inZOI has sold 1 million copies in a week, developer and publisher Krafton has announced. That’s the fastest sales milestone ever for a game published by the South Korean megacorp, which declared inZOI a "long-term franchise IP."
Given how many features use generative AI to build user-generated content I would say mark this moment. There is a future of slop-centric Roblox stuff everywhere and this may well be where it starts.
I’m not as mad about that as most will be, but… yeah, I’ve mentioned a couple of times around here how weird it is that nobody is really bringing it up so far.
I appreciate it more because it’s generative AI based off of user created content and their own content. I respect that more than using outside sources that got their training data from god knows where and just slap that shit in there and call it a day.
How is it based on UGC if the game wasn’t out when they implemented the GenAI? As far as I can tell they’re using a whole bunch of ML-based tools built on Unreal tech for animation and model creation and what seems to be run of the mill Gen AI for textures. I could be wrong, but hey, I’ll hold you to that being cool when EA or Ubisoft show up with their version of the same thing.
You can enter a text prompt and they spit out a texture based on it, which sure seems to just be a good old image generation model. They do generate mesh from images, which probably has some ML involved, although it’s harder to tell how much is just good old photogrammetry, and they do face and body animation from video source. I think that’s all part of the Unreal Engine 5 metahuman package, which I’m pretty sure does use some machine learning. Oh, and I am pretty sure a bunch of the writing and character AI has been machine-created, be it in real time or baked offline.
Part of the problem is that people aren’t super clear on what “AI” is supposed to mean, so it’s hard to know what they’re supposed to be angry about. The texture generation thing at least is clearly in the GenAI danger zone.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times around here how weird it is that nobody is really bringing it up so far.
How many people are actually playing the game to find out though? I’m always strongly suspicious every time some new game explodes onto social media. Why couldn’t they use AI to generate user reviews and comments also?
There’s a lot of suspiciously crap games that manage to explode to the top of the steam trending list. I’ve been bitten before.
This one has art that looks so generic I can’t even tell if they’re screenshots or promo pics unrelated to the game. It suddenly makes sense now I know it’s genai. It’s not trying to communicate anything to a user it’s just vibes man.
You can simply not use any of the AI features. The studio claims the genAI is a model trained solely on material their artists and devs created for this exact purpose and it runs locally, and as far as I know there is nothing in the game that uses genAI other than what the players can generate.
I still don’t feel good supporting it, personally. If everyone else is enjoying it, that’s cool, but I’ve got plenty of other games that don’t dip their toes into areas I’m not personally comfortable with. So for me it’s a non starter.
Higher fidelity for sure, as one would expect when comparing games released 10 years apart, but idk if it’s “better” per se. Of course this is totally subjective, but I feel like there’s no style to inZoi, unless we define “generic AI output” as a style.
I’m not a huge fan honestly. I think the stylized graphics are a better fit for the genre, and you get into uncanny valley a lot faster with realistic graphics.
But I mean, that’s just MY taste, I’m not going to tell anyone else what to think.
I’ve seen some people play it and it seems pretty cool. Although it doesn’t look amazing and seems pretty shallow, it’s only $40. The price tag alone is almost enough for me to give it a try. Any of the Sims games are hundreds of dollars at this point if you wanna buy the DLC. And that’s on a decent sale, too.
Maybe see what player counts look like in a few months before making great and grand plans? People want a fresh take on The Sims, but maybe without the backlog of a hundred DLCs and other EA shittery. But, inZOI may not be it. Apart from the pervasive and distasteful use of generative AI, it may just not have that special something.
So give it a while, lads. Maybe it really will be a hit, but sales in the first week mostly just say that people wanted a fresh swing at The Sims, not that they really want what inZOI is.
Last I heard they cancelled work on the next sims, doubled down on “improving the health” of The Sims 4 with improvements instead. Truly transformed into a GaaS, being 10+ years old.
To be fair, their predatory DLC model for Sims 4 means that their primary customer base has hundreds of dollars invested. Abandoning it at this point might piss a ton of them off. It’s also worth considering that a lot of their users aren’t normal gamers. They typically have basic devices that aren’t really geared towards gaming, so a newer game that’s more demanding might further alienate their base.
A million sales is a lot, but it’s nothing compared to over 85 million copies sold that Sims 4 has achieved.
Not to mention it would be a buggy mess, geared towards on-line only content and predatory gacha mechanics. Remember that abortion that was the last SimCity ? It pretty much gave Cities: Skylines a permission to print money.
It sold almost 470,000 copies on PC in its first week 11 years ago. The number of PC gamers has dramatically increased since then, so comparing launch numbers between now and then isn’t really an apt comparison.
If you can’t fathom why I compare a game’s total sales to its competing newcomer, maybe you’re missing the whole point of the specific comment thread I responded to. If you want more recent numbers for a better comparison , EA claims they sold an additional 15 million copies in 2024 alone.
The main point is, I do not think EA is sweating quite yet. They’re a shitty, massive corporation and I’m sure they’ll pump out a sequel if they determine the newcomer is actively taking large enough chunks of their player base.
Which is really unfortunate because The Sims 4 was my least favorite of the franchise. Probably only played it for about 20 hours over the years while I have hundreds in 2 and 3.
It was my favorite for artstyle/graphics, but I was not pleased when I tried to stir up drama by kissing a Sim’s partner in the same room. That would have gotten the partner racing over to slap someone, an argument, and a Furious status in The Sims 2. In The Sims 4, they just didn’t notice, no consequences.
Ah, didn’t know that. I thought I’d seen a teaser or something for a new game years ago but didn’t know if it was true as I hadn’t seen anything new about it in ages.
While it’s not a game I’d play, they should just make a new game I agree.
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Given how many features use generative AI to build user-generated content I would say mark this moment. There is a future of slop-centric Roblox stuff everywhere and this may well be where it starts.
I’m not as mad about that as most will be, but… yeah, I’ve mentioned a couple of times around here how weird it is that nobody is really bringing it up so far.
I appreciate it more because it’s generative AI based off of user created content and their own content. I respect that more than using outside sources that got their training data from god knows where and just slap that shit in there and call it a day.
How is it based on UGC if the game wasn’t out when they implemented the GenAI? As far as I can tell they’re using a whole bunch of ML-based tools built on Unreal tech for animation and model creation and what seems to be run of the mill Gen AI for textures. I could be wrong, but hey, I’ll hold you to that being cool when EA or Ubisoft show up with their version of the same thing.
I think you can scan real world items to import them as 3d objects, and they use AI for that ?
You can enter a text prompt and they spit out a texture based on it, which sure seems to just be a good old image generation model. They do generate mesh from images, which probably has some ML involved, although it’s harder to tell how much is just good old photogrammetry, and they do face and body animation from video source. I think that’s all part of the Unreal Engine 5 metahuman package, which I’m pretty sure does use some machine learning. Oh, and I am pretty sure a bunch of the writing and character AI has been machine-created, be it in real time or baked offline.
Part of the problem is that people aren’t super clear on what “AI” is supposed to mean, so it’s hard to know what they’re supposed to be angry about. The texture generation thing at least is clearly in the GenAI danger zone.
Yeah, I guess don’t quote me on that. That’s just what everyone on the reviews was saying on Steam.
How many people are actually playing the game to find out though? I’m always strongly suspicious every time some new game explodes onto social media. Why couldn’t they use AI to generate user reviews and comments also?
There’s a lot of suspiciously crap games that manage to explode to the top of the steam trending list. I’ve been bitten before.
This one has art that looks so generic I can’t even tell if they’re screenshots or promo pics unrelated to the game. It suddenly makes sense now I know it’s genai. It’s not trying to communicate anything to a user it’s just vibes man.
I was really excited for this game until I find out they use genAI features.
You can simply not use any of the AI features. The studio claims the genAI is a model trained solely on material their artists and devs created for this exact purpose and it runs locally, and as far as I know there is nothing in the game that uses genAI other than what the players can generate.
I still don’t feel good supporting it, personally. If everyone else is enjoying it, that’s cool, but I’ve got plenty of other games that don’t dip their toes into areas I’m not personally comfortable with. So for me it’s a non starter.
The graphics are much better tbh
Higher fidelity for sure, as one would expect when comparing games released 10 years apart, but idk if it’s “better” per se. Of course this is totally subjective, but I feel like there’s no style to inZoi, unless we define “generic AI output” as a style.
I’m not a huge fan honestly. I think the stylized graphics are a better fit for the genre, and you get into uncanny valley a lot faster with realistic graphics.
But I mean, that’s just MY taste, I’m not going to tell anyone else what to think.
I’ve seen some people play it and it seems pretty cool. Although it doesn’t look amazing and seems pretty shallow, it’s only $40. The price tag alone is almost enough for me to give it a try. Any of the Sims games are hundreds of dollars at this point if you wanna buy the DLC. And that’s on a decent sale, too.
Maybe see what player counts look like in a few months before making great and grand plans? People want a fresh take on The Sims, but maybe without the backlog of a hundred DLCs and other EA shittery. But, inZOI may not be it. Apart from the pervasive and distasteful use of generative AI, it may just not have that special something.
So give it a while, lads. Maybe it really will be a hit, but sales in the first week mostly just say that people wanted a fresh swing at The Sims, not that they really want what inZOI is.
People already made nude patches. The second there’s official mod support, this game is getting a permanent reputation as a porn game, I guarantee it
The Mr Bean and Wallace characters oh my days.
Isn’t the new Sims game supposed to be coming out soon? Or they still riding on their outdated version with more DLCs 😅
Last I heard they cancelled work on the next sims, doubled down on “improving the health” of The Sims 4 with improvements instead. Truly transformed into a GaaS, being 10+ years old.
Which is crazy. Just make a new game.
To be fair, their predatory DLC model for Sims 4 means that their primary customer base has hundreds of dollars invested. Abandoning it at this point might piss a ton of them off. It’s also worth considering that a lot of their users aren’t normal gamers. They typically have basic devices that aren’t really geared towards gaming, so a newer game that’s more demanding might further alienate their base.
A million sales is a lot, but it’s nothing compared to over 85 million copies sold that Sims 4 has achieved.
Not to mention it would be a buggy mess, geared towards on-line only content and predatory gacha mechanics. Remember that abortion that was the last SimCity ? It pretty much gave Cities: Skylines a permission to print money.
Did it do that in one week, if not , I fail to see why you are comparing the two.
It sold almost 470,000 copies on PC in its first week 11 years ago. The number of PC gamers has dramatically increased since then, so comparing launch numbers between now and then isn’t really an apt comparison.
https://www.vgchartz.com/weekly/41889/Global/
If you can’t fathom why I compare a game’s total sales to its competing newcomer, maybe you’re missing the whole point of the specific comment thread I responded to. If you want more recent numbers for a better comparison , EA claims they sold an additional 15 million copies in 2024 alone.
https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-earnings-the-sims-4-manages-to-adds-15-million-new-players-in-2024-despite-being-more-than-10-years-old
The main point is, I do not think EA is sweating quite yet. They’re a shitty, massive corporation and I’m sure they’ll pump out a sequel if they determine the newcomer is actively taking large enough chunks of their player base.
Screw them? Move to competition…make these longstanding companies that don’t care suffer so they maybe start caring again.
Any chance you get to play something that isn’t AAAAAAAAA developers…DO IT. Most of the time, they are better games anyways
Which is really unfortunate because The Sims 4 was my least favorite of the franchise. Probably only played it for about 20 hours over the years while I have hundreds in 2 and 3.
It was my favorite for artstyle/graphics, but I was not pleased when I tried to stir up drama by kissing a Sim’s partner in the same room. That would have gotten the partner racing over to slap someone, an argument, and a Furious status in The Sims 2. In The Sims 4, they just didn’t notice, no consequences.
Ah, didn’t know that. I thought I’d seen a teaser or something for a new game years ago but didn’t know if it was true as I hadn’t seen anything new about it in ages.
While it’s not a game I’d play, they should just make a new game I agree.