Paralives, an independently developed life-simulation game from Montreal developer Alex Masse, sold more than 1 million copies within a month of its May launch, according to remarks Masse made at the Montreal International Game Summit.
The game places players in control of simulated people and their lives, including their relationships, appearances, homes and careers. That puts Paralives in the same broad category as Electronic Arts’ long-running The Sims series, which has dominated the life-simulation market for years.
Masse began Paralives as a solo project and spent two years of his personal savings on its development. He initially shared prototypes online and used feedback from players to refine the game. The project later grew into a team of 15 people, while its audience expanded through social media, YouTube and the Patreon funding platform.
“On my social media page, I had one like. It was my mom,” Masse said.
Before working on Paralives full time, Masse held a part-time game-development job at Unity Technologies. He left that position after the project began attracting wider attention and continued developing the game with support from its community. The process lasted about six years of testing and revisions before the launch.
A community-built development process
The launch also presented technical challenges for the small team. Masse said the game had about 200,000 bugs when it was released, describing the situation as overwhelming. He expects the first major update to arrive in a few weeks.
“We had 200,000 bugs at first when it was released, it was a bit overwhelming,” Masse said.
Masse said the project’s position remains difficult beside a major franchise such as The Sims, whose publisher also has a much larger production structure. Paralives’ early sales have nevertheless established the game as an independently produced alternative within the life-simulation market.
- More than 1 million copies were sold within a month of launch.
- The Montreal-based development team now numbers 15 people.
- The first major update is expected in a few weeks.
The game’s development began with publicly shared prototypes and continued with feedback from users. Masse’s comments at the summit described that process as central to Paralives’ growth from a solo project into a commercial release with a large early audience.
