American Truck Simulator players are being recruited to drive real big rigs

Playing Madden won’t give you an NFL physique, and playing Hitman probably won’t make you a professional assassin. (Though it might give you dress-up points.) But if you’re an avid player of American Truck Simulator, you might just have a future as a real big rig driver. Players of the transport simulation game have spotted in-game advertisements from trucking companies in the real world, hoping to hire drivers for 18-wheelers. Real ones, in case that’s not clear.

GamesRadar reports that Schnieder National, a Wisconsin-based logistics company, has placed in-game advertisements on the billboards lining the virtual highways of American Truck Simulator. The jobs are real, including the chance to train for a commercial driver’s license for applicants who don’t have one. The game’s advertising can be dynamically updated by developer SCS Software, which explained that the in-game ads from a real trucking company are “a chance to embark on a new journey and conduct experiments.”

In-game advertising generally isn’t received well by players — brand placement like the magical Skittles of Darkened Skye are the stuff of legend and internet listicles. But this might just be an exception. Not only is roadside advertising a spot-on bit of realism for a trucking simulator, recruitment ads for actual truck drivers might just be incredibly relevant for players of American Truck Simulator.

It would hardly be unprecedented for an interest in a game simulation to lead into a real-world career. Plenty of real-world airline pilots got their start in Microsoft Flight Simulator, and at least a few real-world race car drivers got their start playing ever-more-realistic video games, including the “based on a true story” subject of the upcoming Gran Turismo film, Jann Mardenborough. Plus, there was that one teenager