PowerWash Simulator - a video game where players jet wash every last speck of dirt from an object - has sold more than 17m copies since it launched in 2021 and had a sequel in 2025.
Other games - where you can brush a cat or move boxes out of a house - have also gone viral. With so many people posting about them on TikTok, what exactly is the appeal of these seemingly boring games?
Image source, PowerWash Simulator TikTokGames give us a goal
Watching a dirty rug being cleaned doesn't sound much fun but hundreds and thousands of people are doing it on TikTok. And what if this everyday task then becomes a game? Why do we prefer playing it online than doing it in real life?
BBC Bitesize Other Side of the Story spoke to Professor Andrew Przybylski, an expert in human behaviour and technology at the University of Oxford. He told us that it has a lot to do with goals and rewards that maybe aren’t there when we do these tasks in real life. For example, getting a fidgety cat to calm down and be brushed can be tricky. However, a viral web browser game called Brush Jjaemu has seen players sharing the number of brush strokes they have completed before the cat turns around on socials.
Prof Przybylski continued that, while we may not enjoy watching a documentary on a certain subject, if something about it was turned into a game that was interactive, involved feedback and gave the player (or players) goals to achieve, it creates something called a psychological need satisfaction. This is where you’re making choices as part of a game that can give you confidence, and if you’re playing the game with other people, you feel a stronger connection with them - all things that make us feel better about ourselves.
How do I get a high score power washing?
Brighton-based FuturLab's PowerWash Simulator allows players to shoot water (and soap) at different locations and objects until they’re squeaky clean. There are more than 14k TikTok posts from users discussing game play, different washing ‘missions’ and even the best nozzles for each job. Jet washing is an everyday activity, so why play it on a screen?
Prof Przybylski’s department at Oxford has published many different papers on this game, so is a perfect source for an explanation. “First of all,” he said, “it’s a relaxing game.
“In the same way you wouldn’t think that [Tetris] should be relaxing, it is. It’s very rewarding - because the tasks have an end. You know when you finish them. And then as you get better, the challenges get harder, or you can kind of just mess around and choose things you’d like to clean.”
In real life, Prof Przybylski pointed out, we don’t get to choose the things we clean, like dirty dishes or untidy bedrooms. That means this game “is like another universe in which, essentially, you get to play Tetris. It’s a puzzle. Where did I miss? What nozzle should I use for this job? Do I start by hosing up and down or do I work on all the little parts of the object first and then go on to the big parts? The game builds that in.”
Playing everyday jobs can relax us
As part of the research Prof Przybylski and his team have been involved in, they found that players’ positive emotions went up by between three and seven per cent in the first 15 minutes of playing the jet washing game. It's something he described as a “chilled out, positive feeling”.
This can link in with the popularity of cleaning videos. The #CleanTok hashtag on TikTok has more than 7m posts and #cleaningasmr - where videos show something being cleaned in a way that is supposed to make us feel calm and relaxed. You can learn more about ASMR in this Bitesize article - it's a pleasant 'tingling' sensation we can feel in our head and neck when we see something we enjoy.
So, why do we enjoy games about these jobs just as much? If we take Prof Przybylski’s expert analysis and opinion as a trusted source, it’s that we can complete one of these games with a possible high score, a good feeling that we’ve done well, and maybe bonded with our friends over the experience. Now, if only there was a way we could making washing the dishes after a big roast dinner just as much fun…
This article was published in May 2026
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