Plantville? Really, Siemens?

Well here's a new one. Siemens is introducing an "innovative gaming platform" called Plantville to showcase its industrial and infrastructure products. The game apparently simulates the experience of being a plant manager. Players are faced with the challenge of maintaining the operation of their plant while trying to improve the productivity, efficiency, sustainability and overall health of their facility. Players can choose a bottling plant, a vitamin plant or a plant that builds trains.

"Throughout the game, players will be able to interact with Pete the Plant Manager, whose plant has just won the 'Plant of the Year' award. Pete shares his best practices throughout the game to help players achieve outstanding results in plant performance. He will use webisodes, the Plantville Cafe, Puzzlers, and Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to dialogue with gamers, provide hints to playing the game, and host a leader board for contestants."

I can't decide whether this is silly or brilliant in some way I don't understand. Then again, I'm not a good judge of this sort of thing. I used to make fun of my wife for playing Cafe World...then she opened a real coffee shop.

Details.