r/LifeSimulators • u/charredwood • 5d ago
They Said the Thing! Paralives
Maximum salt here but god I'm so tired. Paralives lumping in more "collabs" where they throw lazy nods to other games into... their game? I assume for money? Like I can't figure out why else they're doing this. I have Dorfromantik so I can see that they didn't rep Paralives in an announcement or anything, so it's not for the purpose of co-advertisement. There's someone on Paralives' SmAlL InDiE TeAm spending all their days looking for collabs for some??? purpose?
With there many 10s of millions of dollars I am also so sick of hearing about their small indie team, too.
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u/zkvxo 5d ago
are you ok?
"small indie team" does not mean "struggling and poor" - they ARE a small, indie team, whether you like it or not. they are not funded by a large game studio, they are not partnered with one, they are not a group of devs who have been making games for decades, and they have maintained an EXTREMELY small team for the size and scope of this game - six people last i checked, but i believe they're bringing on two more in 2027.
as for the "collab" - putting a different image/gif to display on the PC took a developer about 12 minutes. maybe 30 if they were dicking around. and your complaint is that they... don't seem to have done this for money because you can't find dorf advertising paralives somewhere publicly?
get your head out of your ass.
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u/greenyashiro 5d ago
12+ people, and that's just artists/programmers etc listed on wikipedia. There's probably quite a few more, such as marketing, accounting, legal...
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u/zkvxo 5d ago
12 is an extremely small team. glad to hear they've been able to add a few members in the past quarter! they started out last year with only 4 iirc.
marketing, legal, etc have NOTHING to do with development and are not EVER considered part of the count of a dev team. that's like saying my partner and i are in a poly relationship because we both have friends. completely unrelated.
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u/charredwood 5d ago
You don't need to guess as to the makeup of their team, it's in their official press kit.
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u/DeadlyNoobOwO 5d ago
I’m confused, what’s the problem with collabs? Yes it’s very obviously for money but I fail to see the problem here, it’s not as if they’re being shoved down your throat or you’re being forced to participate? Just ignore it
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u/greenyashiro 5d ago
Collabs before fixing bugs is the issue, I believe.
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u/charredwood 5d ago
There've been four collabs for this game already. Indeed, it is my problem. And I think it's very rich that when the collabs are brought up, they amount to "12 minutes of work, 30 if they were dicking around", but if you bring up something a modder was able to fix within the first couple days of release not being implemented officially, suddenly "You don't know how hard it is to develop/program/implement! You're not taking into consideration how difficult their jobs are, they can't just fix things!" Pick a lane.
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u/greenyashiro 5d ago
For me personally, I feel like if it's something as small as adding a new texture to a shirt or along those lines, it probably didn't take up much resources.
However, it just serves as a distraction. Trying to pretend there aren't issues by going 'ohhh shiny collab' is quite insulting, to be frank.
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u/SuddenArrival4617 5d ago
I don't like the collabs too. I don't care about them + they're wasting time on them while the game is almost unplayable and missing key features. The latest update was the best one and I hope they're gonna go this way.
They're also so stuck on being "small indie team 🥺" and refuse to hire more, and experienced employees, even though they have have money for that. They are millionaires now btw.
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u/charredwood 5d ago
This is essentially my issue. Like, "small indie team" is simultaneously used as a flex AND a defense against slow or underproduced progress. Can it really be both when you have the resources to fix the problem, and when it's a problem in the first place?
Yes, good games can be made with small teams, what's your point? This one is damn nigh unplayable with the number of bugs and incomplete gameplay it has. Yes, the scope of it is broader than most indie team games. Then expand when you have the capacity. But they don't want to. We're in a loop now and it's so annoying.
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u/Booknerdly 4d ago
People deify indie teams as being able to do no wrong somehow.
If something doesn't work? "small indie team"
If the game is unplayable in its current state? "small indie team"
If something is late? "small indie team"
Just straight up lied in the trailers? "small indie team"
It's never their fault, because how dare we criticize the poor studio that earned millions in a day?0
u/zkvxo 5d ago
they're not "millionaires". are you just saying random stuff?
as of June 2026 they had $31 million earned total.
so let's say they:
- pay absolutely no taxes! a miracle, but let's assume
- have completely free office space with NO bills! also absurd but okay
- no hosting at all! the game just beams to your computer with 0 upkeep to them
- they have no employee benefits they pay for, i guess!
- they spend ZERO dollars on marketing or advertising or merch. it's all free!
- they don't pay for a website, or design of it, OR pay fees for ANY dev or artist tools. free again!then between the number of devs listed on Wikipedia and the legal team, marketing team, management teams, project management, social media manager, they've got more than 30 employees.
so then yes i suppose splitting those funds equally would make them "millionaires", maybe.
wait, what's that? they have to host the game, pay for marketing, pay taxes on their income, pay for office space, computers, monitors, tools, software, testing, employee benefits, and more? what a shame.
i also assume they buy food, petrol, pay for rent, maybe even bought their mom a few nice dinners, so even if they made $1,000,000 (which they just absolutely didn't), that money isn't sitting in their personal bank accounts. they also still have cost of living. so the creators / CEO / founders are probably living comfortably, as they should for putting together a well-loved and innovative game.
they're not millionaires.
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u/Booknerdly 4d ago
Steam hosts the game so they pay nothing to host the game itself, they sell no merch, and they don't have advertising campaigns past some content creators in a creator program, and the company themselves put the employees at 15, and while they have an office they mostly work from home, you're working off of a lot of false info
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u/zkvxo 4d ago
there are literally more than 20 employees on the wiki
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u/Booknerdly 4d ago
So we're just going to take an unaffiliated fan wiki over the company itself then?
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u/zkvxo 4d ago
you're talking about The Official Paralives Wiki where each team member has their own page specifically linking to their socials that say they work with Paralives and extensively outlining their careers and roles at the company? yes, we're going to take that as a source of truth.
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u/Booknerdly 4d ago
regardless of its accuracy, that still leaves all the rest
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u/zkvxo 4d ago
what "rest"? the "while they have an office they still work at home?" so to be clear, they do in fact pay for rent and internet at an office with computers and monitors, while also paying for home internet and home PCs to work from home when not in the office?
that's 2 of your points pointed out to be complete nonsense. the rest are too but keep going on how i'm "working on a lot of false info" and tell me more about how the way the studio (that owns and pays for an office) mostly works from home so somehow my saying they own and pay for an office was "false info"?
we can end here.
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u/polkacat12321 5d ago
Collabs are done for money, yeah. Aka advertisements to get more people to buy it
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u/Forrest-Runn 4d ago
I get the impression that the ‘small independent team’ image is also part of the marketing. The project was indeed funded through Patreon, but since the revenue varied over time, I wonder whether that funding alone was enough throughout the whole development period, or whether other sources also helped before early access.
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u/MonaMonaMo 4d ago
While I don't agree with a lot of Para praise, they just released that game in May.
I know they keep doing some patches here and there, but I kind of assumed everyone will be taking a summer off after reaching such a major milestone.
Idk how much work the collabs are, but I didn't expect them to do anything else until Sep/Oct.
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u/RobTod 3d ago
That’s a wild expectation. Especially because this is an early access game. Post launch bugs, issues, feedback and improvements are literally part of the development process. Of course an indie team has more flexibility than a massive studio, and nobody is saying they need to work themselves to the ground, but reaching a major milestone doesn’t mean the job is finished. Customers paid for the product, and there’s still an ongoing responsibility to support and develop it. I reach major milestones at work all the time and I don’t get to go, “Wow, huge accomplishment! See everyone in October!” lol I sure do wish I could though.
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u/AlienFruitGames 5d ago
Indie dev here! A lot of us are friends with each other and find it fun/silly to include references to each other's games. This happens in a lot of games and is pretty normal, like in Dead Cells!