Can simulated labor wash away your woes?

Have you ever come home from a tough day at work and thought, "You know what would help me unwind? Manual labor." 

If the answer is yes, boy, do I have a game for you. Game studio FurturLabs released its smash hit “PowerWash Simulator” in 2021. 

And before you ask, yes. It's exactly what it sounds like: a video game where you blast dirt off objects with a pressure washer. 

If you think that sounds silly, that's totally okay. FuturLabs won't lose sleep. The game has over 17m players, and the studio funded a self-published sequel earlier this year.

It's part of the "cozy game" genre: low-stakes content designed to help gamers relax, with a market projected to reach $1.47B by 2032. Manual labor simulators comprise a significant portion of that, including:

• "House Flipper" offers a first-person HGTV experience where you repair, remodel, and sell virtual fixer-uppers.
• In "PC Building Simulator," you run a workshop where you diagnose, repair, upgrade, and build gaming PCs.  
• "Train Station Renovation" lets you restore small and metropolitan railway stops — from repairs to cleaning to decorating. 

What does this mean?

FuturLabs frames itself as a frictionless, soothing game producer — making content more like guided meditation than “God of War Ragnarök.”

Its positioning reflects a broader trend in the wellness space: companies reframing products as mindfulness resources. For instance:

• Stanley Cups went from being camping gear to hydration-supporting "adult sippy cups."
• Once a silly novelty, adult coloring books now have a market expected to reach over $320m in 2030. 
• Lego only started classifying certain sets as 18+ in 2020, but by 2024, they constituted 15% of its catalog. 

None of those products started as adult mindfulness resources. Still, they all had comforting qualities, and those companies got additional traction by positioning around those aspects.

Ultimately, modern life is stressful, and therapy is expensive — so products with soothing, "turn off your brain" utility can benefit from creative reframing.