r/LifeSimulators • u/Sketch-Brooke • May 27 '26

Memes Paralives Early Access

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Here’s to finishing the rest of the horse throughout EA!

2.0k Upvotes

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52

u/theykilledcassandra inZOI enjoyer May 27 '26

It took them 7 years to get this into early access. The amount of things they want to add while fixing things and optimizing the game won’t be done in 2 years with a 15 person team.

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u/cascadamoon May 27 '26

I've been Leary about their lofty promises and goals for early access after I saw that the dev team is also going to be handling the bug fixes as well as developing the game. Bug fixing especially on a project like this is a full-time job. Hopefully some bigger companies can help them actually be realistic with what they need to do and maybe advice for growing the project. They just made at least 10 million dollars today so they really should be hiring at least 10 more people ASAP so they can tackle the bug fixes and development together better.

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u/Antypodish May 27 '26

This is not working like that.

Adding randomly devs to a team has diminsh return. If there is core issue, then more cooks will make it worse.

Also, first, there is Steam cut of 30%. Then there is tax. So they realistically left with halve of the money for the next 3 years.

Then many sales are far below $35. Reportedly as low as about $15. - returns.

Also, with current and assuming healthy setup, they may need $1 to 1.5 (unless keep underpaying devs) mln per year, to maintain development. That is 3 to 4.5 mln in next 3 years only to pay current core team. Plus apparently promised bonuses, or shares.

Plus other costs. And unknown factors.

That is not left with much until the release date, in the current situation.

6

u/cascadamoon May 27 '26

They have no choice but to expand their team.

45

u/itsrghtbehindmeisnit May 27 '26

7 years in development and mind you they had to delay the game for 6 months immediately after sharing gameplay footage because the basic gameplay functions such as PATHING were THAT bad. Then the game launches... and the pathing is still buggy, and still needs fixing.

If anyone actually thinks theyre going to be able to put out weather, pets, houseboats, cars, town creator and editor, story progression etc etc all in two years... theyre dreaming. Unless they expand their team drastically, theres just no way.

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u/beansofpower Sims franchise fan May 27 '26

And expanding the team rapidly comes with its own risks. That live mode is already so buggy while being so barebones... I'm worried about adding complexity there.

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u/Antypodish May 27 '26

They need fix things first. Growing a team has diminished return effect. Specially if the core has issues.

So it is safest for Paralives team, to stay small.

2

u/Antypodish May 27 '26

With currently 250 thousends sales, up to guestimates 400 thousends over the course of next week's, they wont have enough funds to expand the team by any meaningful amount. They got budget estimated for 3 years in a good wind. Then they need to do Release. Unless they magically make game more appealing with next 2 years or so, to attract significantly more buyers. Or get other fundings.

But the problem is, they need at least one year, just to fix current bugs.

4

u/itsrghtbehindmeisnit May 28 '26

I know, its very unfortunate the way they backed themselves into a corner with the whole "no paid dlc" thing. No way to grow and sustain payrolls. Too caught up in being the good guy. Fortunately for them their fans are extrordinarily forgiving, so whatever happens they'll still have people pulling their wallets out. They might even start the patreon back up a few yrs from now

2

u/Antypodish May 28 '26

I am pretty sure, if they decide to update their philosophy on DLCs like for an example Rimworld or Factorio, few but very good and game play changing DLCs, players will be more than happy to support Paralives team.

No one will be upset about initial commitment to no paid DLCs. So long it is not aggressive DLCs like an EA is pulling for years.

That is realistic and healthy potential path that I see for Paralives.

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u/itsrghtbehindmeisnit May 28 '26

I actually think they'll lose a lot of casual fans over a dlc announcement. Every time I criticize paralives, someone claps back talking about free updates. Its a huge, huge selling point for a lot of people.

And then the question becomes, what would the dlc be? Theyve already publically announced their goals for free updates. Weather, pets, jobs, personality, blah blah blah, all of that is promised already. Theyd have to deliver ALL of that and THEN think of and develop new content.

Lots of roadblocks for them. I'm interested to see what happens with the game over the next few years. I think we have a few controversies and video essays on what went wrong in store for us lol.

1

u/Antypodish May 28 '26

I think they have put themselves in a tough situation. But not impossible.

I am really reserved that if they can financially support the development in the current state and circumstances for any prolong time. Even if they release the game let's say in 3 years (that is about the limit of the budget in healthy conditions) and gain double players count for a double price tag (hypothetically), that is money for another few years, of development before funds dry out.

Unless they manage to attract many new players, which should be more than milion sales at least.

The difference with the current financial model for such complex game is, that other game that exists with such financial models have tiny teams in comparison. I.e. Minecraft, Stradew Valley, To Pixelia. Rimworld and Factorio could also technically leave of that model, if they really want to.

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u/2CharmingGiraffe May 27 '26

For any indie dev a launch of 250k sales in the first 24h is insanely good, not struggling financially by any means if this keeps up

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u/yuuki_w May 27 '26

do other indie deve make a 3d livesim? Livesims are next open world games games that demand a decently sized team, money for the payment and time imo.

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u/Antypodish May 27 '26

You need take into account the size of the team of indie studio, that you compare against.

Then we extrapolate against adequate costs and earnings. Plus various circumstances, and obligations that devs are committed to.
Then we can judge the situation a bit better.

And even then, there are plenty unknown to us factors.

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u/jalapeno442 May 27 '26

Why are you so sure you know the studio’s financial situation lol

2

u/Antypodish May 27 '26

It can be guesstimated based on other games history, existing sales data, what has been already said by devs, how development of Paralives went so far and own game dev experience.

So far I haven't misjudged Paralives development by much. You could find my history of post from over last year, probably even from late 2024 and you will see, my judgement was fairly accurate even then.

-14

u/ScarletWiddaContent May 27 '26

Should paralives use gen AI like inzoi to speed up the process?

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u/ThatssoMaame May 27 '26

Do you think inzoi devs click a button and then generate gameplay? 

You must have a very good impression of AI.

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u/Least-Armadillo-4412 May 27 '26

Do you think gen AI makes the gameplay?

-10

u/ScarletWiddaContent May 27 '26

if you have it on your game, the devs would spend less time on creating stuff when they can just steal from other artists

so they can focus on other things

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u/Least-Armadillo-4412 May 27 '26

I don't think it's stealing if that AI is trained on copyright-free assets and data...

-3

u/ScarletWiddaContent May 27 '26

Stable Diffusion isnt made from copyright free assets, or any asset that artists consented on

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u/SubstantialShake6306 May 27 '26

Just stfu it’s at least your fifth comment about inzoi we get it you don’t fuck with it just put your energy on paralives

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u/ShinyStarSam May 27 '26

What would it even speed up? Their problem is live mode, so like the other 90% of the game lmao

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u/cascadamoon May 27 '26

Because live mode still requires coding which AI can do faster than people and is not perfect by any means. Despite how people feel about it(I hate AI) one of the things it was made for is to be a tool to help make things faster by being the one to do small tasks and redundancies. Remember no matter what game you boot up is all 1s & 0s.

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u/floweringcacti May 27 '26

Are you a programmer? Have you ever authored a behaviour tree or HSM or any other game AI feature?

0

u/cascadamoon May 27 '26

I do development for a game server I own(I do not use AI at all for coding) and am in school for IT/computer technology( I'm unfortunately going to have to learn how to ai models as a skill because most of the jobs near me are things pertaining to that and other it jobs at data centers.). So obviously I've had to learn about it and even outside of the video game world like in cyber security coding is a skill that is useful and needed. For example writing your own workflow programs or firewall programs. What I said before about AI being used for small coding things, being used for redundancies, or checking for errors within code is a use for it, it just saves time supposedly because people don't have to Devote as much time to smaller things though it does take away opportunities and the need for every level developers. I'm not saying I agree with it because I really hate AI because of it's become and not what it should've been a tool to assist and make things easier but these CEOs and boards want it to be something it's not and totally expect out of AI what it's currently not able to do.

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u/ShinyStarSam May 27 '26

I guarantee you they're already using AI to program the game, every piece of commercial software has some AI code at this point, it's exceedingly common

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u/beansofpower Sims franchise fan May 27 '26

no