It's sad that so many people have forgotten that there used to be NO DLC and plenty of games were just fine 😭 Stardew is very successful, I think Paralives could easily be the same.
I personally think that paralives is going to be comfortably like stardew. They know their audience and have a loyal audience. If they have a good game and keep their promises, people will hang around. Support the new games and want to see the new expansions. With the casual people coming in and buying the game audience... I'm absolutely in agreement with you they are going to be profitable. I need to add if they keep even about 80% of their ambitious plans it's going to meet sims 2 levels of quirkiness (with their own vibe I might add) and loveliness with mod support... And that is wild. That is what people want from a lifesim game. Something that can be simultaneously cosy but also have drama if you want there to be.
The vibe of Paralives is what I’m most excited for. It really comes down to the character of the game that keeps hooked. Sims 2 is so iconic for that reason 💚
We are so used to the DLC model to the point we are "worried" Paralives cannot survive without paid DLC. Haha, we seem to forgot that they can just sell the base game! Yes, a strong community is way better than just having a big pool of communities that have way too many conflicting options and feedback. All in all you have outlined some solid reasons for Paralives will live without paid DLC, there are so many options to make their money! As for how these options will pay off it is a matter of time.
It really does make me wonder do people not consider a base game or on Paralives case “the game” enough? Wouldn’t be the same as selling a specific product? Right, only time will tell where things go but I still hope for the best 🤞🏾
And it won GOTY up against heavy hitters like Zelda and Spiderman 2. And it too is a sort of niche game the devs never expected to take off as much as it did. If your product is good enough, it WILL do well and keep a loyal and ever expanding audience. Especially since gamers are so tired of being shaken down for every last dime from the likes of EA and other scummy companies. They will rally around good devs like Larian and Concerned Ape and Alex Masse.
Yes, but, Baldur's Gate 3 is a 1 year cycle of after development. Paralives should aim to survive for years and years to come. How can they produce new expansions e content without more money coming in? Perhaps they plan to sell more and more base games, but at a set moment everybody that could buy will have bought it. I worry.
Imagine if they sell the game for $60, and only 10% of their current UA-cam subscribers buy it (so 34,600 buyers, and I believe they will sell much more) they could make 2 million easily in this hypothetical scenario. Now if we take those 2 million and divide it by 50k which is like 15k more of what they currently make through Patreon, they would be able to fund the game for 41 months or 3.5 years, only with 34,600 copies sold! I’m confident they will survive lol
This video was so good, I think them doing this was a good chess move but it also shows confidence in there game. As you mentioned, Games like Stardew Valley have done this and it's been thriving ever since its release.
There have been several huge evergreen indie hits with frequent free-only updates, perhaps most relevantly Stardew Valley, so it absolutely can be done. And, of course, the game itself can be a successful traditional singular release with the team moving on, while mods keep adding free stuff by and for the community. I still can't help but feel nervous about them boxing themselves in, though. No microtransactions is pretty much a must, but I would've been fine with paying for big expansions. Paralives 2 within less than ten years would be huge mistake, though, especially with their timeless art style with no large benefit from better hardware. This isn't the olden days. People would feel betrayed, whether justifiable or not.
They could make merch, they could give early accses of updats to petrions like cc creators in the sims do, they can just live off the money they are going to make from sales of the basegame, there are so many ways for video games to stay afloat other than charging 40$ per expansion pack (which is what some full games cost, mind you)
To elaborate on point one, there’s this game called “the sapling” that does exactly that, each update being unique and bringing along a bunch of new features. I can say for sure it works in making someone feel excited for an update for it to have a theme, speaking from experience.
More people should start playing board games again. Most board games have no "DLCs" or expansions and the creators and the publishers still make profit.
Ingame marketing would be awesome to give the game money. But an intelligent one. TV's ingame running commercials of real life products, New objects of real-life brands being inserted into the game's catalog, like an Ikea furniture or Gap shirt, a Toyota car, stuff like that. It would be a nice way of giving everyone free content, not charging for DLC and having money being brought in.
My one comment about your number 1 example is that, well... They've indicated they're not doing that - Finishing development on Paralives and moving on to something else - By implying there will be free expansions when they announced there won't be any paid DLC, only free expansions. But, absolutely. It is entirely possible for the Paralives devs to make enough money from base game sales to fund free DLC. And given the size of the studio, and the complexity of the genre they're working within, I'm not sure they'd be able to develop DLC for Paralives and a second game in parallel, and since Paid DLC gets you less money than base games - It's cheaper and typically sells fewer copies - I'm not sure paid DLC makes unless you've got studio capacity to either have multiple Paid DLC in production at once, or be making Paid DLC while working on your next game. Without that capacity, you're basically slowly reducing the amount of resources to make your next game by focusing on DLC. Given that free updates can boost sales of base games in a way I'm not sure DLC does, this might even give them more money than paid DLC would. (I'd also note that it's probably better if Paralives isn't Developed In Perpetuity, but there's an endpoint to the DLC, even if they get the cash from sales of the base game to basically develop it in perpetuity. You can't really refactor a game and start from scratch with new base assumptions in order to add unforeseen gameplay features that you're underlying architecture doesn't actually support once it's released. Well, technically you can do that. But we usually call that a sequel. And trying to bolt them on without doing that refactoring can lead to an extremely fragile code base. And that's even assuming this team have zero desire to make anything but dollhouse life sims for the rest of their careers.)
They're an indy studio. They are working with an indy budget, but they're working with an indy budget with no shareholders to please. They don't really need to add dlc to break even.
Are those people ever played other games that's not The Sims? Most games don't even have to cling with *bijillion* dlcs (or they do have dlcs, but not necessary) and are still selling well. Also why we should care about the sale numbers? Just wait the game and play it if you're interested, people. Be greatful.
Everyone sells their soul eventually. I only wish to see paralives to succeed, but I think promising no paid DLC ever before the base game even releases is a big promise to commit to so early on.
It’s weird for customers to worry about how businesses will make money. There are too many things you can’t possibly know about that, but you can know whether you are satisfied with the value for your money. That’s all you have to evaluate. I find it very manipulative for representatives of companies to ask customers for patience and understanding for their lives and work when they can’t deliver value. Yes it’s important for humans to thrive, but it’s okay for businesses to die. Humans who work for bad companies need support to put their personal life first, or keep their life together while finding other work, not empathy for their business that is not working out or getting bad press. I think this is a negative effect that comes from influencer marketing backed by big business
It's sad that so many people have forgotten that there used to be NO DLC and plenty of games were just fine 😭 Stardew is very successful, I think Paralives could easily be the same.
I agree with you but, you cant compare stardew valley with paralives. Stardew valley doesnt even have dlc, just a game update lol
Most of the games I played back in the day were standalone games. I remember thinking it was unique for the sims to have so much additional content.
@@JustVizzingWell, peralive is also not going to have dlcs (just free expeasions), so what's the difference?
They will have dlc . It wont be that many @@fruity4820
@@fruity4820 Can cause sales to dry up
I personally think that paralives is going to be comfortably like stardew. They know their audience and have a loyal audience. If they have a good game and keep their promises, people will hang around. Support the new games and want to see the new expansions. With the casual people coming in and buying the game audience... I'm absolutely in agreement with you they are going to be profitable.
I need to add if they keep even about 80% of their ambitious plans it's going to meet sims 2 levels of quirkiness (with their own vibe I might add) and loveliness with mod support... And that is wild. That is what people want from a lifesim game. Something that can be simultaneously cosy but also have drama if you want there to be.
The vibe of Paralives is what I’m most excited for. It really comes down to the character of the game that keeps hooked. Sims 2 is so iconic for that reason 💚
We are so used to the DLC model to the point we are "worried" Paralives cannot survive without paid DLC. Haha, we seem to forgot that they can just sell the base game!
Yes, a strong community is way better than just having a big pool of communities that have way too many conflicting options and feedback. All in all you have outlined some solid reasons for Paralives will live without paid DLC, there are so many options to make their money! As for how these options will pay off it is a matter of time.
It really does make me wonder do people not consider a base game or on Paralives case “the game” enough? Wouldn’t be the same as selling a specific product? Right, only time will tell where things go but I still hope for the best 🤞🏾
note that last year 1st place game award winner is Baldurgates 3. No paid dlc, full game and make tons of cash.
Plus the regular updates and patches. ✅
Baldur’s gate 3 is slowly becoming one of my favorites. Didn’t think to use it but it’s such a fun example
And it won GOTY up against heavy hitters like Zelda and Spiderman 2. And it too is a sort of niche game the devs never expected to take off as much as it did. If your product is good enough, it WILL do well and keep a loyal and ever expanding audience. Especially since gamers are so tired of being shaken down for every last dime from the likes of EA and other scummy companies. They will rally around good devs like Larian and Concerned Ape and Alex Masse.
Yes, but, Baldur's Gate 3 is a 1 year cycle of after development. Paralives should aim to survive for years and years to come. How can they produce new expansions e content without more money coming in? Perhaps they plan to sell more and more base games, but at a set moment everybody that could buy will have bought it.
I worry.
Imagine if they sell the game for $60, and only 10% of their current UA-cam subscribers buy it (so 34,600 buyers, and I believe they will sell much more) they could make 2 million easily in this hypothetical scenario.
Now if we take those 2 million and divide it by 50k which is like 15k more of what they currently make through Patreon, they would be able to fund the game for 41 months or 3.5 years, only with 34,600 copies sold! I’m confident they will survive lol
This video was so good, I think them doing this was a good chess move but it also shows confidence in there game. As you mentioned, Games like Stardew Valley have done this and it's been thriving ever since its release.
Paralives making “chess moves” is hilarious. But tbh it does give off that vibe based on their confidence
There have been several huge evergreen indie hits with frequent free-only updates, perhaps most relevantly Stardew Valley, so it absolutely can be done. And, of course, the game itself can be a successful traditional singular release with the team moving on, while mods keep adding free stuff by and for the community. I still can't help but feel nervous about them boxing themselves in, though. No microtransactions is pretty much a must, but I would've been fine with paying for big expansions. Paralives 2 within less than ten years would be huge mistake, though, especially with their timeless art style with no large benefit from better hardware. This isn't the olden days. People would feel betrayed, whether justifiable or not.
Panda is the number one best defender for Paralives, you not only expose facts, you explain pretty well their vision. I really like your channel.🥰
That’s been my goal with this channel so I really appreciate this 💜
They could make merch, they could give early accses of updats to petrions like cc creators in the sims do, they can just live off the money they are going to make from sales of the basegame, there are so many ways for video games to stay afloat other than charging 40$ per expansion pack (which is what some full games cost, mind you)
To elaborate on point one, there’s this game called “the sapling” that does exactly that, each update being unique and bringing along a bunch of new features. I can say for sure it works in making someone feel excited for an update for it to have a theme, speaking from experience.
More people should start playing board games again. Most board games have no "DLCs" or expansions and the creators and the publishers still make profit.
Ingame marketing would be awesome to give the game money. But an intelligent one. TV's ingame running commercials of real life products, New objects of real-life brands being inserted into the game's catalog, like an Ikea furniture or Gap shirt, a Toyota car, stuff like that.
It would be a nice way of giving everyone free content, not charging for DLC and having money being brought in.
Of course they will survive… games before were dlc free
My one comment about your number 1 example is that, well... They've indicated they're not doing that - Finishing development on Paralives and moving on to something else - By implying there will be free expansions when they announced there won't be any paid DLC, only free expansions.
But, absolutely. It is entirely possible for the Paralives devs to make enough money from base game sales to fund free DLC. And given the size of the studio, and the complexity of the genre they're working within, I'm not sure they'd be able to develop DLC for Paralives and a second game in parallel, and since Paid DLC gets you less money than base games - It's cheaper and typically sells fewer copies - I'm not sure paid DLC makes unless you've got studio capacity to either have multiple Paid DLC in production at once, or be making Paid DLC while working on your next game. Without that capacity, you're basically slowly reducing the amount of resources to make your next game by focusing on DLC. Given that free updates can boost sales of base games in a way I'm not sure DLC does, this might even give them more money than paid DLC would.
(I'd also note that it's probably better if Paralives isn't Developed In Perpetuity, but there's an endpoint to the DLC, even if they get the cash from sales of the base game to basically develop it in perpetuity. You can't really refactor a game and start from scratch with new base assumptions in order to add unforeseen gameplay features that you're underlying architecture doesn't actually support once it's released. Well, technically you can do that. But we usually call that a sequel. And trying to bolt them on without doing that refactoring can lead to an extremely fragile code base. And that's even assuming this team have zero desire to make anything but dollhouse life sims for the rest of their careers.)
But that model can help them have a better team in the future and establish a company at their own pace
They're an indy studio. They are working with an indy budget, but they're working with an indy budget with no shareholders to please.
They don't really need to add dlc to break even.
Are those people ever played other games that's not The Sims?
Most games don't even have to cling with *bijillion* dlcs (or they do have dlcs, but not necessary) and are still selling well.
Also why we should care about the sale numbers? Just wait the game and play it if you're interested, people. Be greatful.
Spin off games is a great idea
it’s giving stardew valley
Everyone sells their soul eventually. I only wish to see paralives to succeed, but I think promising no paid DLC ever before the base game even releases is a big promise to commit to so early on.
It really is such a huge commitment. I would really love to know what made them decide to go this route
FOR THE ALGORITHM!
It’s weird for customers to worry about how businesses will make money. There are too many things you can’t possibly know about that, but you can know whether you are satisfied with the value for your money. That’s all you have to evaluate. I find it very manipulative for representatives of companies to ask customers for patience and understanding for their lives and work when they can’t deliver value. Yes it’s important for humans to thrive, but it’s okay for businesses to die. Humans who work for bad companies need support to put their personal life first, or keep their life together while finding other work, not empathy for their business that is not working out or getting bad press. I think this is a negative effect that comes from influencer marketing backed by big business
We will see how long that lasts lol
The Paralives team watching the shit going down with sims 4 knowing they're planning to not do paid dlc 😳🫣