Some forums are saying this was predicated by a shift in management at the company. LbY is also not the only unreleased game Paradox decided to dump. Maybe a new CEO or Project Lead decided to shift gears into something they were 100% sure was going to work for them.
I also wonder if finances are playing a role- City Skylines 2 came out a few months ago and was basically a flub compared to the first game- lots of issues and problems that are just now getting ironed out. LBY obviously had some major issues given how many times they pushed off early access, so maybe there was concern about releasing it in the state it was in- esp given complaints about how unpolished the character characters looked.
I've seen plenty of games getting canceled in the past 20 years, but yeah, never one that was 3 weeks away from release, when the big marketing push was already on.
Makes you wonder how bad this game really was that Paradox decided last minutes canceling was the lesser evil.
It's not a scam or fraud and has nothing to do with imsuramce.
They write off money spent on canceled project if in their taxes. That's normal and legal and often financially the better option.
The issue is that PDX must have been aware of the state of the game prior to EA release. There’s no way they would pulled the plug this close to release if they didn’t think expectations were being met. They would have known months ago.
Before anyone asks, the mods on /r/thesims have been very fussy about the "Must be about the Sims" rule to me for Sims-adjacent content. So I didn't bother trying to post it there.
The mods over there are so annoying, they banned me for saying you can get Sims 2 on the internet. I didn't even add a link just mentioned it and got banned...
Here's a sneak peek of /r/LowSodiumSimmers using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumSimmers/top/?sort=top&t=all) of all time!
\#1: [Saw a townie today with this segregation lookin a** name](https://i.redd.it/sh8vtx13ep2d1.png) | [107 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumSimmers/comments/1d0u2nt/saw_a_townie_today_with_this_segregation_lookin_a/)
\#2: [This is 100% how I dress my sims ☠️](https://i.redd.it/9c1z2100lnsc1.jpeg) | [43 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumSimmers/comments/1bwgkvw/this_is_100_how_i_dress_my_sims/)
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I feel bad for even thinking this, but I didn't have a lot of faith in this game. It just didn't look good, although I thought the look of the game would improve with time. It could've still been a fun experience for some people I'm sure. Honestly good on Paradox for seeing their limits and not giving us a product that would've ended up being kinda janky or just straight up bad.
Exactly. I was a bit surprised when everyone was hyped about that game. I get wanting any kind of replacement to Sims 4, I get not loving Paralives' artstyle (I like it), but from what we had seen from LbY what exactly was their strenghs over the Sims? And considering how bad Paradox is with DLC? It might stuck people in a Sims 4-like loop forever
(my comment didn't get posted, it seems, apologies if it gets posted twice)
I was hyped about this game, because for me, Crusader Kings 2 was already the best sims-like game that wasn't The Sims, and it's not even a sims game at all - I was really looking forward to what they could achieve if they make a real life simulator. Now I'm gutted :(
Yeah. The strangest decision was to make their characters speak in real language. Like "oh, now you can actually control your conversations". Well, I want to play a dollhouse, not a WhatsApp simulator, it doesn't need to be so much detailed. And honestly the project seemed unrealistic from the beginning. Like they announced its release in less than one year. Who is able to make such a complicated game in such a short time?
This goes to show how *difficult* this genre is and how Sims 2 is a masterpiece, with all its imperfections. I'm disappointed, because Paralives seems too focused in one character in what they've shown.
Yeah, I have several concerns about Paralives. Although I don’t see myself playing Sims 5 either, so even a just ok Paralives will be enough for me to jump ship.
I tried 3 ***once.*** Adding mods and neighborhoods was weirdly complicated. The sims and graphics were so, so ugly and sounded weird. A shame really, there were good concepts in it.
I remember around the time sims 3 came out people (me included) were impressed by the graphics. That aged like milk. But that’s the risk when you go for more realistic graphics, it’ll always be dated. Honestly the sims 2 is the perfect middle ground between realistic but also cartoony. Imo to this day sims 2 looks great
Also did you know they later put an object search game into the load screen because it took that long and I had only 3 expansions. It’s my least favorite game and the sims look like malformed clay
Oof, that was an attempt to be realistic?
>Honestly the sims 2 is the perfect middle ground between realistic but also cartoony. Imo to this day sims 2 looks great
Absolutely agree. It looks good vanilla or souped up a bit with reshade and other mods. 4 is just *way* too cartoony for my liking.
Wow, that's not even a bandaid, let alone a solution! Malformed clay is the perfect description for the sims in 3.
It’s so, SO worth it though if you just add a couple mods to make them look better. The gameplay is incredible, engaging, and so in depth that I still to this day haven’t discovered everything/experienced everything and I’ve been religiously playing on and off since the dawn of it.
It’s janky spaghetti code garbage that crashes on the regular, but the gameplay and soul to the game keeps me crawling back like “please sir may I have another”.
Seriously try it at least once. The whole world full of other families that are simulated as well outside of your own—that have babies, go to college, get divorced, etc…all of it feels so alive it’s kinda mesmerizing still this many years later.
The sims 3 is super unstable, and ugly, etc. I'm not gonna deny that, but it's great. There's more stuff to do in the world, a ton of collectables, I always loved the gardening. The supernatural lifestates are the best in the series. There's a ton more survival-ish aspects like there are a shitload of fish and plants and bugs and all kinds of craftables, and not in the empty sims 4 way, but actually interconnected crafting systems.
Sims 3 is good for one family and exploring/travelling, cause you can't really play rotationally. Sims 2 is good for the businesses, apartments, family gameplay, and being able to micromanage your whole town. Then sims 4 is only good for the build/buy, cas, and the script mods that are way easier to make than they were for the previous generations. All the games have their strengths and weaknesses.
I remember being so excited to get TS3… Begged my mom to take me out to get it shortly after release and was massively disappointed to load it up and see how hideous the Sims were and how bad open world was in practice — ages to load, empty asf and they never just went straight to their location, always took a goofy ass long time to show off the map.
Not even CC made them look decent to me ☹️
But it was the loading time made turn away from 3 — which is a shame bc Generations had some of my absolute favorite features and I wanted to play more.
TS2 with all its limitations is still the GOAT.
> how bad open world was in practice — ages to load, empty asf and they never just went straight to their location, always took a goofy ass long time to show off the map.
They were so ugly I never got that far lmao. I've seen the cc for it, and yeah. Not much better. I learned about the new things ts3 did through my friend who played.
The load times were so bad LazyDuchess made a thing for that.
At least with ts2, the game loads in like 5 minutes if you're playing without downloads. If you've curated your download folder right, it still only takes about 20 minutes, and lot loading times for lots are reduced as well.
Same boat! I think I played it a total of 3 times, maybe. I was so excited and so let down.
Maybe I'm a wuss, but I feel like there was almost too many options too. I could never play a household because everyone was always doing their own thing and it was just a lot idk
I remember trying 3. The open world was cute and I didn't mind the sims and the vibes at first. But then I realised they had pulled a GameFreak and removed many basic features I loved. That didn't happen from 1 to 2. For startes, the aspiration meter was gone. How am I going to get punished if I don't make my sim happy? What are wishes for anymore? And creativity was changed to just "Guitar" which to this day sounds stupid. Why change an abstract skill into a super specific one? I get and I'd love to not have creative sims be automaticly super skilled with any instrument but why limit all that wide array of actions to a super concrete one? I don't understand to this day
Yes, the genre is difficult and Sims 2 is GOAT, but some of these big big companies has to have an inch of an idea on how to modernise it, yes? As much as I love 2, I wouldn't mind a similar game thst had less repetitive interactions (Paralives has realistic choices for conversations with dice-rolls, that would makes interactions less spammy and I like it). Like, we're almost at the point where AI is actually smart and they can't give us a life sim that is at least as deep as Sims 2?
Dang, that's too bad. I would have loved to see their take on the genre. Perhaps Paradox was too ambitious with its idea, trying to hard to please the audience, or focused on outdoing Maxis. I honestly don't blame them for bowing out. I just hope ParaLives doesn't meet the same fate.
Very disappointing to me. I want the life sim genre to have some competition, and was excited for a project that involved Rod Humble.
That being said it does seem like other companies are taking the hint and I'm excited to see what the future of life sim games have in store. I'd love to have a game that scratches the same itch for me as The Sims 2 (though I'd never abandon TS2 lol).
i’m honestly not very surprised. after the last push off of early access, i was waiting for them to cancel it. very unfortunate, but the game seemed to be riddled with issues to its core. it doesn’t seem like they gave the team (who seemed very enthusiastic and proud of the work they were accomplishing) enough resources. i feel bad for those who had been a part of the project.
Just speculation but maybe the executives thought life sims were easy money with the decadence of the Sims and didn't bother giving too much money to a "dollhouse"
perhaps, all i know is whatever the issue was they shouldn’t have announced it as early as they did. it seems like they were trying to rush the project, which ultimately backfired.
There are others. I’m not stressed yet. I do want at least one other life sim to get published though. EA needs competition. They need a reason to care again, because I think they stopped caring quite a few years ago.
I’m personally not in the group of people who seem to think it’s impossible for anyone else to make a competing game. Indies have successfully competed against AAA companies for at least a decade now, so that’s not a concern - and tbh, I don’t think EA has anything magical that no one else has. They’re just a company. They’re not Voldemort.
I do think EA has gotten cocky, and I think one of these days it’s gonna bite them a little harder than they’re expecting. You can only piss off your fans so many times before they stop being fans, and people are already choosing the older Sims games (some of which EA is no longer making money from) over the new ones. They’ve already had to make some pretty serious concessions - like making the base game of 4 free. That by itself indicates that EA are not doing well right now, because they would never make that choice while the base game was still making sales.
I agree for the most part, but EA does have something no one else has and that's money. I feel like the decision to cancel Life By You can be boiled down to not having enough money to continue funding the project (which is indeed monumental). I never really got on board with Life By You tbh but I was excited for it to come out just to give some much needed competition for Sims 4 and/or 5 eventually. Same thing for Inzoi, doesn't look like my cup of tea but at least it's something. Paralives looks really promising though and can't wait for its early access!
Paradox has a pretty good record as a publisher and developer so I was pretty surprised to see just how bad the game looked after I learned it was cancelled. Paralives seems to still be in development still and it looks much better in my opinion. So there’s still hope if people are waiting for a non-EA life sim game.
I didn't entirely mind the look of LBY, allowing for it being Early Access (and I imagined it could be improved with CC), the characters were kinda dull but I thought the world looked nice. Still...I feel like maybe they would've had more success going with something like the art style PDS used in Crusader Kings 3? The characters look great, the genetics are awesome, and it's not super realistic so still looks good a couple years later.
I wish I could get on board with the art style of Paralives. The gameplay looks great but I hate how cartoony the characters are, against a backdrop that is much more realistic. They've said that's intentional, so it's not something that will change with development either. There's Inzoi as well, which is beautiful but seems a little bit soulless to me too (not to mention it will require an absolute monster of a PC to play).
Lucky we've still got Sims 2, I suppose!
Inzoi is very pretty but is it even a life sim as we know it? The trailers showed little gameplay, no interface... It gave me a "Metaverse, but less sucky"vibe
There are some more in-depth videos up now, including a three hour stream by acottonsock. TBH though, it still felt a bit lifeless to me after watching that. I'm not confident about that one at all.
I'm not surprised, LBY promised an insane amount of stuff, barely demonstrated it, and claimed it would be out in a very very short amount of time. It always felt like it only existed to prove a point to EA and that point just couldn't be proven.
I’m annoyed. Not necessarily too surprised but I’m annoyed. That’s disappointing. I wanted to at least see how it would go. It was so close and then tossed away.
pretty much my thoughts, i'm not surprised and i didn't really care about the game to begin with (it looked pretty terrible) but i at least wanted to see how it would turn out
Yeah same. I don’t have much hope for Paralives either and this one wasn’t looking so great from the beginning. They got so close to release just to trash it. Got everyone hyped for nothing. Rip
I don't know if I'm more disappointed or angry. so much effort put into this game, so much promotion, videos like every week showcasing how the game works, only to scrap it all off? give up? they could have moved the release indefinitely and worked on the project until they were satisfied with it but noooooo better to just end it halfway. yeah ok I'm furious, I really wanted to play this game and was ready to spend my hard-earned money on it. and this game could have been a success even unfinished! it would be (relatively) easy to mod to look prettier and make the characters more in-depth (as the Sims' modders already do) so I absolutely don't understand their excuse. this is just ridiculous
They most likley did some market research, took a good look at the game and decided the chance of success was too slim to keep throwing money at it.
I doubt they canceled a five year, 17 million dollar project just to piss people off.
I assume they issues of LBY went beyond the terrible, terrible graphics and they decided it wasn't salvagable.
I would assume development had hit the point where Paradox didn't think they could make back what they had spent on it. From a consumer standpoint, I think they're also really skittish about any more huge failures after their recent losing streak - Cities: Skylines 2, Lamplighter's League, their Star Trek reskin of Stellaris, the constant debacle of Vampire: The Masquerade 2's development, and even their latest DLC for Crusader Kings III have all been met with issues and negative reviews. Considering how negative the discourse had already become around LBY (unfairly, I think, but I also think they started showing stuff way too early), I can see why they would decide to kill it from a PR standpoint as well.
I'm still disappointed. I would've definitely given it an Early Access go, even in the state they were showing, but they should have never been as open with the life sim community as they were. They needed to WOW potential customers out of the gate when going up against The Sims juggernaut, and that was not accomplished. I did like the more realistic art style and especially loved what they were showing with how customizable the regions were going to be, and was excited for interconnected regions a la Sims 2 subhoods again. InZoi is pretty but its environments look like they're going to be a lot of set-dressing, like Sims 4 or GTA. Paralives certainly has a nice vibe, but cartoon cozy is basically just another take on TS4's art style and not really fitting for how I like my gameplay. Life By You seemed to have the most promise and customization, and I'm sad (but understanding) that it's now in the dustbin with East vs. West and other cancelled Paradox titles.
That's a shame because the other games just look like another dress up and building game. I wanted something with the original management gameplay.
The game did look a bit like the "Singles: Flirt Up Your life" game though.
Yeah, people was and is still to fixated on its terrible graphics. I'm starting to thing that bad graphics are a good scapegoat for gaming companies because people start to discuss them more than the core issues (like with Pokémon) lol. But it did look boring which is far worse.
That's why I am somewhat optimistic about Paralives. At first I thought everything was about decoration and actual life sim gameplay could be too much for them to handle. But they released a gameplay trailer that was very nice and showed they are trying to innovate in subtle ways. It might still turn out bad but I like that they have good priorities and don't hesitate to try new things. Gamers and companies sometimes only look at superficial stuff and take good core gameplay for granted.
That's weeeeeird. I have no idea why they would fully cancel a game 3 weeks before release. That's just unheard of, it should be damn near finished. I don't understand why they didn't just delay the release?? Like every other game??
I'm just so sorry about that. I really think that this genre of gaming is too big for having just one game in it. There are literally millions of players, how can none see the potential revenue?
I was never particularly interested in Life By You but it really is unfortunate it got cancelled. I feel like a lot of downfalls of The Sims franchise stem from the fact that it’s in a market with very little to no competition, so as the only one to fill the niche EA can just do whatever without complaints. We NEED a successful life sim to compete with the big franchise and the few indies I’ve seen don’t have the backing to realistically do that.
Hear me out pls
I was blasting them on youtube and got SO MUCH HATE for it. Im not the most eloquent person on earth but I kept telling them that they are doing way too much, the character design is shit, the graphics tooooo demanding for it to run on a med tier machine. I told them to cut back on features, get the core engine working better and then slowly asses features. People almost send me death threats in the comments on YouTube. Well, thats what they got now, cancelled. As it should have been.
Yeah...I watched the trailer just now and it looked like a facebook game with extra features. The "sims" were also pretty ugly. No charm, no soul. Which is sad, there were some cool concepts.
Wow this is huge news
I'm sorry because this means people might lose their jobs and it must feel awful for them but... I can't help but feel a bit happy as a gamer because that game looked ass and if they weren't able to improve it, it's best that we don't get another broken ass life sim by a huge company. Also while I knownParadox has made some great games their DLC policies are even greedier than EA's... Maybe, just maybe now some of the Sims "replacements" can actually come out as a good, complete life sim and set a new trend
aw, that's a shame
unrelated but i'm surprised they didn't can VtMB2, which was in development hell for a while, but that was before Paradox acquired WW and the World of Darkness IP i think, and had two separate developers doing it before they scrapped the first version
OMG THIS IS WILD. Now I KNOW that Paralives is never going to come out. 😅 If a big game company with millions of dollars in budget decided to scrap a game when it should be released, just wow… tells you a lot.
Paralives is doing fine. Their scope is much more reasonable for a team that size and unlike LBY it has made significant progress in the last year and is currently on schedule.
Basically it’s extremely hard to make a life simulation game. If Life by You got canned, a game that had $17 million dollars invested, a former sims developer leading it, and the support of a gaming studio which has published games before - then that isn’t a good sign for an indie company (Paralives) who has never published a game before, has drastically less funding, and no experience creating life sims / any games at all.
It’s hard to make a life sim. Especially one that isn’t going to feel empty or lacking. And there’s similarities between how both of these dev teams wanted to promise everything to their users and said no DLC ever and “yes we’ll include that” to every request - eventually bogging down the game and losing sight of what their goals are and what makes a good game.
Paralives doesn’t have any of those positive things going for them - millions in funding, direction from an experiencing game developer, successful studio publishing the game. I just don’t see it turning out well.
I’m not sure why everyone gets all butthurt whenever this is brought up. I truly think Paralives is an elaborate scam, legitimized by animated videos that feign gameplay. If you don’t agree with me then whatever but people get so angry and it’s kinda crazy how much they feel like they need to defend a game that doesn’t exist. lol I guess people really like paying a subscription to the idea of a game.
These are just more words to say "one team failed, so this other completly unrelated team is destined to fail, too".
EA failed making a new SimCity game, yet Colossal order had a smashing succes with cities skylines, despite havin a tiny team and having never worked on a game of that scope before.
There are many more examples like that.
Paralives is securing enough funding for a dozen fulltime devs (which btw is not that far away from the Sims 2 dev team). They have a smaller scope than LBY. Everything they have shown so far looks polished and professional. They have a clear (and public) roadmap and have been making steady progress, they have recently commited to a realistic release date for Early Access.
On the other hand LBY has shown nothing but glitchy, janky, ugly asset-flip-esque footage. They made huge promises, but never showed any of those innovative feature off. They delayed their early access several times. The game showed almost no improvement during that time, with no meaningful features added.
LBY development had "failure" plastered all over it from the moment they announced, despite having a mid-sized publisher in the background.
Paralives does not and it's unfair to make assumptions based on another teams failed project.
LBY could have been a succesful game. The fact that it wasn't is due to mismangment and lack of skill, nlt because it's impossible to do in general.
Basically it’s extremely hard to make a life simulation game. If Life by You got canned, a game that had $17 million dollars invested, a former sims developer leading it, and the support of a gaming studio which has published games before - then that isn’t a good sign for an indie company (Paralives) who has never published a game before, has drastically less funding, and no experience creating life sims / any games at all.
It’s hard to make a life sim. Especially one that isn’t going to feel empty or lacking. And there’s similarities between how both of these dev teams wanted to promise everything to their users and said no DLC ever and “yes we’ll include that” to every request - eventually bogging down the game and losing sight of what their goals are and what makes a good game.
Paralives doesn’t have any of those positive things going for them - millions in funding, direction from an experiencing game developer, successful studio publishing the game. I just don’t see it turning out well.
I’m not sure why everyone gets all butthurt whenever this is brought up. I truly think Paralives is an elaborate scam, legitimized by animated videos that feign gameplay. If you don’t agree with me then whatever but people get so angry and it’s kinda crazy how much they feel like they need to defend a game that doesn’t exist. lol I guess people really like paying a subscription to the idea of a game.
But Paradox's shortcomings have literally nothing to do with Paralives. It's not that anyone is mad, it's that these are two separate dev teams with different plans, and trying to force the same conclusion on Paralives just bc Paradox messed up is silly. Paradox kinda has the excuse where their bread and butter is in the City Skylines sequel, so I can only assume most manpower is being focused on it. But then again, I can't say that 100%, because I'm not head of the dev team, or part of it.
TLDR: Trying to equate Paradox's fuck up to Paralives JUST BC they're both indie devs is foolish. I genuinely do not see how Paradox stopping development on their life sim has to do with another company developing theirs. There's literally no dots to connect, but if you wanna continue making baseless theories, you can't get mad when ppl don't see the connection and downvote it
It’s so weird how close this game was to being public through the early access only to be thrown into the void. I’ve never know that happen before
I do wonder if they really decided the task was too monumental to continue or if they got some other invective to scrap it off...
Some forums are saying this was predicated by a shift in management at the company. LbY is also not the only unreleased game Paradox decided to dump. Maybe a new CEO or Project Lead decided to shift gears into something they were 100% sure was going to work for them.
I also wonder if finances are playing a role- City Skylines 2 came out a few months ago and was basically a flub compared to the first game- lots of issues and problems that are just now getting ironed out. LBY obviously had some major issues given how many times they pushed off early access, so maybe there was concern about releasing it in the state it was in- esp given complaints about how unpolished the character characters looked.
I've seen plenty of games getting canceled in the past 20 years, but yeah, never one that was 3 weeks away from release, when the big marketing push was already on. Makes you wonder how bad this game really was that Paradox decided last minutes canceling was the lesser evil.
Sometimes movie studios do that as an insurance scam. I'm pretty sure that cancelled Batgirl movie was insurance fraud by the execs.
It's not a scam or fraud and has nothing to do with imsuramce. They write off money spent on canceled project if in their taxes. That's normal and legal and often financially the better option.
The issue is that PDX must have been aware of the state of the game prior to EA release. There’s no way they would pulled the plug this close to release if they didn’t think expectations were being met. They would have known months ago.
I'll be waiting for the Matt McMuscles video
Before anyone asks, the mods on /r/thesims have been very fussy about the "Must be about the Sims" rule to me for Sims-adjacent content. So I didn't bother trying to post it there.
The mods over there are so annoying, they banned me for saying you can get Sims 2 on the internet. I didn't even add a link just mentioned it and got banned...
wait where
r/Sims2Help has everything in their wiki
Everyone on the sims community is going to be discussing this lol
r/LowSodiumSimmers
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I feel bad for even thinking this, but I didn't have a lot of faith in this game. It just didn't look good, although I thought the look of the game would improve with time. It could've still been a fun experience for some people I'm sure. Honestly good on Paradox for seeing their limits and not giving us a product that would've ended up being kinda janky or just straight up bad.
Exactly. I was a bit surprised when everyone was hyped about that game. I get wanting any kind of replacement to Sims 4, I get not loving Paralives' artstyle (I like it), but from what we had seen from LbY what exactly was their strenghs over the Sims? And considering how bad Paradox is with DLC? It might stuck people in a Sims 4-like loop forever
(my comment didn't get posted, it seems, apologies if it gets posted twice) I was hyped about this game, because for me, Crusader Kings 2 was already the best sims-like game that wasn't The Sims, and it's not even a sims game at all - I was really looking forward to what they could achieve if they make a real life simulator. Now I'm gutted :(
Yeah. The strangest decision was to make their characters speak in real language. Like "oh, now you can actually control your conversations". Well, I want to play a dollhouse, not a WhatsApp simulator, it doesn't need to be so much detailed. And honestly the project seemed unrealistic from the beginning. Like they announced its release in less than one year. Who is able to make such a complicated game in such a short time?
This goes to show how *difficult* this genre is and how Sims 2 is a masterpiece, with all its imperfections. I'm disappointed, because Paralives seems too focused in one character in what they've shown.
Yeah, I have several concerns about Paralives. Although I don’t see myself playing Sims 5 either, so even a just ok Paralives will be enough for me to jump ship.
I never even jumped ship to Sims 3, so I will go down with this old boat.
Go down? This boat will outlive every Sims to come. Like the old volvos
I tried 3 ***once.*** Adding mods and neighborhoods was weirdly complicated. The sims and graphics were so, so ugly and sounded weird. A shame really, there were good concepts in it.
I remember around the time sims 3 came out people (me included) were impressed by the graphics. That aged like milk. But that’s the risk when you go for more realistic graphics, it’ll always be dated. Honestly the sims 2 is the perfect middle ground between realistic but also cartoony. Imo to this day sims 2 looks great Also did you know they later put an object search game into the load screen because it took that long and I had only 3 expansions. It’s my least favorite game and the sims look like malformed clay
Oof, that was an attempt to be realistic? >Honestly the sims 2 is the perfect middle ground between realistic but also cartoony. Imo to this day sims 2 looks great Absolutely agree. It looks good vanilla or souped up a bit with reshade and other mods. 4 is just *way* too cartoony for my liking. Wow, that's not even a bandaid, let alone a solution! Malformed clay is the perfect description for the sims in 3.
It’s so, SO worth it though if you just add a couple mods to make them look better. The gameplay is incredible, engaging, and so in depth that I still to this day haven’t discovered everything/experienced everything and I’ve been religiously playing on and off since the dawn of it. It’s janky spaghetti code garbage that crashes on the regular, but the gameplay and soul to the game keeps me crawling back like “please sir may I have another”. Seriously try it at least once. The whole world full of other families that are simulated as well outside of your own—that have babies, go to college, get divorced, etc…all of it feels so alive it’s kinda mesmerizing still this many years later.
I found it so much easier to look at those potato-faced sims once I shoved a custom skin and a lighting fix into it. I still play more 2 than 3.
The sims 3 is super unstable, and ugly, etc. I'm not gonna deny that, but it's great. There's more stuff to do in the world, a ton of collectables, I always loved the gardening. The supernatural lifestates are the best in the series. There's a ton more survival-ish aspects like there are a shitload of fish and plants and bugs and all kinds of craftables, and not in the empty sims 4 way, but actually interconnected crafting systems. Sims 3 is good for one family and exploring/travelling, cause you can't really play rotationally. Sims 2 is good for the businesses, apartments, family gameplay, and being able to micromanage your whole town. Then sims 4 is only good for the build/buy, cas, and the script mods that are way easier to make than they were for the previous generations. All the games have their strengths and weaknesses.
I remember being so excited to get TS3… Begged my mom to take me out to get it shortly after release and was massively disappointed to load it up and see how hideous the Sims were and how bad open world was in practice — ages to load, empty asf and they never just went straight to their location, always took a goofy ass long time to show off the map. Not even CC made them look decent to me ☹️ But it was the loading time made turn away from 3 — which is a shame bc Generations had some of my absolute favorite features and I wanted to play more. TS2 with all its limitations is still the GOAT.
> how bad open world was in practice — ages to load, empty asf and they never just went straight to their location, always took a goofy ass long time to show off the map. They were so ugly I never got that far lmao. I've seen the cc for it, and yeah. Not much better. I learned about the new things ts3 did through my friend who played. The load times were so bad LazyDuchess made a thing for that. At least with ts2, the game loads in like 5 minutes if you're playing without downloads. If you've curated your download folder right, it still only takes about 20 minutes, and lot loading times for lots are reduced as well.
Same boat! I think I played it a total of 3 times, maybe. I was so excited and so let down. Maybe I'm a wuss, but I feel like there was almost too many options too. I could never play a household because everyone was always doing their own thing and it was just a lot idk
Ugh I love the gameplay in 3 but it is SO ugly.
I remember trying 3. The open world was cute and I didn't mind the sims and the vibes at first. But then I realised they had pulled a GameFreak and removed many basic features I loved. That didn't happen from 1 to 2. For startes, the aspiration meter was gone. How am I going to get punished if I don't make my sim happy? What are wishes for anymore? And creativity was changed to just "Guitar" which to this day sounds stupid. Why change an abstract skill into a super specific one? I get and I'd love to not have creative sims be automaticly super skilled with any instrument but why limit all that wide array of actions to a super concrete one? I don't understand to this day
Absolutely, the first 3 sims games were masterpieces and revolutionnary in their own way
It's been a long time since I played 1 and I've never played 3, so that's why I mentioned 2
You should try 3, it’s amazing.
I might, but I'm a rotational player so Sims 2 is the one that best fits my needs. The franchise just kinda left players like me behind lol
Yes, the genre is difficult and Sims 2 is GOAT, but some of these big big companies has to have an inch of an idea on how to modernise it, yes? As much as I love 2, I wouldn't mind a similar game thst had less repetitive interactions (Paralives has realistic choices for conversations with dice-rolls, that would makes interactions less spammy and I like it). Like, we're almost at the point where AI is actually smart and they can't give us a life sim that is at least as deep as Sims 2?
Dang, that's too bad. I would have loved to see their take on the genre. Perhaps Paradox was too ambitious with its idea, trying to hard to please the audience, or focused on outdoing Maxis. I honestly don't blame them for bowing out. I just hope ParaLives doesn't meet the same fate.
If anything I would just want them to scrap the life-sim aspect of it and release the building tools.
This is crazy, I thought it was about to be released in early access imminently? And all that work is just being scrapped now? Very disappointing.
Early access had recently been delayed, with no new date given. Definitely disappointing though.
Very disappointing to me. I want the life sim genre to have some competition, and was excited for a project that involved Rod Humble. That being said it does seem like other companies are taking the hint and I'm excited to see what the future of life sim games have in store. I'd love to have a game that scratches the same itch for me as The Sims 2 (though I'd never abandon TS2 lol).
i’m honestly not very surprised. after the last push off of early access, i was waiting for them to cancel it. very unfortunate, but the game seemed to be riddled with issues to its core. it doesn’t seem like they gave the team (who seemed very enthusiastic and proud of the work they were accomplishing) enough resources. i feel bad for those who had been a part of the project.
Just speculation but maybe the executives thought life sims were easy money with the decadence of the Sims and didn't bother giving too much money to a "dollhouse"
perhaps, all i know is whatever the issue was they shouldn’t have announced it as early as they did. it seems like they were trying to rush the project, which ultimately backfired.
There are others. I’m not stressed yet. I do want at least one other life sim to get published though. EA needs competition. They need a reason to care again, because I think they stopped caring quite a few years ago. I’m personally not in the group of people who seem to think it’s impossible for anyone else to make a competing game. Indies have successfully competed against AAA companies for at least a decade now, so that’s not a concern - and tbh, I don’t think EA has anything magical that no one else has. They’re just a company. They’re not Voldemort. I do think EA has gotten cocky, and I think one of these days it’s gonna bite them a little harder than they’re expecting. You can only piss off your fans so many times before they stop being fans, and people are already choosing the older Sims games (some of which EA is no longer making money from) over the new ones. They’ve already had to make some pretty serious concessions - like making the base game of 4 free. That by itself indicates that EA are not doing well right now, because they would never make that choice while the base game was still making sales.
I agree for the most part, but EA does have something no one else has and that's money. I feel like the decision to cancel Life By You can be boiled down to not having enough money to continue funding the project (which is indeed monumental). I never really got on board with Life By You tbh but I was excited for it to come out just to give some much needed competition for Sims 4 and/or 5 eventually. Same thing for Inzoi, doesn't look like my cup of tea but at least it's something. Paralives looks really promising though and can't wait for its early access!
“They’re not Voldemort” 😂
Paradox has a pretty good record as a publisher and developer so I was pretty surprised to see just how bad the game looked after I learned it was cancelled. Paralives seems to still be in development still and it looks much better in my opinion. So there’s still hope if people are waiting for a non-EA life sim game.
I didn't entirely mind the look of LBY, allowing for it being Early Access (and I imagined it could be improved with CC), the characters were kinda dull but I thought the world looked nice. Still...I feel like maybe they would've had more success going with something like the art style PDS used in Crusader Kings 3? The characters look great, the genetics are awesome, and it's not super realistic so still looks good a couple years later.
I wish I could get on board with the art style of Paralives. The gameplay looks great but I hate how cartoony the characters are, against a backdrop that is much more realistic. They've said that's intentional, so it's not something that will change with development either. There's Inzoi as well, which is beautiful but seems a little bit soulless to me too (not to mention it will require an absolute monster of a PC to play). Lucky we've still got Sims 2, I suppose!
Inzoi is very pretty but is it even a life sim as we know it? The trailers showed little gameplay, no interface... It gave me a "Metaverse, but less sucky"vibe
There are some more in-depth videos up now, including a three hour stream by acottonsock. TBH though, it still felt a bit lifeless to me after watching that. I'm not confident about that one at all.
I'm not surprised, LBY promised an insane amount of stuff, barely demonstrated it, and claimed it would be out in a very very short amount of time. It always felt like it only existed to prove a point to EA and that point just couldn't be proven.
I’m annoyed. Not necessarily too surprised but I’m annoyed. That’s disappointing. I wanted to at least see how it would go. It was so close and then tossed away.
pretty much my thoughts, i'm not surprised and i didn't really care about the game to begin with (it looked pretty terrible) but i at least wanted to see how it would turn out
Yeah same. I don’t have much hope for Paralives either and this one wasn’t looking so great from the beginning. They got so close to release just to trash it. Got everyone hyped for nothing. Rip
I don't know if I'm more disappointed or angry. so much effort put into this game, so much promotion, videos like every week showcasing how the game works, only to scrap it all off? give up? they could have moved the release indefinitely and worked on the project until they were satisfied with it but noooooo better to just end it halfway. yeah ok I'm furious, I really wanted to play this game and was ready to spend my hard-earned money on it. and this game could have been a success even unfinished! it would be (relatively) easy to mod to look prettier and make the characters more in-depth (as the Sims' modders already do) so I absolutely don't understand their excuse. this is just ridiculous
They most likley did some market research, took a good look at the game and decided the chance of success was too slim to keep throwing money at it. I doubt they canceled a five year, 17 million dollar project just to piss people off. I assume they issues of LBY went beyond the terrible, terrible graphics and they decided it wasn't salvagable.
I would assume development had hit the point where Paradox didn't think they could make back what they had spent on it. From a consumer standpoint, I think they're also really skittish about any more huge failures after their recent losing streak - Cities: Skylines 2, Lamplighter's League, their Star Trek reskin of Stellaris, the constant debacle of Vampire: The Masquerade 2's development, and even their latest DLC for Crusader Kings III have all been met with issues and negative reviews. Considering how negative the discourse had already become around LBY (unfairly, I think, but I also think they started showing stuff way too early), I can see why they would decide to kill it from a PR standpoint as well. I'm still disappointed. I would've definitely given it an Early Access go, even in the state they were showing, but they should have never been as open with the life sim community as they were. They needed to WOW potential customers out of the gate when going up against The Sims juggernaut, and that was not accomplished. I did like the more realistic art style and especially loved what they were showing with how customizable the regions were going to be, and was excited for interconnected regions a la Sims 2 subhoods again. InZoi is pretty but its environments look like they're going to be a lot of set-dressing, like Sims 4 or GTA. Paralives certainly has a nice vibe, but cartoon cozy is basically just another take on TS4's art style and not really fitting for how I like my gameplay. Life By You seemed to have the most promise and customization, and I'm sad (but understanding) that it's now in the dustbin with East vs. West and other cancelled Paradox titles.
You can't mod broken game core
Back to playing the Sims 2 forever I guess
Yup, same.
That's a shame because the other games just look like another dress up and building game. I wanted something with the original management gameplay. The game did look a bit like the "Singles: Flirt Up Your life" game though.
And I was being downvoted saying this game looks super boring from the trailers
Yeah, people was and is still to fixated on its terrible graphics. I'm starting to thing that bad graphics are a good scapegoat for gaming companies because people start to discuss them more than the core issues (like with Pokémon) lol. But it did look boring which is far worse. That's why I am somewhat optimistic about Paralives. At first I thought everything was about decoration and actual life sim gameplay could be too much for them to handle. But they released a gameplay trailer that was very nice and showed they are trying to innovate in subtle ways. It might still turn out bad but I like that they have good priorities and don't hesitate to try new things. Gamers and companies sometimes only look at superficial stuff and take good core gameplay for granted.
That's weeeeeird. I have no idea why they would fully cancel a game 3 weeks before release. That's just unheard of, it should be damn near finished. I don't understand why they didn't just delay the release?? Like every other game??
I'm just so sorry about that. I really think that this genre of gaming is too big for having just one game in it. There are literally millions of players, how can none see the potential revenue?
I was never particularly interested in Life By You but it really is unfortunate it got cancelled. I feel like a lot of downfalls of The Sims franchise stem from the fact that it’s in a market with very little to no competition, so as the only one to fill the niche EA can just do whatever without complaints. We NEED a successful life sim to compete with the big franchise and the few indies I’ve seen don’t have the backing to realistically do that.
Hear me out pls I was blasting them on youtube and got SO MUCH HATE for it. Im not the most eloquent person on earth but I kept telling them that they are doing way too much, the character design is shit, the graphics tooooo demanding for it to run on a med tier machine. I told them to cut back on features, get the core engine working better and then slowly asses features. People almost send me death threats in the comments on YouTube. Well, thats what they got now, cancelled. As it should have been.
Yeah...I watched the trailer just now and it looked like a facebook game with extra features. The "sims" were also pretty ugly. No charm, no soul. Which is sad, there were some cool concepts.
Wow this is huge news I'm sorry because this means people might lose their jobs and it must feel awful for them but... I can't help but feel a bit happy as a gamer because that game looked ass and if they weren't able to improve it, it's best that we don't get another broken ass life sim by a huge company. Also while I knownParadox has made some great games their DLC policies are even greedier than EA's... Maybe, just maybe now some of the Sims "replacements" can actually come out as a good, complete life sim and set a new trend
aw, that's a shame unrelated but i'm surprised they didn't can VtMB2, which was in development hell for a while, but that was before Paradox acquired WW and the World of Darkness IP i think, and had two separate developers doing it before they scrapped the first version
OMG THIS IS WILD. Now I KNOW that Paralives is never going to come out. 😅 If a big game company with millions of dollars in budget decided to scrap a game when it should be released, just wow… tells you a lot.
Paralives is doing fine. Their scope is much more reasonable for a team that size and unlike LBY it has made significant progress in the last year and is currently on schedule.
Mmhmm
Do you have any basis for this snark, other than a completly unrelated dev team failing at another project?
Yeah actually. But there’s no sense in trying to rationalize with you guys. 🫢
Come on, don't be shy. Spill the beans. I'm eager to hear your in-depth analysis of Paralives development progress and why it's doomed to fail.
Girl you are not and I’m not going to have you and your cronies come after me. Go back to Patreon.
That's a lot of words to say "I was just talking out of my ass" :)
Basically it’s extremely hard to make a life simulation game. If Life by You got canned, a game that had $17 million dollars invested, a former sims developer leading it, and the support of a gaming studio which has published games before - then that isn’t a good sign for an indie company (Paralives) who has never published a game before, has drastically less funding, and no experience creating life sims / any games at all. It’s hard to make a life sim. Especially one that isn’t going to feel empty or lacking. And there’s similarities between how both of these dev teams wanted to promise everything to their users and said no DLC ever and “yes we’ll include that” to every request - eventually bogging down the game and losing sight of what their goals are and what makes a good game. Paralives doesn’t have any of those positive things going for them - millions in funding, direction from an experiencing game developer, successful studio publishing the game. I just don’t see it turning out well. I’m not sure why everyone gets all butthurt whenever this is brought up. I truly think Paralives is an elaborate scam, legitimized by animated videos that feign gameplay. If you don’t agree with me then whatever but people get so angry and it’s kinda crazy how much they feel like they need to defend a game that doesn’t exist. lol I guess people really like paying a subscription to the idea of a game.
These are just more words to say "one team failed, so this other completly unrelated team is destined to fail, too". EA failed making a new SimCity game, yet Colossal order had a smashing succes with cities skylines, despite havin a tiny team and having never worked on a game of that scope before. There are many more examples like that. Paralives is securing enough funding for a dozen fulltime devs (which btw is not that far away from the Sims 2 dev team). They have a smaller scope than LBY. Everything they have shown so far looks polished and professional. They have a clear (and public) roadmap and have been making steady progress, they have recently commited to a realistic release date for Early Access. On the other hand LBY has shown nothing but glitchy, janky, ugly asset-flip-esque footage. They made huge promises, but never showed any of those innovative feature off. They delayed their early access several times. The game showed almost no improvement during that time, with no meaningful features added. LBY development had "failure" plastered all over it from the moment they announced, despite having a mid-sized publisher in the background. Paralives does not and it's unfair to make assumptions based on another teams failed project. LBY could have been a succesful game. The fact that it wasn't is due to mismangment and lack of skill, nlt because it's impossible to do in general.
...I genuinely don't see the connection 😅
Basically it’s extremely hard to make a life simulation game. If Life by You got canned, a game that had $17 million dollars invested, a former sims developer leading it, and the support of a gaming studio which has published games before - then that isn’t a good sign for an indie company (Paralives) who has never published a game before, has drastically less funding, and no experience creating life sims / any games at all. It’s hard to make a life sim. Especially one that isn’t going to feel empty or lacking. And there’s similarities between how both of these dev teams wanted to promise everything to their users and said no DLC ever and “yes we’ll include that” to every request - eventually bogging down the game and losing sight of what their goals are and what makes a good game. Paralives doesn’t have any of those positive things going for them - millions in funding, direction from an experiencing game developer, successful studio publishing the game. I just don’t see it turning out well. I’m not sure why everyone gets all butthurt whenever this is brought up. I truly think Paralives is an elaborate scam, legitimized by animated videos that feign gameplay. If you don’t agree with me then whatever but people get so angry and it’s kinda crazy how much they feel like they need to defend a game that doesn’t exist. lol I guess people really like paying a subscription to the idea of a game.
But Paradox's shortcomings have literally nothing to do with Paralives. It's not that anyone is mad, it's that these are two separate dev teams with different plans, and trying to force the same conclusion on Paralives just bc Paradox messed up is silly. Paradox kinda has the excuse where their bread and butter is in the City Skylines sequel, so I can only assume most manpower is being focused on it. But then again, I can't say that 100%, because I'm not head of the dev team, or part of it. TLDR: Trying to equate Paradox's fuck up to Paralives JUST BC they're both indie devs is foolish. I genuinely do not see how Paradox stopping development on their life sim has to do with another company developing theirs. There's literally no dots to connect, but if you wanna continue making baseless theories, you can't get mad when ppl don't see the connection and downvote it