By Ivor Traktor, Farming Correspondent (intern)
The company behind the ill-advised Pig Farm Simulator 2015 computer game has gone bust owing hundreds of thousands of pounds to creditors.
Trotters Software Inc, based near Stowmarket in Suffolk, developed and launched the game despite warnings it had no market.
Gamers were expected to take on the role of a Suffolk pig farmer and breed pigs, raise piglets, muck them out and then kill them for sausages, bacon and a fat profit.
The software first went on sale in March for £39.50 but was quickly reduced to £10 when copies were hard to shift.
An iPhone app was also introduced, but even then sales failed to pick up, and the company folded owing a small fortune to investors and the tax man.
A gaming expert said: “Pig Farm Simulator was doomed from the start. Who wants to play a game where the whole plot centres around rearing animals and then killing them for food?
“Also, the execution of the graphics was terrible and it looked like something from the 1990s.”
Suffolk mum Natasha Crisp was furious when she bought the game for her daughter, Faye, 15. “I thought it would be fun and educational for her, but instead she spent hours in the game having to shift pig crap with a pressure washer and then butcher her beloved pigs for food. She was horrified.”
Nobody from Trotters Software Inc was available for comment. But a note on the door of their premises said: “Business closed. We made a pigs ear of it.”
At the time of the game’s high-profile launch, director John Smith said: “We have made the game as realistic as possible. Now anyone can experience the exciting life of a pig farmer.”
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