In a recent interview with Game file (users may encounter a firewall), Hyungjun Kim, lead creator of the upcoming life simulation Inzoi, explained some of the reasons he worked on challenging the genre juggernaut that is The Sims.
“I have 24 years of game development behind me and I have been working on MMORPGs the longest. I’m fed up with this,” Kim said.
Kim’s most famous games before Inzoi were the MMOs Elyon and Aion, with the latter being particularly successful, though the developer noted that he also worked on a number of other projects. “Most of the games were not successful,” Kim told Game File.
Kim said he was both concerned by the lack of genre diversity among Korean game developers – an overemphasis on MMOs – and personally no longer interested in the genre’s emphasis on competition and conflict. Kim seemed particularly concerned about the darker emotions these competitive games evoke in players, which require the development of “really stringent systems to prevent players from exploiting each other.”
The fact that Inzoi’s more creative, free-form nature already seems to be inspiring a spirit of cooperation among players is a point of pride for Kim: “They’re not competing with each other. They try to build good houses and they try to create good characters and build a good family. This is the biggest difference.
Meanwhile, Kim himself has been a “Sims player for 15 years” and has all the reservations and criticisms that necessarily come with such a long relationship with one game series. “I created custom content and I also created modes,” Kim said. “I love it, but I still have some complaints about it.”
This long-term relationship with the series is also very personal for Kim: he played The Sims with his son, and Kim’s son helped inspire him to create his own take on the life simulator genre. “He asked me if there were any Sims-like games,” Kim explained. “And it occurred to me: There are no other life simulation games in the world. So I started creating. I created this game.”
Kim’s very personal motivation for creating his own life simulation adds an fascinating additional dimension to Inzoi, a game with a 120-person team and a potentially fascinating utilize of native AI tools from publisher Krafton—players will be able to scan real objects for the game, as well as generate clothing/furniture patterns using hints.
With Life By You unceremoniously canceled and The Sims’ “Project Renee” having questionable scope and an unknown release window, it seems like the stage for a newcomer like Inzoi will take the crown, much like Cities: Skylines did with SimCity almost a decade ago.
