Krafton’s InZOI is one of a few modern competitors to The Sims, and it’s barely made a dent in Maxim’s iconic life simulator series. While the new game launched in early access to high player numbers, The Sims continues to reign supreme, and it looks like it will stay that way.
As InZOI hits its anniversary, head of inZOI Studio Hyungjun “Kjun” Kim has admitted that making a competitor to the game has been a lot harder than expected. The game, which also uses AI content in numerous areas, has sold pretty well, but trying to compete with The Sims is almost impossible.
Kim explained to IGN that “life sim games are difficult to master”. When pondering the idea of going back in time and having the opportunity to do the whole project over, the InZOI creator said he would “hesitate” to try again.
Alongside having more graphically complex characters and environments, InZOI opted to try an open-world approach, another aspect which Kim regrets. “The biggest thing I learned is, The Sims has been the biggest for three decades, and I think I have figured out why that is,” Kim continued. “The Sims 3 was open-world, and The Sims 4 moved to a more loading-based. I understand why they did that. It’s really hard. There may not be any other team that attempts to make an open-world life-sim game.”
Additionally, it seems that the sales pressures of The Sims-like game is still holding over the team, despite strong launch sales. “Do I really have to make a lot of money?” the creator asked as other KRAFTON-published titles rake in hundreds of millions. “Isn’t that how a company is? It seems to have diverse futures. Even if some people make a lot of money, others might be presenting possibilities regarding the future of games. Who knows, maybe later on, the future of the entire game industry?”
Nevertheless, KRAFTON hopes that InZOI will, one day, be a “long-term franchise IP” for the studio as players hope for more competitors to The Sims. Unfortunately, while additional content is still in development for the game, it seems that the series may not have the long tail that many hopes for.
In a past discussion with FRVR, The Sims and The Sims 2 designer Charles London explained that a large part of the series’ success is tied to its focus on humour. Alongside that, the series was built from the very start to facilitate the endless run of content that many would now associate with live-service, but was always part of the series.
“One of the things The Sims mastered early, thanks to a brilliant business designer creative leader named Tim LeTourneau, is the art of creating what today would be called live service,” London said. “We invented the expansion pack, we really did.”
There are still a number of The Sims competitors in development right now with the long-awaited Paralives set to release in early access on May 25, 2026. While The Sims competitors may not become as big as Maxim’s original, it’s always good to have a competitor, and it’s not like the series’ competitors have been awful games.
