Sony Concord ded

[Rachel]

Concord Shutting Down 14 Days After Launch

Sony and developer Firewalk Studios confirmed the troubled PS5 and PC shooter will go offline later this week

kotaku.com

What the hell? I remember seeing this high-quality trailer during...something. The Game Awards? It looked expensive to make.

I can't believe what an utter miss this was. Not sure what went wrong personally. I remember people making fun of the fact that it looked like a Guardians of the Galaxy rip off.

@Raine

 

[finlandguy]

I didn't even remember this game. Maybe if I watched the trailer again. There were quite a few neat things during TGA so that's probably what it was.

Even if the game looks like a ripoff, people would still play it if it was captivating enough. Maybe they tried to sell it at 70 or 80 or even 90 bucks and people noped out. I'd def do that unless it was something I really knew I'd like.

Maybe there wasn't enough coverage of it? Did streamers or youtubers play it to build hype? Or was it actually horrible and they didn't want to advertise it lol. Maybe I'll try to look more into this tomorrow.

 

[VashTheStampede]

Took them 8 years to make the game

(lol guess when Overwatch came out)

It just looked...okay. And they were charging like 30-40 bucks for it when Marvel Rivals is coming soon, is free-to-play, and is actually GOOD.

I knew and called this being a bomb but even I had no idea they'd cut and run this quickly.

 

[VashTheStampede]

 

[Rachel]

I just saw this video...



I am a designer but not a fashion or character designer. There is something bad about these character designs and it's hard for me to articulate exactly why. Even though it's in space or sci fi or whatever the costumes are strange. A lot of the characters don't stand out or seem memorable. I heard the blue gorilla alien with the red skin, for some reason has yellow thumbs. The single line voices happening in the clip sound awkward at times.

I think you also need to be careful with alien designs. Like I think about that one Overwatch guy who is a gorilla. They could have easily made him an alien tank guy. But they didn't and it probably helps to ground the audience with something they are familiar with. Or like how there's the raccoon guy in guardians.

Oh yeah, and of course the narrative is playing out by certain people that it got canceled because it's too woke, aka it is too diverse. Which is a load of shit.

The $40 price tag when the competitor games are free, probably had a contribution.

Here is the trailer I mentioned earlier if anyone wants a reminder



The quipy Marvel one liners didn't make me feel like running to purchase this

Edit: oh yeah and I feel awful for the devs. Imagine working on something for 8 years of your life and then this happens. Plus the studio might even shut down now.

 

[VashTheStampede]

The character and art designs were just bland and nothing jumped out as special. Like wtf even is Concord?

Apparently within the game menus or such they have little stylized animated versions of the characters and that art style is more interesting and captivating than this "MCU CGI" style they settled on.

 

[Quagmire]

Never heard of the game and I agree, characters look painfully generic

 

[Raine]

@Raine

ohai

Because it's published by Sony I think this is the biggest failure in modern game history? Even though relatively few people remembered/knew about/cared for this one. There are no shortage of blunders - Anthem, OG No Man's Sky, Fallout 76, Cyberpunk 2077, Babylon's Fall, Redfall - but most of them either shape up or at least hobble along for a year before getting axed.

Just think: Sony had a dozen GaaS in concurrent development for release through 2027 at one point. There are still a couple more in the tank, including Bungie's Marathon which by all accounts is... troubled, at best. Even beside that studio imploding.

 

[Fire Queen]

I remember seeing this high-quality trailer during...something.

if i recall correctly it was during a sony state of play. my wife and i were watching and it really did feel dead on arrival. it wasn’t compellingly bad it was just aggressively nothing. it was gotg plus overwatch with none of the art design or style of either. the quippy one liners did not do a lot to engender confidence

apparently on steam the peak concurrent players was like 697. on steam and psn combined they sold only 25k copies. and it’s not like it’s a failure of marketing either; it was permanently parked on the ps5 store page for weeks. the people don’t want hero shooters you have to pay upfront for featuring characters you don’t recognize from anything. go figure!

 

[VashTheStampede]

I want to say the numbers I heard were that it took $30m to make the game and they made about $1m the first week...which one would assume would be by far the best week ever.

That, combined with their plans to put out a big story cinematic every week, made it seem immediately untenable.

I am hard pressed to combat Raine's comment of this being the biggest flop ever. Especially when you consider they shuttered Japan Studio (Bloodborne, Gravity Rush) to pivot towards this game.

 

[rktaker]

i think what went wrong besides it looking like a GOTG rip off is that it was another hero shooter which people are starting to get sick of. it probably would have been better as a single player game

 

[dimmerwit]

And even if you aren't sick of them you're probably playing one of the myriad of options, many of which are free-to-play.

 

[Rachel]

I've been watching a few breakdowns on YT about what happened here and wanted to share some





WOW! This guy is articulating what I couldn't pinpoint earlier. Well worth the watch if you are curious about the design problems.

My summary is that the color tones are all flat, there is little good usage of a coherent color scheme, and the silhouettes are not interesting or eye-catching. What makes a character design a good NPC design versus a PC design? IMO you don't want your NPC to stand out necessarily. I saw a comment that said they look like guardian of the galaxy NPCs or that someone made these after doing a randomizer with a character creator.

Watching my clip from earlier I think about Mortal Kombat. When you are selecting a character or when they first meet for battle, their personality comes out a little. That one movie star Johnny is a douche. You can also learn about what is their relationship with each other. For example you can understand very quickly that those two ladies, who I forget their names, are sisters. Someone pointed out Mei from Overwatch as an example, you can at least tell by her design that she is a researcher and she deals with ice/cold.

Looking at my earlier clip, I don't have much of an idea what their personalities or relationships are. And do they look like they are from the same universe? IMO, no.

Also, consider this, would you WANT to play a Guardians of the Galaxy hero shooter game? My guess is actually no, and it has a way stronger brand. They work as a movie but I'm not so sure as a game.

Also thought this video was pretty funny

I am hard pressed to combat Raine's comment of this being the biggest flop ever. Especially when you consider they shuttered Japan Studio (Bloodborne, Gravity Rush) to pivot towards this game.

jesus WHAT

Edit: Also I am not quite understanding the decision to shut it down completely. Why not try free to play? Is it unsalvageable? Is that not sustainable, do they not have a skins store or something like that?

 

[dimmerwit]

F2P would just burn even more money with an audience that small. It's just sunk cost fallacy at that point.

 

[Rachel]

Also what's up with the name. Concord? As in the musical definition? The opposite of discord? Does that seem forgettable to anyone else?

And, is there a reason why the logo features an N? Genuinely asking, I don't know anything about it.

 

[VashTheStampede]

 

[dimmerwit]

And now I remember that Morpheus was another Sony failure.

 

[rktaker]

Also what's up with the name. Concord? As in the musical definition? The opposite of discord?

it’s obviously talking about the town in Massachusetts

 

[VashTheStampede]

 

[VashTheStampede]

it’s obviously talking about the town in Massachusetts

I thought they really liked grapes

 

[VashTheStampede]

 

[Quagmire]

I've been watching a few breakdowns on YT about what happened here and wanted to share some





WOW! This guy is articulating what I couldn't pinpoint earlier. Well worth the watch if you are curious about the design problems.

My summary is that the color tones are all flat, there is little good usage of a coherent color scheme, and the silhouettes are not interesting or eye-catching. What makes a character design a good NPC design versus a PC design? IMO you don't want your NPC to stand out necessarily. I saw a comment that said they look like guardian of the galaxy NPCs or that someone made these after doing a randomizer with a character creator.

Watching my clip from earlier I think about Mortal Kombat. When you are selecting a character or when they first meet for battle, their personality comes out a little. That one movie star Johnny is a douche. You can also learn about what is their relationship with each other. For example you can understand very quickly that those two ladies, who I forget their names, are sisters. Someone pointed out Mei from Overwatch as an example, you can at least tell by her design that she is a researcher and she deals with ice/cold.

Looking at my earlier clip, I don't have much of an idea what their personalities or relationships are. And do they look like they are from the same universe? IMO, no.

Also, consider this, would you WANT to play a Guardians of the Galaxy hero shooter game? My guess is actually no, and it has a way stronger brand. They work as a movie but I'm not so sure as a game.

Also thought this video was pretty funny





jesus WHAT

Edit: Also I am not quite understanding the decision to shut it down completely. Why not try free to play? Is it unsalvageable? Is that not sustainable, do they not have a skins store or something like that?

He does a real good job

 

[rktaker]

so uhh I don't know if this means anything but Concord might not be dead after all

Concord Continues To Get Updates On Steam

Over the last few weeks, the Steam version of Concord has continued to see various updates while rumors of a relaunch circulate.

insider-gaming.com

 

[Quagmire]

so uhh I don't know if this means anything but Concord might not be dead after all

Concord Continues To Get Updates On Steam

Over the last few weeks, the Steam version of Concord has continued to see various updates while rumors of a relaunch circulate.

insider-gaming.com

 

[VashTheStampede]

 

[Fire Queen]

can't wait to read the 500-page jason schreier book about this debacle. is this the worst AAA launch since, what, anthem? at least that game's servers were up for a couple years. this game got airbrushed out of ever having released. i wonder if people are going to sell their Concord PS5s like people were doing with PT PS4s

 

[VashTheStampede]

Anthem could have been decent. I enjoyed some of my time with the game.

I have no idea who this was for.