The mundane simulator genre did exist in Germany way back in the 80s/90s, I remember a nice airline simulator I bought on a trip there (I'm from Sweden).
As a kid in the 80s I was obsessed with a C64 shareware game called Agricola. You owned a farm and could buy and sell farm land, forest and farm animals. Probably the most exciting part was that you could also race horses (or rather watch them race and place bets). Never thought about it before as a mundane farming simulator. And yet it mostly was a mundane farming spreadsheet.