Borrowed Games announced Supermarket Guard Simulator on December 14, 2025 during r/Games Indie Sunday, revealing a job simulation game with a satirical edge about retail security, corporate greed, and the uncomfortable reality of prioritizing shareholder profits over everything else. You play as a supermarket security guard whose success metrics aren’t about customer safety or fair treatment – they’re about preventing theft and maximizing company profits by any means necessary. With a 2026 release date on Steam, this indie title joins the growing wave of job simulators that use mundane occupations to critique capitalism and corporate culture.
The Premise: Security Theater Meets Corporate Reality
The game’s description sets the tone immediately: “Your job is to prevent shoplifting and drive company profits to keep shareholders happy, regardless of the cost.” That final phrase – regardless of the cost – signals this isn’t a straightforward security simulation. You’re not protecting people or maintaining order. You’re protecting merchandise and profit margins for executives who care more about quarterly earnings than the humans involved.
This framing positions Supermarket Guard Simulator alongside other satirical job sims that use mundane work as commentary on capitalism. Games like Papers Please forced players to enforce brutal immigration policies as a border guard. Not For Broadcast made you a TV censor deciding what information citizens could access. Supermarket Guard Simulator appears to continue this tradition by making players enforce retail security policies that prioritize profits over compassion.
The developer emphasizes the shareholder angle specifically, highlighting how modern retail increasingly serves distant investors rather than communities. You’re not stopping crime to keep shoppers safe – you’re stopping shrinkage to keep stock prices up. That distinction matters, and the game seemingly makes it explicit rather than hiding uncomfortable truths beneath cheerful retail aesthetics.
Core Gameplay Mechanics
| Feature | Description | Gameplay Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Security System | Build comprehensive surveillance | Monitor customers, identify threats |
| Catch Shoplifters | Apprehend thieves actively | Direct player action and judgment calls |
| Enforce Store Rules | Uphold corporate policies | Balance rules vs human situations |
| Business Competition | Compete against rival stores | Pressure to outperform competitors |
| Management Directives | Follow boss orders | Moral dilemmas and choices |
| Financial District | Navigate corporate finances | Understand profit-driven decisions |
| Seek Promotion | Advance your career | Progression system and motivation |
Building a comprehensive security system suggests resource management and strategic placement of cameras, alarms, and monitoring equipment. Like other management sims, you’ll likely balance budgets against effectiveness while dealing with the reality that comprehensive surveillance is expensive but management expects results regardless.
Catching shoplifters introduces the human element where the game’s satirical edge probably becomes most apparent. Are you stopping someone stealing baby formula because they can’t afford it? Apprehending teenagers stealing snacks? Targeting specific demographics based on biased profiling? The moral complexity of retail security work provides rich material for commentary if Borrowed Games leans into it.
Following management directives while competing against rival businesses creates pressure to prioritize metrics over ethics. When your boss demands reduced shrinkage percentages and threatens your job if numbers don’t improve, how far will you go? This tension between personal morality and economic survival drives the best satirical job sims.
The Satirical Angle on Capitalism
The Reddit description frames this explicitly as a game “about theft, crime and capitalism” – positioning those three concepts together suggests the game explores uncomfortable questions about who really commits crimes in retail. Is someone stealing food a criminal while corporations underpay workers, avoid taxes, and extract maximum value from communities? Supermarket Guard Simulator appears ready to ask these questions rather than presenting uncritical retail simulation.
The shareholder focus specifically targets modern corporate structure where companies serve distant investors rather than employees, customers, or communities. You’re not keeping the store safe for the owner who lives in town and shops there themselves. You’re maximizing quarterly returns for faceless institutional investors who’ll dump the stock the moment profits dip. This arrangement creates perverse incentives that good satire can expose.
The promotion system adds personal stakes to these moral dilemmas. You want to advance your career and earn more money – understandable and relatable. But advancement requires meeting performance metrics that might conflict with treating people humanely. Do you profile customers to boost catch rates? Enforce zero-tolerance policies that criminalize poverty? The game seemingly asks: what would you actually do when your livelihood depends on it?
Comparisons to Other Retail Simulators
Supermarket Simulator became a viral hit in 2024-2025, letting players run grocery stores from the ownership perspective. That game focuses on inventory management, pricing strategies, store layout, and customer satisfaction – the capitalist fantasy of owning a successful business. YouTube videos show players hiring security guards to stop shoplifters, treating theft purely as a business problem affecting profits.
Supermarket Guard Simulator flips this perspective by putting you in the employee role instead of the owner. You’re not building retail empires – you’re enforcing policies created by people above you while dealing with consequences they’ll never face. This worker perspective versus owner perspective creates fundamentally different experiences even in superficially similar settings.
Other job sims exploring worker experiences include Cart Life, where you play struggling street vendors barely surviving economically. Papers Please forced immigration checkpoint decisions with no good options. Not Tonight made you a Brexit-era bouncer enforcing discriminatory policies. These games use mundane jobs to explore how systems pressure individuals into morally compromising positions.
Who Is Borrowed Games?
Information about developer Borrowed Games is limited. GameFAQs lists them as both developer and publisher of Supermarket Guard Simulator, suggesting an independent studio self-publishing rather than working with external publishers. The studio name appears for the first time with this project, indicating either a new formation or a rebrand from previous work under different names.
The game’s Steam page launched November 2, 2025, with the 2026 release date set immediately. This timing suggests early development stages with significant work remaining before launch. The November reveal followed by December Indie Sunday appearance indicates active marketing efforts to build wishlists and community interest ahead of release.
The satirical approach and focus on capitalist critique suggests politically conscious developers rather than pure entertainment focus. Creating job sims requires either intimate knowledge of the work being simulated or thorough research. Whether Borrowed Games includes people with retail security experience or just researched thoroughly remains unclear, but the specificity of their premise suggests meaningful engagement with the subject.
The Real-World Context
Supermarket Guard Simulator arrives as retail theft becomes increasingly politicized and retail security practices face growing scrutiny. Major chains like Target and Walgreens close stores citing organized retail crime while critics question whether theft levels justify aggressive enforcement or if companies exaggerate to justify reduced services in poor neighborhoods.
Retail security workers occupy uncomfortable positions in this dynamic. They’re typically low-wage employees enforcing policies protecting wealthy corporations, often against economically desperate people. Many retail chains prohibit physical confrontation with shoplifters, leaving security guards to just observe and report – security theater that looks like action without actually stopping anything.
The economic reality for retail workers has deteriorated significantly. Wages stagnate while costs rise. Benefits get cut. Hours become unpredictable. Workers increasingly face harassment from customers and pressure from management simultaneously. Security roles add the complexity of being seen as authority figures without actual authority or compensation matching that perceived power.
These tensions create perfect material for satirical games that explore the gap between corporate rhetoric about team members and family versus the reality of disposable labor. If Supermarket Guard Simulator engages these issues meaningfully, it could provoke genuine reflection about retail economics and corporate priorities.
Potential Gameplay Scenarios
Based on the described features, possible gameplay scenarios might include difficult judgment calls testing player priorities. You spot someone concealing baby formula – do you confront them or look away? Your performance review depends on apprehension numbers. A manager pressures you to watch specific customers more closely based on racial profiling – do you comply or refuse and risk your job?
The business competition element could create scenarios where rival stores implement aggressive security forcing your store to match or lose market share. Maybe competitors hire more guards, install more cameras, or use facial recognition technology. Your boss demands you keep pace despite budget constraints, forcing creative but potentially problematic solutions.
The financial district feature might involve understanding how your store fits into larger corporate structures. Maybe you learn the parent company extracts profits while refusing to invest in adequate security staffing, then blames store-level workers when theft occurs. This exposure of structural problems versus individual responsibility could drive home the critique.
Promotion scenarios might require compromising principles for advancement. Perhaps the path to management involves demonstrating willingness to enforce policies you find morally questionable. Or maybe advancement requires hitting metrics that can only be achieved through ethically dubious practices like over-policing specific demographics.
What We Don’t Know Yet
The trailer mentioned in the Reddit post wasn’t accessible through search results, leaving visual presentation and gameplay footage unknown. Without seeing actual gameplay, it’s unclear whether Supermarket Guard Simulator leans heavily into satire with absurdist humor or takes a more serious, contemplative approach to its subject matter.
Pricing remains unannounced. Job sims typically range from $10-20 depending on scope and polish. The satirical indie market sometimes prices lower to maximize reach for their message, while comprehensive management sims command premium pricing for depth of systems.
The scope of content is uncertain. Is this a brief 3-4 hour experience making specific points, or an extensive management sim with progression systems spanning dozens of hours? Both approaches work depending on developer intent, but players need this information for value assessment.
Tone remains the biggest question. Papers Please delivered devastating moral commentary through austere presentation and genuine emotional weight. Cart Life showed realistic struggles without melodrama. Some satirical games embrace absurdist humor to make points more palatable. Where Supermarket Guard Simulator falls on this spectrum will determine whether it’s impactful social commentary or forgettable joke game.
Release Timeline and Platform
GameFAQs lists Supermarket Guard Simulator with a 2026 release date without specifying month or quarter. Given the November 2025 Steam page launch and December Indie Sunday appearance, substantial development time remains. This could mean early 2026 if development is further along than appearances suggest, or late 2026 for more comprehensive scope.
PC via Steam is currently the only confirmed platform. Like most indie sims, console versions might follow if the PC release succeeds, but nothing is announced. The management sim genre generally performs well on PC where mouse and keyboard interfaces handle complex menus better than controllers.
Borrowed Games hasn’t announced whether this will be an Early Access release or full launch. Many management sims use Early Access to build features iteratively based on community feedback. Given the apparently small team size, Early Access could provide valuable revenue and testing while completing development.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Supermarket Guard Simulator?
A job simulation game where you play as supermarket security preventing theft and maximizing company profits for shareholders. Developed by Borrowed Games, it focuses on the uncomfortable realities of retail security work under capitalism.
When does Supermarket Guard Simulator release?
2026 on Steam. No specific month or quarter is announced yet. The game was revealed November 2025 with active development ongoing.
Is this related to the popular Supermarket Simulator game?
No, they’re separate games by different developers. Supermarket Simulator focuses on running a grocery store as owner. Supermarket Guard Simulator puts you in the security guard employee role with emphasis on capitalist critique.
What platforms will it be on?
Currently only PC via Steam is confirmed. Console versions haven’t been announced but could come later if the PC release succeeds.
Is this a serious game or satirical?
The description suggests satirical commentary on capitalism, corporate greed, and retail economics. Phrases like “keep shareholders happy, regardless of the cost” signal critical perspective rather than straightforward simulation.
How much will it cost?
Pricing hasn’t been announced. Based on similar indie job simulators, expect somewhere in the $10-20 range depending on scope and content depth.
Will there be moral choices?
The game’s focus on following management directives, enforcing policies, and prioritizing profits suggests moral dilemmas will be central to gameplay, though specific implementation details remain unclear.
Who is developing this?
Borrowed Games, an indie developer self-publishing the title. Limited information is available about the studio, but the satirical angle suggests politically conscious creators interested in social commentary through games.
The Bottom Line
Supermarket Guard Simulator positions itself in the tradition of satirical job sims that use mundane work to critique capitalism and corporate culture. By putting players in the security guard role rather than the owner perspective, Borrowed Games creates space to explore the uncomfortable positions low-wage retail workers occupy – enforcing policies that protect corporate profits while dealing with human consequences management never faces.
Whether the game delivers meaningful commentary or just surface-level satire depends entirely on execution we haven’t seen yet. The best satirical job sims force genuine moral reflection by creating no-win scenarios where system pressures individuals into ethically compromising positions. If Supermarket Guard Simulator achieves this, it could join Papers Please and Cart Life as impactful social commentary disguised as simulation gaming.
The 2026 release leaves substantial time for development and reveals. Borrowed Games needs to show actual gameplay, demonstrate the tone, and prove the satire has depth beyond the provocative premise. But for players interested in games that critique capitalism through interactive mechanics rather than just narrative, Supermarket Guard Simulator offers an intriguing premise worth watching as development continues. Add it to your Steam wishlist if using mundane jobs to expose systemic problems sounds appealing – this could be the Papers Please of retail security, or it could be a forgettable gimmick. Time and actual gameplay footage will tell.