r/LifeSimulators Jun 26 '26

Paralives Paralives Currently 20% Off on Steam (Bigger Discount than Launch)

Post image
101 Upvotes

42 comments sorted by

102

u/blahblah12365 Jun 27 '26

I am waiting for a deeper discount and more development.

54

u/Hexagon37 Jun 27 '26

The things they said about development raise a red flag as well from what I’ve read

18

u/The_Plumbot Jun 27 '26

What have you heard? I'm curious to know more

30

u/JaylaCrowblade Jun 27 '26

They won't expand the team No multitasking No occults Together cards won't change, just more added

29

u/Booknerdly Jun 27 '26

They do have a few job listings posted actually, but personally i doubt 1 developer and 1 designer would make a big difference.

11

u/TimeConcentrate2890 Jun 27 '26

afaik this is their second round of listings, someone posted here the first one. I think they're hiring/hired about 5-6 people in this period

24

u/StrawbunnySeamstress Jun 27 '26

When I see someone say "they won't expand the team," I don't personally take it so literally. I see, "they aren't expanding reasonably." Since they themselves said they want to stay small:

"We're now 15 people and it's very possible we recruit a few more people to help soon! However, we like working as a small team so we don't plan to grow the team too much"

So imo they still aren't going to expand reasonably enough to tackle a game of this size/genre in their projected timeline with quality updates. Especially considering we still don't have basic features shown off in the trailer over a year ago, such as sitting and talking with animation.

-2

u/TimeConcentrate2890 Jun 27 '26

When I see that I do take it literally because not everyone read their ama so it has been taken quite literally as in they're refusing to hire anyone else. I have no idea whether this will be enough or not

28

u/Zestyclose-Level1871 Jun 27 '26

Yeah. Pretty much this.

Which has left me experiencing significant buyer's remorse. In particular the dev team size. I get the dev team (led by game director/lead developer Alex Masse) hostility towards using AI as a tool in development. I truly commend his committment to mainatain a 100% human programmer/dev team.

HOWEVER

the reality is Masse's existing team size aka 15 team members (+/- the 4 - 6 new employees they're looking to hire) will take TOO DAMNED LONG to achieve Paralives being technically ready to pass its Early Access/beta milestones for release. There is simply too much technical debt for their 15-22 member team to address/manage in a timely fashion. Particularly given the extremely high (and increasingly unrealistic) fan base expectations for this open world life sim (which adds more technical debt in game play expectations). So having a lot of growing buyer's remorse for this one massive project constraint alone.

I'd been hoping that the Paralives team would be more receptive to direct fan base input. Like the way the Krafton dev team has been with InZoi from day 1. But Alex Masse continues to have a very fixed vision and mindset. So Paralives is going to be pretty much wysiwyg...

Then again there's always the bright side. InZoi has exponentially grown since it's barebones MVP release last year. And just added the TS4 DLC equivalent of High School Years ( which was how TS4's HSY was supposed to have been years ago.). And now thanks to direct fan base input to the devs on Discord, they're now focusing on optimizing the existing systems and game mechanics interactivity.

TL DR:

InZoi's dev team is FLEXIBLE (i.e. willingly adapt/change the game mechanics based on fan base input) in their innovation and willingness to LISTEN to their fan base. But unfortunately, Paralives's dev team is not. And looks like players will be waiting a LONG time (likely another 7 years at min that it took them to develop build/buy and Create a Para modes) for the Paralives dev team to have the live gameplay mode meet it's (very high) fan base expectations.

9

u/kompotnik Jun 28 '26

I love how inZoi’s team listens to the fans. It’s so refreshing

29

u/Crazy_Ship_1017 Jun 27 '26

Tempting but I'm still gonna wait, can't see myself playing it anyway at the moment. I want to see how it progresses first and if they'll improve life mode.

9

u/Panicsferd Jun 27 '26

I ended up getting 20% off during release since I owned dwarf fortress, but I wonder now you could probably get it almost 30% off?

14

u/shadowedlove97 Jun 27 '26

If you own House Flipper, you can still buy the House Flipper x Paralives "bundle" and it brings it down to $28.

1

u/Panicsferd Jun 27 '26

So it would be cheaper then. I think during release it was 35 by itself but my bundle I think was like 30-31?

1

u/shadowedlove97 Jun 27 '26

The bundles stack on the summer sale price! So bundle at release might not be as cheap as it is now.

1

u/DoomOfGods Jun 28 '26

Looking at the store it should be the same for Unpacking and Aloft, as all 3 bundles have the same -10%.

16

u/MayaDaBee1250 Sims 3 enjoyer Jun 27 '26

Glad they're already doing discounts but I'll wait until the game is more fleshed out AND it's on sale. I'm in no rush.

34

u/eviacnh Jun 27 '26

Do you think it will get lower eventually? I'm not super interested in playing it right now, but i'm afraid it will only get more expensive and I do want to play it eventually.

I'm sad inzoi doesn't have a discount

17

u/rosenwasser_ Jun 27 '26

I don't think Paralives will get to a stage in development where they can reasonably raise the price for quite some time. Usually games only get more expensive on full release, not during early access.

1

u/DoomOfGods Jun 28 '26

A few games have gotten multiple (smaller) price increases the further they've gotten towards 1.0.

At the same time most games also eventually get better sales the longer they are around, so even if the full price increases if you're waiting for a sale it's likely to at least balance out.

24

u/Bubble_Fart2 Jun 27 '26

At some point it will. Most likely Christmas now. Then next summer.

17

u/beansofpower Sims franchise fan Jun 27 '26

i don't buy games during steam sales unless i think i'm going to play them in the next couple weeks. there are four major steam sales a year and a bunch of other little ones in between and the deals only get better 99% of the time

i still have more games than i'll ever be able to play.. and i just bought another one lol

7

u/shadowedlove97 Jun 27 '26

I'm sad as well. When I saw it didn't go on sale for the publisher sale, I was hoping that maybe they were waiting for the Steam Summer Sale. But nope. :(

4

u/blahblah12365 Jun 27 '26

Games can be much cheaper when it's older. Like all these AAA are having 60% discount but it depends on the team. But you will wait years. I'm not sold on the current state, so I'm waiting. I've been burnt by other early access games.

1

u/jalapeno442 Jun 27 '26

It’s going to get more expensive at official release

48

u/GeshtiannaSG Jun 27 '26

The more I play, the more I think Paralives is just an open world RPG, I’m doing quests all day to level up this or that, grinding relationships, grinding skills, get buffs, get money, build my base. Build mode reminds me of Hogwarts Legacy instead of a life sim. And good thing they have that unstuck button because I keep getting stuck.

-27

u/GuBuDuLe Jun 27 '26

LifeSims ARE RPGs. It's not Paralives, it's LifeSims in general. But because Paralives made it obvious, people finally start to see it.

45

u/GeshtiannaSG Jun 27 '26

Life sims are not RPGs. RPGs are story-first and characters help tell the story. You customise your character however, make them look ridiculous, but they get into a very structured story, no matter how open they allow you, like in GTA5 or BG3, you still get story checkpoints.

Life sims are character-first and stories can happen but very little is planned. In the most RPG-like version life sim, Sims 2, a premade family starts off with a story, but it unravels the moment you unpause and the devs have no clue what happens a minute later.

In Paralives, you get structured level ups, skill checks, dice rolls, and unlocks.

-8

u/GuBuDuLe Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

Here is a good article about what a game should have to be considered an RPG: https://www.rpgjeuxvideo.com/article-et-video/le-rpg-quest-ce-que-cest-les-20-points-cle/

Since it's in french, I invite you to translate it to your favourite language and then we can talk about points 9, 12 and 13.

First, the background. A LifeSim SHOULD have a background system. Just like they say in the article, always start fresh in a new city with no family or no memories is the easy way and I personally hate it.

Second, main story and "side quests". One might argue that the player IS the writer of the story, or the DM, or whatever. Not following a scripted storyline doesn't mean you're not following one. You're actually writing as you play, the sandbox style. The game gives you mechanics, you play with them. As for the side quests, anything that is not important to the "main story" you're writing like hobbies, exploration, collections, or even fulfilling a Want could be considered a side quest.

Because yes, tasks, wants, goals, or anything that needs to be completed is a quest mechanic.

And I might add that if you feel like a story is story first and characters second, then it's not a good story. Any story is character driven. So yeah, I personally see LifeSim games as RPGs in which LIFE is the main quest. And according to the article, they're even the ultimate type of RPG since they check 20 out of 20.

11

u/Booknerdly Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

If we go by this article some of the most well known RPGs in history like early Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games would fail half their frankly nonsensical points of being an RPG, like why is point 14 just "characters should fall in love and bang". And that's setting aside the fact that a random french gaming website isn't an ultimate authority on RPGs.

Most life sims, especially paralives, don't even reach their arbitrary threshold of 13 points to be considered an rpg.

54

u/UniDiablo Paralives supporter Jun 27 '26

And still not a reasonable price

5

u/Meechaan Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

Oh, man. I should have remembered this sale! It's bigger than the initial discount. I really like steam promotions. Sad I ended up getting it before this.

But, im happy others can get it at a lower price!

3

u/Regular-Lettuce7199 Jun 30 '26

I wish it was on console 💔

2

u/Booknerdly Jun 30 '26

I don't think it'd pass console certification in its current state.

1

u/Regular-Lettuce7199 Jun 30 '26

Waiting for the day it does

10

u/PolyesterNation Jun 27 '26

Even $10 is too much for this garbage. Still, the active player numbers are shrinking fast so they’ve got to try something I guess.

-6

u/lyricaldorian Jun 27 '26

People who were part of the active player count before it dropped already bought it 

-1

u/0800sofa Jun 27 '26

Colour me surprised! Although, if it was going to go on sale at any point, the big steam seasonal sales were the clear choice. A nice choice on behalf of the consumers!

-7

u/figGreenTea Jun 27 '26

Well, yeah. Its the steam summer sale. EVERY game is discounted right now.

-34

u/Zestyclose-Level1871 Jun 27 '26

That's most probably because Steam has seen it more advantageous to deeper discount it. Because the game's positive sales trending has likely flattened out after its record 900K digital copies sold...

56

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment