This Next DLC is Make or Break

Aidan635

Aidan635
In my opinion, and I’m sure many others can agree, Planet Zoo is pretty dead right now. I search up Planet Zoo on YouTube and there’s maybe 1 or 2 videos that pop up each day, maybe even none. This certainly wasn’t the case a year ago (and a lot more two years ago), and even a few months ago. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the fact that the North America Animal Pack was an animal pack. The pack dethroned the Australia Pack as my new favorite pack instantly. However, just like after the Southeast Asia Animal Pack, the juice from the pack doesn’t last as long as a pack with scenery, like the Africa Pack. Secondly, and I think more greatly, the JWE2 stuff (I don’t even know what it is, a release, an alpha, idk). This excitement over the game has just sucked the content right out of Planet Zoo and has injected it into itself. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just the way things work; the brand new game will get more attention than a game that’s been out for two years now.

This brings me to my main point, which is that fact that the next pack needs, and I mean needs to reel people back into Planet Zoo (I’m talkin’ bringing back Jonti back into Planet Zoo level reeling lol). As many have speculated, birds is really the only way to do this at this point. And it’s probably gonna have to be more than eight birds to do the trick. Like the title states, it’s make or break; rejuvenate the game and inject a sense of life into it or underperform and watch the demise of it.
 

NZFanatic

NZFanatic
Aidan635 said:
I search up Planet Zoo on YouTube
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Your mistake is thinking that YouTube has any bearing on the value of the product. The only thing that determines the value of the product is money, and I'd be willing to bet that 90+% of players don't give a hoot about what the YouTubers are doing. They had their hay-day when the game was fresh and new and everyone was looking for inspiration and hot tips but by now much of the core player base has pretty much found their groove and worked out the various quirks of the game for themselves.
 

SalamAnders

SalamAnders
You said it yourself, JWE2 released this month. Of course the YouTubers will be busy with it to begin with. But since a lot of the popular channels for PlanetZoo are very much about building and creative freedom, I doubt JWE2 will take up a lot of their time in the long run, since that game is way more limited in that area.

Around 3 weeks ago there was a lot of positive activity both here and on YouTube because of the anniversary. When something goes up, it is common it will go a bit down again afterwards, before eventually rising again. Most likely the activity will go up again soon, when a new update will be teased.
 

yoav_r

yoav_r
I think it is more that JWE2 has all the attention for now. Next pack will bring the hype back.

And even with that, youtube creator videos are a poor metric. A better public metric would be the number of views and likes on dlc trailers, which has consistently risen with each dlc.
 

XT

XT
Meh. I don't think the lack of new youtube content is an espeical issue. JWE is sucking up space because it's new and got dinosaurs, folks who are building focused are already begining to post the occasioanl return to PZ and the break has allowed lesser known tubers a chance to shine a bit. I quite like the animals in the zoo but ... over time, I've realized they have fairly limited (but, honestly, great for a computer game) animations so what type of animal has become less important to me - they tend to be similar. What I'd like to see, animal-wise are smaller animals - ones with smaller habitat sizes so they can be more intimate in relation to the guests and buildings around them.
 

Swjosdotschka

Swjosdotschka
YouTube Content Creators does not equal the PZ community. The game is not dead by the slightest and I'm so tired of hearing animal packs aren't as good as general pack, just because some content creators can not get their poop together and build a zoo and not play Lego, where they always need new pieces. The sales for the animal packs are actually pretty good and the NA pack brought a lot more people to the forums for voicing more - believe it or not - ANIMAL wishes and not pieces.

I'm at a point where I wish it will NOT be birds with the next pack, because I just hope that all the people who say this game is "dead" will leave for good and those who actually want a zoo game and supports this game will stay and get their birds in spring or whatever. Gosh, every three month the same bull... ever since the australia pack. I can almost see everyone patting theirselves on the shoulder when PZ ACTUALLY ends in a year from now (if that is so) and saying: "SEE, I told you it's dead!"

When it comes to content creators, this game is already "dead" for a year. They can't even accept that it is selling well, lol. I'm so sick of it. Even more sick than of all the JWE2 in my youtube timeline :p

EDIT: I doubt there is anything bringing Jonti back into PZ and he said himself 10000 times that it's not the games fault. All I wish for him is, that something gets him back to being in his own centre and if it is PZ it will be a miracle I gladly accept.
 

jcp011c

jcp011c
With all due respect to the topic, I very much disagree that this next pack is a make it or break it pack for Planet Zoo. I think with the last two packs, Africa and North America, Planet Zoo has already "made it". At what point is the game judged to have been a success or not? We've got 7 DLCS, another one for sure (probably December but not confirmed) and it's pretty likely we'll have another 4 after that based on leaks/info. 12 DLC over the course of 3 years is a success. The game is doing fine otherwise the team would have already deemed it a failure and content would have stopped being produced. As others pointed out, the volume of Youtube videos alone is not an indicator of success or not. Sure, it helps garner more interest, but between new product, other things going on in the creators lives, and the potential that the youtuber just wasn't individually interested in a particular pack, could all affect that volume.

Do I think that adding birds or fully marine animals would only booster Planet Zoo and take it to a new "level"? - Absolutely, of course it would. it would offer something that we do not have now. But not adding it in doesn't break the game or make it a failure. It's already proven itself, in my mind. Another year of content will only serve to enhance the PZ experience.

And truthfully, we know that at some point in the future --a year, two years - maybe even five years from now (unlikely but possible) - content will end. At that point is the game judged to be a failure and not have made it? I feel like we can't prophecy fear the game is failing every quiet cycle between packs, when the quiet cycle between packs has been the normal pattern. The forum got really spicy prior to the North american pack announcement. I personally was pretty antsy for news or content. But unlike some I did not feel the game was on it's last leg and this was a foretelling to the game support ending. I just wanted new content.
 
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Aidan635

Aidan635
Ok. For everyone saying YouTube content doesn't have a correlation to the popularity of the game, that's why the first thing I said was in my opinion because it is in my opinion. I think that the amount of YouTube content relates to the popularity of the game.

Now, I know that the community is strong and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. However, I think YouTube content is pretty influential over the community. A while back, everyone made dioramas on YouTube and then that was the new trend. A more recent example is Sdan jumping back into Planet Coaster. I really want to play PlanCo now because his content, and certainly others as well, influences what I do and how I do it. And I can pretty much guarantee that birds will instantly get Sdan back into Planet Zoo.
 

Iben

Iben
This is probably going to be a less common opinion, but there are no big game changing features that will reel in new/back players.

Birds and even aquatics are often seen as these game changing features that will all of a sudden transform the game into something it isn't today. Which just isn't the case. If you grow bored of making habitats, you're not going to all of a sudden change your mind because you can make a covered exhibit or a tank to put marine animals in. If you're not interested in finding new creative ways to make habitats, no amount of game changing features is going to keep you in the game.

It's why I'm personally not going to be surprised by people being disappointed by birds. Not that I think Frontier won't do a good job, if anything I'm pretty convinced they'd do an excellent job, but people expect them to be this massive thing that will stretch out for months and months and make it a complete new game, whilst it is "just" (and I know it's not just but you know what I mean) a new way of building habitats and a few new mechanics. When the modding community added birds to ZT2, it surely pleased a lot of core players, but it didn't change the core mechanics of the game.

The base game already came with a bunch of features that solidified it as one of the best zoo builders available, and every new DLC and update introduces new features that flesh out that experience. But, if you're not interested in the core mechanics of making a zoo, then no amount of changes that flesh out that experience (birds and marine animals being just that) will ever entice you about the game or reel you back in.

Aidan635 said:
Like the title states, it’s make or break; rejuvenate the game and inject a sense of life into it or underperform and watch the demise of it.
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There are a multitude of financial documents about Frontier and Planet Zoo freely available. The idea that Planet Zoo is underperforming is objectively and demonstratively false, given that it has broken records for Frontier and is doing extremely well compared to other games that are multi-platform.

Planet Zoo is in no way underperforming or nearing its demise from a financial standpoint, and that alone is worth more than the amount of YouTubers that play it.

And as a content creator, some of us need a break once in a while. Some of us also have a day job and the last two months of the year are always more busy in almost every kind of job. Some of us also jumped on JWE2 and are now making content for that. Fewer content creators that play Planet Zoo has a much more nuanced explanation that "the game is doing bad".
 

peafowl

P
I don't think I've ever sat through a whole PZ-topic youtube video (aside from the official trailers), they just don't interest me. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy the game!
 

NZFanatic

NZFanatic
You know, I'm also a little bored with the narrative that the Aquatic Pack was "game-changing". The Aquatic Pack didn't actually add any more than any other DLC. It was five animals and a scenery set, the same as the three packs that preceded it. The deep diving mechanic that was supposedly "game changing" (in reality it just added a single new element of navigation for animals) didn't come with the Aquatic Pack.
 

Aidan635

Aidan635
Iben said:
There are a multitude of financial documents about Frontier and Planet Zoo freely available. The idea that Planet Zoo is underperforming is objectively and demonstratively false, given that it has broken records for Frontier and is doing extremely well compared to other games that are multi-platform.

Planet Zoo is in no way underperforming or nearing its demise from a financial standpoint, and that alone is worth more than the amount of YouTubers that play it.

And as a content creator, some of us need a break once in a while. Some of us also have a day job and the last two months of the year are always more busy in almost every kind of job. Some of us also jumped on JWE2 and are now making content for that. Fewer content creators that play Planet Zoo has a much more nuanced explanation that "the game is doing bad".
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When I said underperform, I meant what the flying/birds situation is going to look like. When they do birds, am I gonna say, wow they underperformed with that one, like they were expected to be better.
 

Aidan635

Aidan635
NZFanatic said:
You know, I'm also a little bored with the narrative that the Aquatic Pack was "game-changing". The Aquatic Pack didn't actually add any more than any other DLC. It was five animals and a scenery set, the same as the three packs that preceded it. The deep diving mechanic that was supposedly "game changing" (in reality it just added a single new element of navigation for animals) didn't come with the Aquatic Pack.
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Just intrigued, but if aquatics (not the DLC just the free game update) wasn't game changing, then what is?
 

Aidan635

Aidan635
NZFanatic said:
...But that's just not correct. Your opinion is based on a false narrative. Saying "in my opinion, the sky is green" doesn't mean the sky isn't blue.
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You can't just label an opinion as being correct or incorrect. If I say, in my opinion, bananas are better than apples, you can't just say that's wrong, or really right. If you say, "I don't think that the games popularity is based on YouTube content" that's your opinion, that's what you think. It's not a fact.

Basically, the sentence "I think the game popularity is based on the amount of YouTube content" is an opinion. If I just said "The game..." without saying think then it wouldn't be an opinion and it would be a statement.

This is really confusing lol. I think the game's dead rn y'all. It isn't dead for good, certainly not, but right now I think it is.
 

Aidan635

Aidan635
Just in general, let’s just learn to respect each other’s opinions. And this goes well outside Planet Zoo obviously. If someone says something and it’s something that they think and you think otherwise, you don’t have to knock it down and make it into a factual thing. I think that the opinion “The game popularity isn’t based on YouTube views” is a valid opinion and I respect it. I don’t stand by it but I can see how you came to that conclusion. People just don’t respect each other’s opinions, that’s how we become truly divided, and that’s what’s truly wrong with this world.

Thx for coming to my ted talk lol
 

RabidOkapi

R
Aidan635 said:
You can't just label an opinion as being correct or incorrect. If I say, in my opinion, bananas are better than apples, you can't just say that's wrong, or really right. If you say, "I don't think that the games popularity is based on YouTube content" that's your opinion, that's what you think. It's not a fact.

Basically, the sentence "I think the game popularity is based on the amount of YouTube content" is an opinion. If I just said "The game..." without saying think then it wouldn't be an opinion and it would be a statement.

This is really confusing lol. I think the game's dead rn y'all. It isn't dead for good, certainly not, but right now I think it is.
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There seems to me some confusion in what an opinion is. People are entitled to have their opinions and thoughts on whatever they wish. It does not mean opinions cannot be wrong because while everyone can have them, some opinions are flat out wrong.
Many people use their opinion as a way to defend their argument. Well others have their opinions, and they think your opinion is wrong.
 
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