Is support ending? What do you think?

[JW97]

I have been having the same thoughts, seeing that he is shifting his video production on other games, maybe he personally wants to move on because he thinks other games could gain him more subscribers. But those videos of other games aren't even getting him half as many views as his PZ videos do, even when he jumped on the hype train for GTA VI. Very strange of him to develop resentment(?) towards this game and community, that he would wish for it to end as soon as possible. Sad, but he is free to do what he wants to, as long as he lets the rest of us enjoy this game to the fullest.

A big red flag to me was the fact that someone that basically plays PZ for a lifestyle doesn't even know what a Takin is.

 

[DarthQuell]

If this makes y'all feel better, my fellow Houstonian Old Country just announced that he won't be uploading vids anymore because he feels like YouTube just isn't for him anymore. I totally understand, and y'all should check out his video for his explanation.

However, he painted the game in a positive light, saying how he believes that PZ still has a lot of potential for years to come, even beyond support with the modding community; he was pretty regular around here up until the Arid pack

 

[AlexSea]

I've always been optimistic about this game's future (or tried to be at least), and I've said this before and I'll say it again: PZ continues to make a profit and sell well, so that's reason enough for support to continue. Admittedly the upcoming release of PC2 does throw a wrench into things, and they might not want to work on both games at once to avoid splitting the fanbase's attention. But I still think that at the very least, we will get two more DLCs to round out the fiscal year.

 

[becks474]

A big red flag to me was the fact that someone that basically plays PZ for a lifestyle doesn't even know what a Takin is.

In case of "general Zoo Love" (No criticism but I do Not know a better Expression now) I think he is not the ideal YouTuber. There are some other options I personally prefer like Leaf, Cesar Creates or in German Gorobai which I still follow. But nothing against him. Like all the other Youtubers he is as well as us Forum Users one stone of the complete wall who made or better makes the Game so successful. So whoever likes to watch His Videos enjoy it further .

 

[jcp011c]

I do not think support is ending just yet, but do suspect it will be another 4 packs at most, and quite possibly just 2. Of course, I've been saying we have "just one more year" ever since the end of 2021, when I felt for sure that 2022 would be the last year. What a way we have come from that. But as others have pointed out there's some additional factors that are supported by facts (the additional titles coming in the next three years), as well as general speculation about gaming changing features, or lack there of. By that of course I mean flying birds and marine animals. We are almost certainly not going to get either, and I personally feel that they're the only things that, if Frontier did go down that route, we could potentially see more than one year left. But I don't think we shall see them and I don't think we'll have more than 4 packs left. Frontier is welcome to prove me wrong though, and I would be overjoyed to be wrong.

Also good valid point that sticking with terrestrial animals, the longer support goes on, the less wanted the "most requested" animals are. By that I mean, they were for the most part simply further down the list, as Frontier has been knocking out animals from the upper regions of the meta list for 2 and a half years now. Seriously, 3 years ago, who would have thought we'd be seeing the Secretary Birds and Coatimundi fighting it out for the top spot in the meta list? Not me, for sure, I was more interested in getting meerkats, capybaras and a non creepy otter. (which, we've gotten all of them). At some point the top regions of the list become less of a matter of actual priority, but are instead just filling the spots on the list because that's just how lists work. Something will always be at the top of the meta list, even if content were to go on for another 5 years...

Reasons I think we'll get at least 2 packs? One is a revisit mostly dedicated to South America. It's on many of our minds, and quite honestly there's no way Frontier is not aware of it. So I do think we'll get a pack for that, and I do think we'll get some kind of supersized pack in the summer, possibly 10-12 animals. As with Planet Coaster and JW:E, their final packs were a bit supersized and I'm just thinking the final pack for PZ will be as well.

So in a 2 pack scenario I think we'll get Latin/Central/South America and a finale pack. 4 more packs...I'm speculating Highlands and some kind of African Safari pack, but am less sure on those two.

 

[becks474]

I do not think support is ending just yet, but do suspect it will be another 4 packs at most, and quite possibly just 2. Of course, I've been saying we have "just one more year" ever since the end of 2021, when I felt for sure that 2022 would be the last year. What a way we have come from that. But as others have pointed out there's some additional factors that are supported by facts (the additional titles coming in the next three years), as well as general speculation about gaming changing features, or lack there of. By that of course I mean flying birds and marine animals. We are almost certainly not going to get either, and I personally feel that they're the only things that, if Frontier did go down that route, we could potentially see more than one year left. But I don't think we shall see them and I don't think we'll have more than 4 packs left. Frontier is welcome to prove me wrong though, and I would be overjoyed to be wrong.

Also good valid point that sticking with terrestrial animals, the longer support goes on, the less wanted the "most requested" animals are. By that I mean, they were for the most part simply further down the list, as Frontier has been knocking out animals from the upper regions of the meta list for 2 and a half years now. Seriously, 3 years ago, who would have thought we'd be seeing the Secretary Birds and Coatimundi fighting it out for the top spot in the meta list? Not me, for sure, I was more interested in getting meerkats, capybaras and a non creepy otter. (which, we've gotten all of them). At some point the top regions of the list become less of a matter of actual priority, but are instead just filling the spots on the list because that's just how lists work. Something will always be at the top of the meta list, even if content were to go on for another 5 years...

Reasons I think we'll get at least 2 packs? One is a revisit mostly dedicated to South America. It's on many of our minds, and quite honestly there's no way Frontier is not aware of it. So I do think we'll get a pack for that, and I do think we'll get some kind of supersized pack in the summer, possibly 10-12 animals. As with Planet Coaster and JW:E, their final packs were a bit supersized and I'm just thinking the final pack for PZ will be as well.

So in a 2 pack scenario I think we'll get Latin/Central/South America and a finale pack. 4 more packs...I'm speculating Highlands and some kind of African Safari pack, but am less sure on those two.

Highlans/Alpine Scenery, New World or only Latin America Animal Pack, Savannah Scenery Pack and a Farewell Big Pack (12-16 animals plus Scenery) are my guesses for next year (The Last clearly If Support ends at that Point). So our guesses are very similar I would say.

 

[jcp011c]

Highlans/Alpine Scenery, New World or only Latin America Animal Pack, Savannah Scenery Pack and a Farewell Big Pack (12-16 animals plus Scenery) are my guesses for next year (The Last clearly If Support ends at that Point). So our guesses are very similar I would say.

Interestingly enough that our guesses are pretty close, even though I switched the Latin America pack to be scenery and Safari pack to be the animal pack. Stuffing quite a few South American species in the finale of course

 

[RedPandaReggie]

I personally don't see this as the last DLC or that Planet Zoo support may be ending, for a few reasons.

1. Planet Zoo makes a lot of good money for Frontier alongside Jurassic World Evolution 2
2. Planet Zoo, given its lifespan, is probably not going to go out with the Eurasia Animal Pack as most of the animals are quite niche to a selection of the fanbase, mainly the European player base, as the animals from this pack with greatly enrich their builds and zoos. The game is more likely to go out with a bang, so say a big final DLC like what Jurassic World Evolution had, giving players a Jurassic Park expansion DLC. I could see the same happening for Planet Zoo, the game ending with the biggest, best and most requested DLC, the Aviary DLC, ending the game with what players have wanted all along.
3. There is still constant interest in more animals for the game, and Frontier knows that as long as players still want animals, and are willing to pay for them, support with continue to be dished in, and there are plenty of potential features to be added into future updates too.

I would like to be optimistic and say we have likely 2 more years of support, ending the game on a solid 6 years and if my calculations would be correct, using the current pattern of scenery pack -> animal pack, with potentially 54 animals at least to go, we would get a 234 animal roster, but what if we got more and the game wanted to end at a solid 250. Planet Zoo still has plenty of fans, plenty of players and plenty more animals that can be added to boost the roster, animals like coatis, walruses, many more primates and birds, tree kangaroos, plenty of different Central/South American species, manatees, and a multitude of other amazing creatures that people should know more about, and Planet Zoo is a great game for giving people the opportunity to learn more about species they may have never heard of. I am confident Planet Zoo is not ending, and with so many animals that can still be added, the game still has a whole planet left to explore. There is a lot of potential for this game, to make it a defining title of what a zoo game should be, by adding in various features that can make it THE zoo game.

Please Frontier, don't end this great game

 

[GhostBear]

I personally don't see this as the last DLC or that Planet Zoo support may be ending, for a few reasons.

1. Planet Zoo makes a lot of good money for Frontier alongside Jurassic World Evolution 2
2. Planet Zoo, given its lifespan, is probably not going to go out with the Eurasia Animal Pack as most of the animals are quite niche to a selection of the fanbase, mainly the European player base, as the animals from this pack with greatly enrich their builds and zoos. The game is more likely to go out with a bang, so say a big final DLC like what Jurassic World Evolution had, giving players a Jurassic Park expansion DLC. I could see the same happening for Planet Zoo, the game ending with the biggest, best and most requested DLC, the Aviary DLC, ending the game with what players have wanted all along.
3. There is still constant interest in more animals for the game, and Frontier knows that as long as players still want animals, and are willing to pay for them, support with continue to be dished in, and there are plenty of potential features to be added into future updates too.

I would like to be optimistic and say we have likely 2 more years of support, ending the game on a solid 6 years and if my calculations would be correct, using the current pattern of scenery pack -> animal pack, with potentially 54 animals at least to go, we would get a 234 animal roster, but what if we got more and the game wanted to end at a solid 250. Planet Zoo still has plenty of fans, plenty of players and plenty more animals that can be added to boost the roster, animals like coatis, walruses, many more primates and birds, tree kangaroos, plenty of different Central/South American species, manatees, and a multitude of other amazing creatures that people should know more about, and Planet Zoo is a great game for giving people the opportunity to learn more about species they may have never heard of. I am confident Planet Zoo is not ending, and with so many animals that can still be added, the game still has a whole planet left to explore. There is a lot of potential for this game, to make it a defining title of what a zoo game should be, by adding in various features that can make it THE zoo game.

Please Frontier, don't end this great game

I would just say that at some point developers have to move on, even if both they and the community loves something, and 4+ years of support is a long time for a bigger company to commit to one game. They are going to need those great developers to get to work on their other 3 yet to be announced titles, especially with the company cuts. I think that's why the updates have gotten smaller and smaller the past year, it's already started happening.

I've already squared myself with the fact that no more innovations are coming for this game, the time to add flyers would have been much earlier if that was their plan. I really think they heard the community and tried to make the walkthrough exhibits what we were wanting, but realized the limitations and that people wouldn't be happy with endless loops. They had to pivot and used them for other cool animals.

Planet Zoo 2 is what I've been excited for for awhile now, even though it won't come in the short term, but there are guaranteed plans to do it down the road. Maybe they have already started preliminary planning. Frontier knows what we want in a zoo game, and they know Planet Zoo 2 with birds and aquariums will sell like crazy.

 

[Bearcat9948]

I'm honestly a bit tired of the whole "there is no evidence that the game might end" claim, because it stops any form of healthy discussion. Because, of course there is never going to be direct evidence that the game is going to end, as it never was for the other games either. There are indications and there are reasonable arguments why the game might potentially end support which we could discuss in a reasonable manner with each other, but it always ends up in a "it's doomspeak" or "there is no evidence", which just instantly kills any conversation about the topic.

Instead, I think it's valuable to start thinking about what might influence the end of the game and prepare ourselves for it. If not, we're going to end up with a whole "omg Frontier stopped the game they're stupid" scenario which honestly is not beneficial for any of the parties involved. It does not have to be doom and gloom, especially given how well the game has done so far. I completely agree with @biggest_dreamer here, people who are adement about the fact that more support is almost guaranteed are going to be far more disappointed than those who are cautious about it.

Now, let's put both sides in perspective.

The game could be ending support this year because a combination of a few of these reasons:

• The codebase at this point is conservatively speaking 7 years old. That's a lot of legacy code, that's a lot of decisions that were made a long time ago that dictate what can or cannot be done with the game. Codebases can be refactored, but that requires a lot of time, budget and dev profiles that might just not be financially viable. The age of the codebase at this point is an indicator of how long the game can and will be supported, and we are at the point where the majority of the games out there have already stopped or tend to stop.
  
  
• We are a late stage zoo game, and as much as there's a near infinite amount of animals that can be added to the game; there is very much a limit to the amount of animal choices people are going to want to keep paying for. With every new pack, more and more of the audience of the game complains that the packs don't add anything exciting and that animals are just clones. And this is inevitable for any zoo game, but obviously is going to start/is already affecting the sales.
  
  
• The costs of making new DLCs raise over time. Your devs become more experienced which results in higher pays, inflation impacts costs when it comes to resources (software licenses, building costs, etc. etc.). People also tend to vastly underestimate the costs that come with making these packs. Mostly because people only tend to look at the coding and the modeling/texturing, but often have no idea of all the other stuff that comes with the development cycle like project managers, product owners, researchers, Q&A testing, etc. etc. There's a lot more overhead than people think, and that also comes with a price.
  
  Unless Frontier decides to raise their prices for the DLC (which honestly surprisingly, they haven't done even after so many years), there is going to be a point where a DLC is going to end up just being breakeven. As @Pentoleaf said, we don't even know how close we are to that. Frontier, like any business, is going to try to avoid the point of breakeven instead of putting out packs that are breakeven. So, there are going to be business analysis that will be made to avoid reaching that point. Especially with the situation Frontier is in.
  
  
• That brings us to Frontier's current financial state. I know a lot of people seem to expect that this means that Frontier will for sure continue Planet Zoo because it has been doing well; but reality is of course once again much more complicated. With 3 CMS games planned to be released over the next 3 years, several resources have been pumped into those. Shifting those to Planet Zoo isn't something that you can do right away. To give a very specific example, you cannot expect to move a dev from another project to Planet Zoo and expect them to be productive enough to do anything major in less than a month time (and that's honestly being optimistic, there are many projects that require much longer). Shifting resources is not as easy as it sounds.
  
  On top of that, every new DLC is a new risk. There's no way of knowing for sure that it will sell well, and given the current state of Frontier they might not want to take any risks at all. That could mean that they could go for a safer route, something they've done in the past already and of which they know that there's at least an audience; which is a console port. You'd need significantly less people to do the port, you already have the experience in house to do so, and that way you can still make money on Planet Zoo without major investments.
  
  
• There could be any number of commitments that Frontier has right now that mean that they need everyone who's available, so that could very much be something that influences the game's course without us ever knowing it.
  
  
• There is, at this point, no direct confirmation for further support for FY25. This is new, because over the course of the last years we always had somewhat of a direct confirmation for more DLCs. Whether it be a full on confirmation in financial documents, or the games code containing references or folders being left behind. Currently, we have no such direct confirmation at all.

There are obviously more reasons that will impact the final decision; but people really need to understand that further support is influenced by a hell of a lot more than "As long as people keep buying the DLCs Frontier will keep making them", because reality is unfortuneatly never that simple.

That being said, there are also reasons why the game could keep seeing support:

• There are still a few more somewhat popular animals that could be added to the game, regardless of birds or fish. Animals like a walrus, a coati, more monkeys, etc. There's no denying that, at least for a pack or two, there are still a few animals left that the semi-general audience knows of that could spark their interest.
  
  
• As mentioned in the financial documents, both Planet Zoo and Jurassic World Evolution seem to be financially good for Frontier. Whilst making new DLCs comes with more risks than stopping altogether, if the next packs sell well that's not something that Frontier would mind. Again, they could still go for the slightly less risky approach and go for a console version though.
  
  
• Like some have mentioned, previous games have ended with a slightly bigger DLC at the end and Frontier has done half year DLCs too; so it's not out of the question that we get one or two more DLCs next year.

Now what I'm not trying to say with this is that the end of support at the end of the year is guaranteed. That's never been my goal. What I'm trying to say that there are several factors that will influence the end, and we've reached a point where these factors will come more and more into play. Much more than for instance two years ago, it is sensible to start preparing for the end of support and to stop taking things for granted. As @zoomaster1994 has said, all things eventually come to an end, and so will Planet Zoo.

Nobody here knows for sure. We're all making assumptions, and at this point there is no direct evidence to say that we'll get support for next year or won't get support at all. Everything is our own interpretation, and this is the first time that we're here because the past years always gave us direct confirmation. I think it's beneficial for us as a community if we can have a discussion about that, so that we aren't completely taken by surprise when the enivitable end comes.

I agree with pretty much everything you've said here. It personally wouldn't surprise me either which way, though right now I'm leaning towards the possibility of getting 1-2 DLC next year.

Like you said, there are many factors that go into the decisioning of a product rollout. I think that given the financial instability, they would have planned out the remaining DLC earlier this year and tried to do some forecasting about what they could sell well to help ease the transition period from PZ's active life ending into whatever Planet game comes next.

 

[NZFanatic]

This most likely isn't the last DLC, but support is obviously ending. The game is four years old.

Edit: I was originally going to write a long-ass post about it but @Iben has already covered the main points. In any event a surefire sign that PZ is ending next year will be if they announce a November release for their next franchise title, whether that is Planet Coaster 2 or something else. Once that is announced, we know that Zoo will only continue until June 2024 at the latest. If no new title is announced, it remains a guessing game, but I wouldn't give Zoo more than two DLC's after Eurasia. Better to face the horizon and enjoy the sunset than to stick your head in the sand and pretend the day is still long, I think.

 

[NZFanatic]

Leave them to it, the semi annual doom discussions calms their nerves.

This made me chuckle. These posts are trying to calm your nerves. Sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "lalala the game will go on forever" looks far more nervous than rationally laying out reasonable expectations based on things we factually know (or at least things we can reasonably extrapolate).

 

[Iben]

Well, Fiscal Year 2024 began on October 1st 2023 and will end on Sept 30th 2024. There is a popular post on the forums talking about future plans from Frontier which says, "In FY24 new PDLC packs and free content for both JWE2 and PZ have already been released, with more planned during this financial year." Note that this says "more" as in plural. If we take this literally, then the Eurasia Animal Pack is the first and only DLC released so far for FY24 which means there should at least be one more. However, it's important to note that "more" could be referring to both PZ and JWE2 cumulatively, in which case this may well have been the last DLC for PZ.

A big correction here, but Frontier's FY24 did not start October 1st 2023. FY24 started the 1st of June 2023 and ends the 31st of May 2024 as provided in their financial calendar. So within the information we've gotten out of the fiscal documents, the only potential DLC that could be confirmed by that is a Spring DLC.

The "more planned during this financial year" already applies to the DLCs we've gotten so far.

 

[Animalbren]

I have a feeling that at the very least we have 2-3 more dlcs under our belt (to finish up FY24), but I do sense the game’s senescence starting to grow in terms of active development at least (modders do have the potential to keep this game going however if Zoo Tycoon 2 is anything to go by)

There are 3 harbingers of the end of support based on what I’ve come across:

1: the announcement of a new Planet title
2: the last dlc being bigger and more expensive than the others we’ve gotten
3: (and one I’m really shocked no one has discussed)- is the inclusion of a thememaker’s toolkit in said update a la Planet Coaster, not necessarily for animals- but for things like props

Definitely something worth keeping in mind before everyone loses their minds too much and lets pessimism take over too much (but at the same time it may be time for many of you to make peace with the fact that support will potentially end between June-November next year; I already have)

 

[NZFanatic]

I have a feeling that at the very least we have 2-3 more dlcs under our belt (to finish up FY24)

There's only room on the calendar for one more DLC in FY24. It ends in May 2024.

 

[Animalbren]

There's only room on the calendar for one more DLC in FY24. It ends in May 2024.

Doesn’t leave out June at least even if it isn’t in FY24… again that’s really my most confident last dlc, beyond that it’s a little shaky and potentially unlikely

Either way it’s good to pay attention to said 3 harbingers I stated above too, and to make peace with it finally, because doomposting is not the way to do so

 

[NZFanatic]

Doesn’t leave out June at least even if it isn’t in FY24… again that’s really my most confident last dlc, beyond that it’s a little shaky and potentially unlikely

Either way it’s good to pay attention to said 3 harbingers I stated above too, and to make peace with it finally, because doomposting is not the way to do so

Nobody is doomposting. Doomposting is when all the people refusing to believe support will end now used to think it was ending every time a DLC was a little bit delayed over the past four years. That's kind of the ironic thing; a lot of the folks - and I recognise usernames - now calling this "doomposting" were the ones crying wolf whenever news was slow to come before. The ones who counselled patience and reassurance before are now the ones rationalising that signs are pointing towards support ending.

 

[Animalbren]

Nobody is doomposting. Doomposting is when all the people refusing to believe support will end now used to think it was ending every time a DLC was a little bit delayed over the past four years. That's kind of the ironic thing; a lot of the folks - and I recognise usernames - now calling this "doomposting" were the ones crying wolf whenever news was slow to come before. The ones who counselled patience and reassurance before are now the ones rationalising that signs are pointing towards support ending.

Only problem is that there are people doomposting that the game is gonna end right now instead of 4-6 months from now, which is what should be more expected

And people being optimistic about the game’s future, even if misguided, isn’t doomposting in the slightest, which is why my statement on my original comment on here about making peace with support ending next year should be for both parties, rather than one or the other. I made my peace with the fact 2024 is the last year for Planet Zoo quite a bit ago, just due to how long the game has been here. If we get stuff beyond that, well hey it’s a plus

 

[NZFanatic]

And people being optimistic about the game’s future, even if misguided, isn’t doomposting in the slightest

Nobody said it was. I'm saying that the people being "optimistic" (rather, naive) now were the same ones screaming "support is ending!" in the past every time a DLC wasn't exactly when they expected it to be. The script has flipped - they're being just as irrational but now it's the opposite problem.

 

[Animalbren]

Nobody said it was. I'm saying that the people being "optimistic" (rather, naive) now were the same ones screaming "support is ending!" in the past every time a DLC wasn't exactly when they expected it to be. The script has flipped - they're being just as irrational but now it's the opposite problem.

Ohhhh gotcha I misunderstood