sports games: Looks fine, but I could do this stuff in real life, were I inclined and also social and also vaguely limber instead of owning a spine with roughly the flexibility of a rib n’ saucy Nik Nak.
Similarly, the currently popping-off on Steam TCG Card Shop Simulator - in its digitisation of a hobby-within-a-hobby-within-a-third-place - feels vaguely like the sort of thing that would have made Baudrillard violently shit himself to death.
Still, as someone who frequently fantasises about having a.) a killer deck, b.) lots of mates and c.) a good enough understanding of maths to crush those mates into the dust so hard that they never know joy again, I was intrigued enough to give it a go.
20,000 concurrent players can’t be wrong! We, uh, we don’t talk about the banana game. The basic idea here is that you run a collectible card shop selling a come-at-me-brotendo -branded TCG named Tetramon.
You order in some boxes, enjoy a lovely ‘pop’ sound as you arrange booster packs on your shelf, set a price, then open doors.