• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Concord bombs on Steam with less than 1k players on launch day

simpatico

Gold Member
The soy battalion has failed Sony. Will Sony start directing their efforts at trying to lure in a different customer base? One long neglected? Perhaps! Stay tuned.

bnaYzLj.png
 

Ozriel

M$FT
To be fair - most of the budget was paid for before acquisition by someone ;P
Wonder how much Sony actually paid for the studio though.

That paid for part would have added to the valuation of the studio when Sony bought them.

Hey let's keep it real here ok, Hellblade 2 is massive dookie too and it was used to prop up the xbox series x console in the reveal trailer. Love to hate on this piece of shit concord all along, but at least it's still a game, not a tech demo :messenger_tears_of_joy:
It's a bit rich seeing people that were defending Hellblade 2 here somehow trying to take a moral highground

Wanna try re-reading my post to see if you understand it any better?


K-Pop GIF
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Hey let's keep it real here ok, Hellblade 2 is massive dookie too and it was used to prop up the xbox series x console in the reveal trailer. Love to hate on this piece of shit concord all along, but at least it's still a game, not a tech demo :messenger_tears_of_joy:
It's a bit rich seeing people that were defending Hellblade 2 here somehow trying to take a moral highground
I never really obsess about sales numbers to the extent some PS fans do on here, but what is actually hilarious is only 1 day after Concord mega bombs suddenly it is useless to compare them.

Hellblade 2 is a short art game not designed to be played for long periods of time. It also released on a sub service. Even then it did better than Concorde and it cost $10 more. It also reviewed higher, will likely win best graphics and audio of the year in multiple places and is likely in the running for best graphics in a game ever at this point.

Even Redfall did better and its on a sub, and its a decent 20 hour single player game and it was $70.

Everyone should let this sink in next time an Xbox release is dogpiled as the worst game ever.
 
Last edited:

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I hope that from now on, any game designer or movie producer who utters the phrase “modern audiences”, “inclusive”, or “representation” gets laughed out of the room.

People are so fucking sick of this shit that they’re actively avoiding anything that has even the slightest smell of DEI about it.

You think this game failed because devs advocated inclusivity?
 

PeteBull

Gold Member
You think this game failed because devs advocated inclusivity?
It just hit the perfect storm of being offputing for 99,9% of gamers, even ones who love arena shooter genre, hopefully sony HQ learns stuff from that- aka no woke shit and no wokesters as heads of the studios, those always lead to low quality product and diseasters.
 
You think this game failed because devs advocated inclusivity?
It was the final nail. Look at it this way. It's a worse version of Overwatch 2 that's free to play. Imaging opening a burger fast food chain which sold burgers that tasted half as nice and cost twice as much as Mc Donald's and to top it off, the burgers are made purposely garish and ugly for political reasons that only even apply in a select few countries in the West which people still don't get. It's not a global thing yet the product is.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
It just hit the perfect storm of being offputing for 99,9% of gamers, even ones who love arena shooter genre, hopefully sony HQ learns stuff from that- aka no woke shit and no wokesters as heads of the studios, those always lead to low quality product and diseasters.
The real perfect failure storm probably has more to do with the fact that this genre is now incredibly crowded, and it's crowded by games that are free. The free to play model for arena shooters relies heavily on cosmetic shops - but this game has both a price tag of $40 and a cosmetics shop. It could be the most fun and polished game ever made, but if your main competition are hugely established franchises that have no upfront costs, you're already fighting an uphill battle to put this in player's hands. Combine the fact that this has no single player campaign (even a tacked-on one would have helped), so people who enjoy your game are reliant on there being lots of other people buying your game, and this was set up for failure from the start.

Now that nobody is playing the game, its death spiral begins in earnest before things even get off the ground. Steam is probably processing a huge number of refunds on this game, and matchmaking times will start getting longer and longer from here. Nobody wants to buy a dead multiplayer-only game.

Ugly characters and disparaging remarks from the devs have only helped cement its failure further.
 
Not exactly, but definitely making unattractive inclusive characters the main roster played part. Videogames are escapism, I know I have plenty of rough edges but I want a nice looking character if I am playing in fantasy

It just hit the perfect storm of being offputing for 99,9% of gamers, even ones who love arena shooter genre, hopefully sony HQ learns stuff from that- aka no woke shit and no wokesters as heads of the studios, those always lead to low quality product and diseasters.

I think that’s a big part of it. Probably would’ve been fucked either way but at least they could’ve got gamers to give it a chance if the character roster wasn’t so damn ugly.

It was the final nail. Look at it this way. It's a worse version of Overwatch 2 that's free to play. Imaging opening a burger fast food chain which sold burgers that tasted half as nice and cost twice as much as Mc Donald's and to top it off, the burgers are made purposely garish and ugly for political reasons that only even apply in a select few countries in the West which people still don't get. It's not a global thing yet the product is.

200w.gif


Come on, man. You think PC gamers are so invested in 'anti-woke' rhetoric that they've elected to boycott the game because the devs advocated inclusivity in their...*checks notes*....character designs....
 
Last edited:

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
200w.gif


Come on, man. You think PC gamers are so invested in 'anti-woke' rhetoric that they've elected to boycott the game because the devs advocated inclusivity in their...*checks notes*....character designs....
Some of them maybe. I think more gamers aren’t consciously aware of the ideology behind the game. Rather they just think the roster looks like total ass. Which is kind of a kiss of death for a hero shooter.

But the reason the roster looks so shitty is because they went down some diversity & inclusion checklist while designing them, then took great care to make sure the men aren’t too masculine and the women aren’t to feminine or appealing to the “male gaze”
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
Some of them maybe. I think more gamers aren’t consciously aware of the ideology behind the game. Rather they just think the roster looks like total ass. Which is kind of a kiss of death for a hero shooter.

But the reason the roster looks so shitty is because they went down some diversity & inclusion checklist while designing them, then took great care to make sure the men aren’t too masculine and the women aren’t to feminine or appealing to the “male gaze”
The initial reveal did it no favors either

Here we waited for a PS show and this game took the first what 10 minutes with over half of that being a dumb CGI cinematic?

Maybe I am just getting old but release that type of shit on Youtube and let people go watch it if they want

In a "showcase" or State of Play don't do CGI shit, give me gameplay
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
I did finally get into a match of rivalry which is their take on competitive ranked.

This is where the game shines. You build a deck of heroes you want to use, and each hero has a perma boost to your characters for remaining rounds. So for example you get more health regen on this character, next round you pick a sniper that has longer range with guns, but now also has health regen. It forces the player to think in immediate ways of selecting a hero they are good with to win a round, but also think long term to get to buffs that will make later picks even stronger.

One life per round so you’re now needing to communicate , coordinate, and actually have a back and forth tug of war with the enemy team.

It’s good and fun, but this game is dead within a month tops.

Free to play can’t save this either.
 

Raven117

Member
200w.gif


Come on, man. You think PC gamers are so invested in 'anti-woke' rhetoric that they've elected to boycott the game because the devs advocated inclusivity in their...*checks notes*....character designs....
It is one reason of the bigger point that firewalk made a game that nobody really wanted, in a saturated market, and charged too much. We can debate how big a reason that is till we are blue in the face, but we won’t ever truly know. It’s just an unappealing product.

It’s all there is to it really.
 
Last edited:
200w.gif


Come on, man. You think PC gamers are so invested in 'anti-woke' rhetoric that they've elected to boycott the game because the devs advocated inclusivity in their...*checks notes*....character designs....
No, because that's not what I said. I said it was the final nail but not the integral part of its failure. If it was an amazing game, free to play and not launched into a saturated market then it would have done better all things remaining the same. However if the product is already unappealing then its aesthetics will make it even worse. You may not like but there will have been people who bought Stellar blade because of how the main character looked. I work for a company that makes product for a primarily female customer base and every time we have made the products to appeal to s more masculine audience they have bombed complaining it doesn't look feminine anymore. This is just the way it is. This stuff can matter to some.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
rFhUWP0.png


Currently 4.6k viewers on Twitch, meaning there are about 80 or so categories/games more popular right now.

3,859 of those viewers are from 4 streams with women in various states of undress.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
It is one reason of the bigger point that firewalk made a game that nobody really wanted, in a saturated market, and charged too much.

It’s all there is to it really.
The only thing this game offers is top notch visuals in this genre.

Overwatch is more competitive, and a game like marvel rivals is more fun to a casual.

This game is good- don’t get it twisted. It plays very well and has tight combat, but that’s nowhere near enough to compete against those two and it isn’t free to play.

It needed to do a lot more, have some better character designs or at least alternative skins that aren’t just color swaps, and drop the woke agenda speak online.

Even then? I still didn’t have as much fun at almost level 20 in this game now as I did with marvel rivals beta.
 

Haint

Member
To be fair - most of the budget was paid for before acquisition by someone ;P
Wonder how much Sony actually paid for the studio though.


This I really doubt though.
Engagement metrics have a lot more visibility than +1 day to launch - I've witnessed bombing performance from the inside before and it was never really a surprise to anyone (or at least - there was never a discrepancy of even a single order of magnitude - let alone several). Ie. you might miss predictions by say - 50-100% - but not by 10000-50000%.

What's there to doubt? You don't spend this amount of money developing a $40 game expecting to move 100K or even 1 million units. Their internal revenue forecasts were clearly on par with their premier singleplayer titles. There aren't even any signs of predatory microtransactions or gambling mechanics trying to capitalize on a few whales, they straight up expected an incredibly high volume of raw units sales and missed them catastrophically.
 
Last edited:

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
The initial reveal did it no favors either

Here we waited for a PS show and this game took the first what 10 minutes with over half of that being a dumb CGI cinematic?

Maybe I am just getting old but release that type of shit on Youtube and let people go watch it if they want

In a "showcase" or State of Play don't do CGI shit, give me gameplay
For sure, you could practically see the audience turning against the game in real time during the reveal.

“Ooh we finally get to see what this Concord game is! Sony bought this studio and the game has been in development for a long time. I bet it’s something good.”

“This is some high quality CGI”

“Alright this feels kinda like Guardians of the Galaxy complete with the quippy Marvel dialog.. oh well, what really matters is the gameplay”

“Finally some gameplay…. Wait, it’s seriously another 5v5 hero shooter? Nobody wants this.”

“Oh my god these are the worst character designs I’ve ever seen”

“LMAO they even put gender pronouns on the character select screen”

“They’re going to charge 40 bucks for this??”
 
I never really obsess about sales numbers to the extent some PS fans do on here, but what is actually hilarious is only 1 day after Concord mega bombs suddenly it is useless to compare them.

Hellblade 2 is a short art game not designed to be played for long periods of time. It also released on a sub service. Even then it did better than Concorde and it cost $10 more. It also reviewed higher, will likely win best graphics and audio of the year in multiple places and is likely in the running for best graphics in a game ever at this point.

Even Redfall did better and its on a sub, and its a decent 20 hour single player game and it was $70.

Everyone should let this sink in next time an Xbox release is dogpiled as the worst game ever.
I'm shitting on concord since the reveal video. I've also shitted on Hellblade 2. I'm talking about people that were defending one while attacking the other. I don't think i've seen anyone here on this thread really defending Concord. Did see some damage control about how big of a financial hit it is to Sony, but that's pretty much it. I'm just observing a bit of a double standard by some people, that's all :)

Yes, redfall and hellblade 2 sold better than concord... might say more about the standards of both audiences. Not sure it's something to celebrate :messenger_grinning_smiling:
 

BigBeauford

Member
200w.gif


Come on, man. You think PC gamers are so invested in 'anti-woke' rhetoric that they've elected to boycott the game because the devs advocated inclusivity in their...*checks notes*....character designs....
How many more bombs do you need to see?

Concord
Flintlock
Suicide Squad
Zau
Dustborn

And there is a difference between being inclusive and being woke.
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
I'm shitting on concord since the reveal video. I've also shitted on Hellblade 2. I'm talking about people that were defending one while attacking the other. I don't think i've seen anyone here on this thread really defending Concord. Did see some damage control about how big of a financial hit it is to Sony, but that's pretty much it. I'm just observing a bit of a double standard by some people, that's all :)

Yes, redfall and hellblade 2 sold better than concord... might say more about the standards of both audiences. Not sure it's something to celebrate :messenger_grinning_smiling:
Not only did Redfall and Hellblade 2 sell better on Steam I would venture to say maybe even more people played them via Gamepass on PC dividing those numbers even more
 
How much did they pay SBI for they/them consulting? Sony must be proud, maybe one day they/them will break $100k in revenue and maybe reach Redfall numbers.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
200w.gif


Come on, man. You think PC gamers are so invested in 'anti-woke' rhetoric that they've elected to boycott the game because the devs advocated inclusivity in their...*checks notes*....character designs....

While far from being the only reason for this game's disastrous launch, it would be disingenuous to suggest that the designs of the characters, and the way they have been positioned, did not contribute to that spectacular failure.

The characters are universally ugly, poorly designed, and largely exist to cover a demographic that does not play these games en masse. Sorry, but people don't want to play big fat women in their hero shooters. They want wish fulfilment, not lard fulfilment. That goes for female and male players.
 
Last edited:
I never really obsess about sales numbers to the extent some PS fans do on here, but what is actually hilarious is only 1 day after Concord mega bombs suddenly it is useless to compare them.

Hellblade 2 is a short art game not designed to be played for long periods of time. It also released on a sub service. Even then it did better than Concorde and it cost $10 more. It also reviewed higher, will likely win best graphics and audio of the year in multiple places and is likely in the running for best graphics in a game ever at this point.

Even Redfall did better and its on a sub, and its a decent 20 hour single player game and it was $70.

Everyone should let this sink in next time an Xbox release is dogpiled as the worst game ever.

What exactly do you mean by “did better”?

0*anything = 0

These games all had effectively zero player counts, meaning they lost massive amounts of money

Hellblade 2 took ages to come out with a large team working with a new engine and it regressed in gameplay from the original. Its an overrated massive shit sandwich and in no way anything other than a massive failure
 
Last edited:

Holammer

Member
This could be THE biggest AAA misfire ever, right?

Great - this will teach Sony not to make shit like this
Budget wise I think Suicide Squad's Rocksteady might be worse off even if they managed to shift a few copies at release, much larger team with almost 100 employees more than Firewalk and they worked on Squad since 2012. Both teams likely used contract workers for voice acting, localization and such.

While I'm at it, Concord's credits list a PVE mode.
 
Not only did Redfall and Hellblade 2 sell better on Steam I would venture to say maybe even more people played them via Gamepass on PC dividing those numbers even more
You're probably quite right about that. It's the defense of shit games like all of those on here that is fucking annoying, independently of the varying degrees of commercial (in)success though.
It's just good to see mediocrity being punished no matter on which console it is :messenger_bicep:
 

Nydius

Member
And there is a difference between being inclusive and being woke.

I think Overwatch can be a prime example of this statement. The game launched with an extremely diverse cast. There were white, black, Hispanic, middle eastern, and Asian characters. Male, females, and robot. There were young and old characters, a midget/dwarf, a butch fem and rule 34 fodder. Countries around the world were represented.

That was diverse.

Then they began pandering. Tracer’s gay! Surprise so is Soldier (and maybe Reaper too)! Did we mention gay?! Pharah’s a lesbian now and Baptiste swings both ways! Symmetra’s on the spectrum and please don’t wank to D.VA, she has PTSD.

That is wokeism.

Concord jumped straight to the latter with ridiculous nonsense like giving pronouns to a robot. Never in the years that I played Overwatch did I wonder about the pronouns of Bastion or Zenyatta… because they’re fucking robots.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom