Is Paralives a SCAM?

A couple days ago I woke up to find a heated discussion on the usually chill Paralives Discord channel. People were reacting to an opinion video about Paralives and the opinions ranged from incredibility and shock to disgust and anger, so I went to check what this video was about. The video in question is "Why I'm Skeptical About PARALIVES" by FakeGamerGirl; the reason I won't be sharing a direct link to this video on this post is that I don't want to give it any more views and attention than it already has.

I'm skipping ahead of ignorant comments like "it doesn't even have a UI yet" because, in all honesty, not everyone has an obligation to know how game design works and what is done in each stage of the process; it's normal for the common folk not to know much about the more technical details. I'll let those slide and get straight to the point.

My opinion on this video is that she did absolutely no research before making that video. I have seen several dozens of Paralives review videos and, even in those videos that are now about a year old from back when there was legit no info on Paralives, YouTubers still managed to be skeptic about it but in a respectful way and you could tell that they at least tried to do some minimum research. If you research the most recent videos of Paralives, they range from people being hyped and excited about it to people still being a bit skeptical ('cause they're trying not to get their hopes up) but still somewhat positive. What's off about FGG's video is that it sounds like something she should've made a year ago and not now. It's like she legit had a video somewhere she forgot to upload and felt like now was the time.

You can easily find information on most (if not all) of the things she claims to know nothing about on the Paralives website, Twitter, and Discord. We already know that cars will be in the game. We already know how the controls will work. We know some of the buildings that will be open and some of the ones that will work as rabbit holes at launch. We know that the base game will have pets, hair physics, an optional grid, measurements, a color wheel, resizable furniture, circular walls... We know we'll be able to build at the very edge of the lot and we know you'll be able to build side-by-side townhouses (on different lots) without any gap between them. We know it will have LGBT representation and representation of disabilities and mental illness. The truth is, the game is still in pre-alpha (which is why there is still no UI) and we already know A LOT about it. On Discord, the mods are even making fan-made Parazines with information on the stuff that is already confirmed to be in the game.

She is trying to compare Paralives to The Sims franchise but the truth is we know nothing about those games when they're in pre-alpha or alpha and most simmers don't even know stuff about the beta stage. She legit has this post on Twitter:

And yet, it sounds like she's trying to shame the developers of Paralives (a small indie group with less than 10 employees at this point) for their transparency regarding their game development. The developers are also being paid to work on the game via Patreon donations and she tried to shame them for that as well, even though all of them are working on the game as their full-time job and deserve to have a salary just like any other employee.

And, misinformation aside, she also stated something along the lines of the devs stealing people's money for a game that is in Early Access on Steam which is just a straight-up lie because the game is NOT in early access on Steam, you cannot pay for it, the only thing you can do is add it to your wishlist.

The reason why FGG's video irked me so much is I have seen several dozens of Paralives review videos and, even in those videos that are now about a year old from back when there was legit no info on Paralives, YouTubers still managed to be skeptic about it but in a respectful way and you could tell that they at least tried to do some minimum research. If you research the most recent videos of Paralives, they range from people being hyped and excited about it to people still being a bit skeptic 'cause they're trying not to get their hopes but, but still somewhat positive. What's off about FGG's video is that it sounds like something she should've made a year ago and not now. It's like she legit had a video somewhere she forgot to upload and felt like now was the time.

If you watch the recent videos from other YouTubers like CatchyVirus, SimmerErin, and Pixelade they all have a very different tone from FGG's video. They all have pretty decent reviews (in the sense of being less reactive and being more optimistic) and they try to research and share as many updates with the community as possible, from as many sources as possible. Pixelade even emphasizes in each video that most of it is still speculation at this point since the game is still in early development. I think when you're reviewing any kind of product or service, it's important to try to distance yourself and stay objective and BGG just let herself be carried by her emotions instead. The tone she uses throughout the entire video, combined with the lack of information makes it a very unprofessional video in my opinion.

If you're looking for more legit and accurate info on Paralives development, it's always best to go straight to the official sources:

their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Paralives

their Website: https://www.paralives.com/

their Twitter: https://twitter.com/ParalivesGame

their Discord: https://discord.gg/DGrX2Xv