Upcoming updates and patches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-URM6GiwApo

https://steamdb.info/app/2456740/charts/

For a game that sold a million copies, one would think a lot more people would be playing....?

My curiosity got the better of me after watching the following video from NotMalcom. I don't know if Inzoi is flopping or not, but something isn't right. So many questions with zero answers.

Were most of that million sales impulse buys? Did people not heed the warning this game is early access? How many of these people bought this thinking they could play when they don't have a system that meets the requirements?

If these numbers continue, will Krafton continue to keep their version of Yibs for this game? It is kind of a strange time to implement such a program anyway as trust in influencers in general regardless of what what a product is, is in a death spiral.

I'm not asking / looking for answers. Just posting things into the void. The answers will come eventually as they always do.


ok but why is Inzoi kinda flopping?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcrIb4sjOfg

I happened upon the video a couple of days ago; worth watching. To answer some points:

- The only Sims (and now InZOI) players I somehow regularly watch on YT are Lazy Gamer and Satch. Satch certainly influenced me when I was buying TS4 EPs, so I guess he should be called an influencer. I tried to watch some others but they seemed awful to me. That's just me, of course; obviously, influencers do have a big effect.
- I was one of the people who bought the game not being sure whether it would run on their PCs or not, in my case because demanded specifications had very little to do with my system. This part of the gamble turned out fine for me.
- Early access is not a problem, as far as I am concerned: I have bought quite a few games that were in EA and the vast majority turned out well. Also, Krafton crammed a lot in the game as it stands now; even the dialogue options seem quite overwhelming at first. They have obvious problems with sexuality but that is not a game breaker for me, only rather funny. The game breaker was the way the career I was playing was presented; that would have to be reworked from the bottom up and I doubt that it will ever be. Superrealistic looking games require superrealistic gameplay, and this one does not have it - yet?
And that's just my reason for abandoning InZOI, at least for now (again: ?).

I’ve been watching and comparing since release and honestly it’s rlly bad. That 87k dropped so quickly, and players barely increased for the weekend. Compare to ts4 as well, ts1, 2, 3 and 4 all got a spike in players after Inzoi released, and Inzoi has settled a good 10k below ts4 somehow. And yeah there’s not much chance this includes refunds. I’ve seen a lot of people refund with all different specs, refund bc of the lack of inclusivity or too much inclusivity, I think some people didn’t even know about this game until it was on the storefront so yeah they didn’t know much about it’s state- some of the reviews sound like they have little experience with life sims.

I think once there is a bug fix for some of the major issues, some people will return. I’ve also seen a lot of people say they bought it while the price is low but aren’t playing it yet. One strange person told me the actively disliked the game but decided to keep the game to “hoard” it. Idk. People are being strange about this game.

Not to mention, these player numbers might not be accurate. A lot of people who left negative reviews encountered a bug that left their games running for hours, inflating their playtime, preventing refunds and probably inflating the player count too.

The hoarding thing. TS4 players do this all the time only they don't call it hoarding; they say they are a completionist. Fair enough, but some day when EA shuts down the servers for TS4, there will be no collection as nobody owns their game.

I don't spend much time on Steam reading reviews as it is just another sandbox where people throw mud balls at each other. The endless "Best game ever!" and "Worst game ever!" type 'reviews' when both parties have only played the game for 30 minutes are not worth my time. Anybody can post that kind of crap, it doesn't mean anything. The only reason people do that is to start and or add to the ongoing bickering.

To the credit of Krafton, yes, there is much more to Inzoi then when TS4 was released, but that doesn't mean the game is any less messy. It feels like they had a bunch of ideas but never fully executed any them. Will that change with time? Who knows. It is still weird they posted to sell that many copies and never reached at least 100 thousand playing.

According to Business Wire:

The Sims™ 4 Becomes the Most Widely Played Game in the 24 Year History of the Franchise With More Than 70 Million Players Worldwide.

I am one of the 70 million and Sims 4 remains my favorite. However I am rooting for Paralives and inZOI. I really want to have more life simulators. I enjoy variety and for me it is not a either or thing. I love Age of Empires and I love Civ 5 and 6 along with other like games.

Something just occurred to me (it should have occurred to me a while ago but I am kind of slow): when Will Wright and his gang launched their first Sims game they were in a far worse position than Krafton. Far less money, far less technical possibilities, no early access to take refuge in in case their game sucked, no assurance that it would be accepted at all - just the opposite, a lot of doubt. And yet they did it. And then at least a part of the gang did it again. And again.

Money and technology can help but in the end, it's all about people.

I mean this isn't surprising considering it's basically been the only game in town in it's genre for a decade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyPsd9Dz6Gg
An interesting video about early access. Does not mention Paralives, at least not directly, but it does mention InZOI a lot so I guess it belongs in this thread.

I took a look at Steam before I made this post: 2995 people in-game, 895 in "Group Chat". The link does not work for me but if that means Discussions, a lot of people there are trying to murder each other over the main point of the video. - The numbers are interesting as well: waiting for the moment when there will be more people fighting over the game than playing it.

The life sim genre won't be the first or last to have infighting. I thought maybe the life sim genre wouldn't have this much conflict since pretty much everyone wanted an alternative.

But I think the people who weren't looking for an alternative either became worried their game would lose popularity or they were baited by the dozens of people who claim "so and so will be a sims killer!"

Maybe with the release of Inzoi and eventually Paralives, these conflicts will eventually calm down (moreso Paralives as Inzoi has a few things holding people back like genAI and conservative values baked into the gameplay)

Once people realize the Sims can't be killed by another game and that all these games can coexist together, fighting will appear even more stupid. It won't happen instantly though, might take a few years.

Or, this lesson will fly over people's heads. After all, people still play Sims 1, 2 and 3 and that causes a little bit of infighting too. Just not as much as this recent conflict.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/kraft...ance-in-q1-2025

Krafton, this is not the flex you want people to think it is. I understand these articles are for Wall Street rather than the casual person reading shit on the internet, but facts are facts. You did sell a million copies, but that doesn't mean much if people are not playing it. People buying a game, then never playing does not equal a life time of revenue...



https://steamdb.info/app/2456740/charts/#max

^Well, it's an early access game and from what I've seen it's indeed very "early" i.e. it's quite bare-bones and there's not that much to do. So I'm not surprised the current player numbers are low. My guess is people checked Inzoi out right after launch and now are simply waiting for more updates. This doesn't necessarily mean they don't like the game. And while there are some early access games with decent player numbers, they're usually in a more complete state than Inzoi is right now.

It might still turn out to be a huge success. Or a huge flop. It's just way too early to tell.

ETA: Even Baldur's Gate 3 often had only around 2k players during it's early access.

Krafton is apparently lying about their generative AI feature. Here is the video addressing it.

What would I do without people poking through game files!

I always had an issue with how bland the game looks like, but I shut up because I knew some people like the more realistic style. It shouldn't be a competition, but I think I know now why this game can't beat TS4. I haven't bought InZoi because my specs are not correct, but I am now glad I haven't bought it.