Because a well designed game does not include drudgery. “Work-simulators” focus on results and progress and gloss over many of the hours of outright boredom or physical exertion to get there.

For example, truck driving simulator does not include the pain in the ass and boring part of loading or unloading the truck. Farming simulator does not include the painstaking process of removing rocks from the field.

While I grew up on a farm, my first proper career was something called OBC seismic. What it is isn’t as important as the fact that it involved placing a 6km long sensor cable on the seabed with a winch and position it properly. To do this right requires practice, and as the principle is farly easy I wrote a small simulator that our trainees could try out. At first they found it interesting, and even the seniors from other departments enjoyed toying with it. The biggest lack of realism was that it didn’t involve doing it for 12 hours straight, only stopping to unscrew 25 meter sections and replacing them. Barring drudgery and repetitive boredom could’ve probably made it an interesting game similar to other work simulators.