If there is one thing that the Internet can’t get enough of, it’s a good meme. After Coffeezilla released his three-part investigative series, that’s exactly what Logan Paul’s CryptoZoo has become. In response to the scam claims, YouTuber and game developer Yipy remade the entire concept as a free game in hours. That one-off bit has now made Yipy enough to develop his game, RealZoo, full-time.
In a recent message to Dot Esports, Yipy discussed the success that he’s seen after the video about his game went viral, drawing personalities like Hasan and Ludwig to RealZoo. According to the developer, the game is drawing in “a few thousand daily.” This should be no surprise when players have filled chats to say they’ve spent a few hundred dollars on RealZoo‘s in-game currency.
Since the entire game can be played for free, and Yipy states in the initial video that he’s only asking people to pay to help with site fees, this is a considerable achievement. Yipy made the game in a matter of hours for the sole purpose of mocking CryptoZoo‘s seemingly endless development.
Now it’s making enough that Yipy confirmed his focus moving forward is RealZoo and trying to maintain the success seen thus far so that he can continue to develop it. As he says, “I am working on it full-time. Will need to improve the game quick, so people want to keep playing it for that to continue.”
While not a rule, games are typically only as successful as the community they are able to build. Luckily, it seems that there is an abundance of people interested in RealZoo after logging in and trying it for themselves. In the Yipy Enjoyer’s Discord, the most invested fans are pitching ideas and actively helping to develop the game.
Yipy really emphasizes the appreciation he feels about this community springing up around something he created and their support thus far: “[The community] also want to see the game grow into a game with more depth. They are posting their ideas, their own artwork, livestreaming themselves writing code, creating documentation, and making spin-off versions.”
One example he gives is a complete recreation of RealZoo made completely inside Google Sheets. Another Google Sheet project allows players to track their progress through the game.
The developer also stated that players will soon begin to see some of the community’s work in the game; however, it’s unlikely that there will be any custom art as opposed to the Stable Diffusion images currently the game currently uses. This was confirmed by a member of the Discord staff, stating that “I think for now we’ll stick with SD, purely for simplicity and expansion purposes.”
It’s worth noting that this form of content creation through AI has recently come under fire when used in games, with the most recent example being Justin Roiland’s High on Life. However, this is a little bit of a complex issue as Yipy only used SD images in order to make his game much faster in order to make the point that someone could make Logan Paul’s game quickly. He likely wasn’t anticipating this success and profit.
However, it seems that the developer and the team assembling around him will have some tough decisions about the future of RealZoo. Everything is still early in development for Yipy, with ideas still being floated around about what kind of game this project could turn into. While mention of a card battler is being talked about, the future of RealZoo is still wide open and anything could happen.
