(Bloomberg) — Most people have fantasized about inhabiting someone else’s life. For 25 years, video-game players have lived out those dreams in The Sims from Electronic Arts Inc.
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The problem, according to Hyungjun “Kjun” Kim, a producer-director for South Korean gamemaker Krafton Inc., is that those fantasies are limited — culturally and graphically. His entry in the life-simulation genre, inZOI, debuts on March 28 at $40.
The market for a Sims successor is potentially vast. Electronic Arts has taken in more than $2.3 billion in lifetime revenue from The Sims 4, according to the analytics company Aldora, and has attracted over 85 million players. But it’s a decade old. The company has no plans for a fifth installment, meaning players will have to be satisfied with updates that sell for $10 to $50. Electronic Arts didn’t respond to requests for comment but has mentioned a mysterious “Project Rene” as the game’s “next evolution.”
In life-simulation video games, players create and control avatars that cook, clean, use the toilet, work, fall in love and watch TV. They meticulously customize homes for their Sims or Zoi, as the inZOI digital humans are called. Outside, in the cities, avatars interact with automated characters, all with their own personalities and goals.
InZOI is less American than The Sims, aiming to appeal to players in Asia and the growing audience for K-pop culture. When players’ digital humans walk into their homes, they’re asked if they want to remove their shoes. The architecture of two cities in the game are inspired by Seoul and Santa Monica, California. There’s tteokbokki – a Korean snack made from rice cakes – in the fridge and Zoi tend to don Korean streetwear.
“I felt a lot of cultural barriers” playing The Sims, said Kim, who also serves as chief executive officer of Krafton’s inZOI Studio and owns about $164 million of the shares.
Krafton is South Korea’s largest game company, based on market value. It reported record financial results for 2024, with 2.7 trillion won (US$1.85 billion) in sales and 1.2 trillion won in operating profit. It’s the company behind the survival-shooter title PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG, the predecessor to Epic Games’ Fortnite.
Kim’s son inspired him to make inZOI. For years, he would come home from his job making online role-playing games and boot up The Sims with his only child. Then one day, his son asked him, “How come there aren’t other games like The Sims?” That got him thinking.
“The recent generation wants something with better graphics,” he said.
When Kim pitched a photo-realistic life-simulation game, his superiors were surprised. The Sims isn’t especially popular in South Korea, and his bosses asked if the product, which involves taking out the trash or working part time at a fast food joint, is even really a game. They had doubts about Kim’s ability to pull off the project.
“I had a lot of failed games,” he said. He told his bosses he’d do it in two years, lightspeed in an industry where top titles can take up to eight years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Kim decided to approach inZOI differently from his prior titles. Instead of focusing on making money, he sought “to make something positive that may lead to a more in-depth understanding of life.” One of the lessons of inZOI, he said, is “Don’t focus too much on things you can’t control.”
Early on, he met Charles London, widely admired for his work on Sims games. London, who now works at mobile-gaming giant Scopely, acknowledged that The Sims never caught on into Asia – a longtime goal for Electronic Arts. He cautioned Kim against photo-realistic graphics.
“The technological power for making games today is a threat to the believability of the experience,” he said in an interview. “The audience will decide whether realism enhances immersion or depletes it.”
Developing any game is difficult, but in the life-simulation genre, the challenges can be amusing. In early iterations, Zoi who were holding babies still gesticulated as if their arms were free. But in an emergency, the Zoi might have to put their babies down — unless, the developers realized, that emergency was a fire.
“We should have considered we would develop babies when we built the system,” said Chai Jong-duk, the technical director of inZOI. “We had to change a lot.”
Once a prototype was ready, the inZOI team tapped Sims YouTubers for feedback, sending them tricked-out PCs to livestream the game. Hardcore fans joined a messaging channel for inZOI on Discord and contributed to a wish list. Western players suggested features they wanted Krafton to consider. One contains dozens of pictures of Black hairstyles – a longtime desire of Sims players who felt the offerings were limited and had resorted to modifying the game on their own. Today, The Sims offers several options.
“After our feedback, lots of new curly and coiled Black hairstyles were added,” said Jaylen Dinkins, a 23-year-old YouTuber who participated in the inZOI creator program.
Dinkins, who goes by Neuworld on YouTube, bought The Sims 3 in third grade. It was the first game he played that had no story or mission – and he loved it. But over the last 10 years, he’s added so many modifications and expansion packs to The Sims 4 that he has had difficulty running it.
When Dinkins saw inZOI, he was immediately attracted to its more-realistic graphics. He recorded his reaction on YouTube, and Krafton’s developers asked if he wanted to be a tester. His next video on inZOI drew a million views.
Early reviews for inZOI have been mixed. Some players praise its accessibility and graphics, while others say it feels “soulless” or “sterile.” Some have also posted complaints online after learning the game would utilize the popular anti-piracy software Denuvo. In response, Kim announced he would remove it from the early version.
InZOI is currently the most wish-listed title on the PC game marketplace Steam, and Kim Jihyun, an analyst at Heungkuk Securities Co. in Seoul, estimates Krafton could sell more than 3 million copies in the first year. A hit would reduce the company’s dependence on the shooter game PUBG.
“Krafton has managed to quickly catch up with the 25 years of know-how behind The Sims and emerge as a serious challenger, thanks to its pioneering use of AI,” Kim said. “If inZOI becomes a blockbuster like The Sims, it could mark a ‘Sputnik moment’ in the industry.”
Much of the game’s charm is its take on normal human interaction. Players can choose from ample dialogue options or actions for their Zoi, and the software pops out infinitely varied outcomes. Even weird outcomes at times — for instance when an “annoyed” Zoi vacuums an empty spot in the backyard. Other times, it is realistic. One Zoi was appropriately “angry” when reading the stock market was down.
Certain inZOI mechanics capitalize on advances in artificial intelligence, sometimes with uneven results. AI can generate furniture or clothing, which Kim hopes will make players’ games more customizable. It’s relatively easy to make the bathroom wallpaper in a “sunflower” print, but when the request was for a “pre-war dark wood pattern” for the floor in the AI interface, seven comically large slabs of wood appeared.
Krafton made early bets on AI. It started investing in deep learning and AI more than three years ago and has built a team of 80 dedicated engineers. The company plans to add 35 more this year, CEO Kim Changhan told Bloomberg in January.
Soon, inZOI players with Nvidia graphics cards will be able to use the experimental “Smart Zoi” feature to write text-based personality prompts, like “sassy” or “stern,” that inform the Zois’ in-game actions.
Life-simulation games, producer-director Kim said, have a way of making troubles feel absurd, and for that reason he believes inZOI will be a hit, including in his native South Korea.
“There’s the saying that when you look at sadness from afar, it’s a happy event,” he said.
–With assistance from Sohee Kim.
(Updates users’ comments in 21st paragraph. The company corrected the spelling of an executive’s name in the 16th paragraph and photo caption in a previous version of this story.)
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