Easy Fox, the studio behind the forthcoming driving simulator Teach My Little Sister How To Drive, have revealed that they might remove the game’s Steam demo sooner than expected. This decision follows a surge in player activity that has driven the demo’s operational costs beyond $1,000 daily (as noted by Game*Spark).
True to its title, Teach My Little Sister How To Drive tasks players with being co-pilots to their inexperienced sister, guiding her through driving, parking, and obstacle navigation using only voice commands. The game leverages generative AI for live conversations, with the sister reacting to player input both verbally and through in-car actions like accelerating or braking.
The game’s demo has been available since February, but it recently gained viral traction among gamers, especially in Japan. Streamers have been drawn to the unpredictable mix-ups caused by the AI’s language model and the sister character’s surprisingly witty retorts.
Easy Fox’s October 7 update disclosed that demo player numbers have skyrocketed more than twentyfold over the last month, leading to complications. Since Teach My Little Sister How To Drive transmits player voices to external AI services like Gemini and ChatGPT for real-time responses, the increased traffic has inflated token costs to over $1,000 per day. The small four-person team has even secured a bank loan to sustain the demo. Despite no final call yet, the developers are weighing the option of pulling the demo early due to the mounting expenses.
Looking ahead, Easy Fox is exploring the use of local AI models as a backup for the full game, along with potential price adjustments to offset anticipated AI usage costs.