Family Businesses & Generational Legacy

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I wanted to share an idea that I think could make inZOI even more immersive, especially for players who enjoy playing through multiple generations. :psycat_thumbsup:

The current business system already provides a solid foundation, but I think it could go even further by expanding the family side of running a business.

Even though family businesses will be passed down to future generations, I’d love to see the succession system become more in-depth. Different family members could have different ideas about the future of the business. Some might want to preserve the founder’s legacy, while others might prefer to modernize the company, expand into new areas, or take it in a completely different direction. This could create meaningful family stories across generations.

It would also be interesting to have family meetings where everyone discusses the future of the business, decides on investments, plans new projects, or chooses who will take over as the next owner.

As the business grows, players could create different departments, such as finance, marketing, human resources, or research and development. Family members and employees could work in different departments based on their skills.

I’d also love to see more interaction between businesses. Companies could become partners, work together on projects, or become rivals, competing for customers, contracts, or the best employees.

Business branding is already possible to some extent, but it could go further with a dedicated branding system that automatically applies the company’s logo to signs, uniforms, vehicles, packaging, and additional branches, making each business feel even more unique.

Finally, I’d love for every business to keep its own history across generations, with founder portraits, trophies, awards, old logos, photos, and other memories. Watching a small family business grow into a successful company run by future generations would be incredibly rewarding.

I also think the current business gameplay should be improved first. Employee AI, customer behavior, and some parts of the sales system could still use some polishing before adding new features.

I think these additions would make family businesses feel even more alive and give players more stories to create across generations, while remaining completely optional for those who prefer a different way to play. :psycat_paw:

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A large part of this foundation is actually already implemented in inZOI’s current business system. I run my own café, and we can already purchase and customise a business property, hire employees—including household members—assign their tasks, set wages and operating hours, choose customer settings, adjust prices, receive customer reviews, increase business value and own multiple businesses or franchises.

Kjun also previously stated that family-owned businesses were intended to be inheritable even when the original owner dies, so the generational-business foundation is already part of the developers’ plans.

I think the genuinely new parts of this suggestion are the more detailed succession stories, family meetings, company departments, rival businesses, partnerships, branding and historical archives. Those could be interesting expansions of the existing system.

However, I would first like the current business gameplay to be refined and fixed. Employee behaviour, customer purchases and sales of crafted products still have serious issues. Expanding the existing system is welcome, but the post makes it sound as though family-run businesses, employees, reputation, expansion and franchises do not exist yet, when many of those mechanics are already playable.

Custom branding is also already partially possible. I use my own logo for my café, and the business description can be used for a slogan, motto or brand story. Together with the customisable building and interior, players can already give their business a distinct identity.

A dedicated branding interface could still improve this—for example, automatically placing the selected logo on signs, menus, uniforms, packaging or additional branches—but it would be an expansion of the current business system rather than a completely missing feature.

It may be clearer to focus the proposal specifically on what is missing rather than describing the whole business foundation again.

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Thank you very much for your feedback. :psycat_thumbsup:

You’re right. After reading your comment, I realized that my suggestion gave the impression that some of these features don’t already exist, even though many of them are already part of the game.

My intention was to suggest ways to expand the current system, not to start from scratch. The points you mentioned such as more detailed succession, family meetings, company departments, rival businesses, partnerships, and company history are actually the ideas I wanted to highlight the most.

I also agree that the current business system should be improved first, especially employee behavior, customer behavior, and some aspects of product sales.

I’ll revise my suggestion so it focuses more on these new ideas and makes my intention clearer.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your feedback. :psycat_thumbsup:

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Thank you for the reply.

I hope I did not come across as too harsh. My intention was that your new points stand out more, so other forum users and the dev team can actually see your new ideas and don’t fall off the table, because they are genuinly good. Thanks for taking it positively :four_leaf_clover:

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You weren’t too harsh at all. Quite the opposite, actually.
Your comment helped me realize that my suggestion wasn’t highlighting the new ideas I wanted to share clearly enough.

Thank you for taking the time to point that out. It was genuinely very helpful. :psycat_paw:

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You know, whenever I see topics about “business growth,” I always have a very serious question about it: where?

Almost all proposals sound like the game should eventually give you the ability to build a multinational corporation. And that might even be okay, maybe with some simplified convenient management methods. But the talk about “expanding to new locations” and “hiring new employees” would be almost impossible to implement in practice. Simply because of how small our towns currently are.

It only seems like we have a lot of space. But in reality, various establishments are already pretty densely packed in the city. If we develop a flower shop business — fine, we can open 2-3 salons. But what’s next? What businesses would we have to remove from the city to make room for another one of our shops? Get rid of the pawn shop? Close down cafes? Sacrifice the movie theaters?

What will happen in the end? Will the entire city consist of our flower shops, with nothing else happening there? I’m afraid that would look very strange :slightly_smiling_face:

For a company to become a truly large chain and look natural, we’d need cities that are 5-6 times bigger than they are now. So that different parts of the city had their own cafes and shops, and we could gradually compete with rivals, buying out their businesses and incorporating them into our growing “empire.” But with the space we have now, you just can’t properly expand. Especially considering that the game has multiple families, and each of them also owns their own business, and we need space in the game for them to grow too, so that all these “partners and competitors” exist.

So it all sounds nice and interesting, but it’s very unlikely that it could be implemented within the current game space. Now, if cities could potentially grow — yes. But definitely not in the form the game is in right now.

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I completely understand your reasoning. :psycat_thumbsup:

In reality, I drafted this proposal with the future of inZOI in mind, rather than just its current state. Given the current size of the cities,
I agree that building a genuine business network would be difficult without it feeling unnatural.

If the game eventually expands with larger cities, new neighborhoods, or more commercial lots, I think this kind of progression would become much more believable.
That’s the perspective I had in mind when I came up with these ideas.

That said, I wasn’t imagining a city filled entirely with our own businesses. For me, the main goal is to see a family business evolve over generations, with a few locations, competitors, partnerships, and a more in-depth succession system, rather than owning dozens of identical stores.

So yes, I agree with you. With the game in its current state, it would be difficult to implement. My proposal is more of a vision for what the system could become as the world of inZOI continues to grow. :psycat_paw:

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For the future - yes, that’s a good idea. But only if cities expand, as I said.

It’s just that lately I very often see these words about "let’s make something (anything - business, family relationships in the city, career, celebrity system, etc.) a comprehensive detail that affects the entire city and simply ‘rewrites’ the fate of all residents.

Most often, of course, these are ideas from AI. So you already start to become a bit wary of this, and immediately think about whether this could be implemented in the current game, or not? And I came to the conclusion that at the moment - no, there’s no platform for this yet that could serve as the basis for a truly quality implementation.

But what happens next - we’ll see :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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I see your point, and I agree. I see this more as a long-term idea rather than something that should be added right away.

The idea actually came to me while watching a TV series recently :psycat_thumbsup: and it made me think it would be fun to tell that kind of family story in inZOI.

I wasn’t really imagining a system that affects the entire city. I was thinking more of an optional feature for players who enjoy following the same family across multiple generations. :psycat_paw:

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