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[Fafalada]

The studio confirmed that at the peak, they only ever had 80 developers at it in total. They’re based in the UK where game dev salaries are lower. Your $150k per employee estimate is laughable.

They are in Cambridge, which is probably second only to London in terms of compensation in tech (and costs of living, for that matter).
The 150k cost per employee is also not unreasonable (usual rule of thumb for overhead is 50% of the cost is salary), especially after MS acquired them. The bigger question is how much they spent outside of core studio.
Anyway, going from what a 'similarly sized' AAA game cost back in 2013 (also inside MSs umbrella, with similarly high expectations riding on it), 100M isn't at all unreasonable budget for HB2.

Like I said, I’d be surprised if the game cost anything above $50, which was 5x the budget of the original Hellblade.

I recall og HB quoting 20-25M in their dev/project presentation, but it's been ages since I've seen it, so maybe I remember wrong.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Your $150k per employee estimate is laughable.

That includes overhead

The actual wages are far less than that

What are the other 40 employees working on?

 

[ManaByte]

 

[Lethal01]

Is it soo inclusive that people aren’t playing it because they themselves can’t pick a character for fear of not playing as a different character? Like, how do you choose between a fat lesbian or nonbinary robot? Who will they offend by not making the correct choice?

Diverse characters with a good vaiety of body types, races and gender is great and I do wish more games would mix things up.....
But they have to make them not look like shit.

Overwatch does a good job with this actually.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

those consultation insights ain't cheap

 

[jshackles]

I dont understand the 'Skull and Bones' numbers. Did it launch later on Steam?, how could it not of hit 1k players at launch.

It was Epic exclusive until yesterday (Concord's launch day). So, a late release of a pretty universally panned Ubisoft "AAAA" game still has more players than this new Sony launch with millions sunk in marketing.

 

[Robb]

It does fit the bill for a “AAAA” title. Has similar player number to Skull and Bones.

 

[AtomicStarving]

Another dumb take. How many F2P games flopped hard? I lost count. These clowns trying hard lol, they have no shame in trying to send it to your stomach

 

[FunkMiller]

What the fuck did they use for the motion capture of Daw?

 

[ComputerBlue]

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

I think Concord was at 141 at one point.

let It die had some interesting game mechanics. and I bet their budget was miniscule compared to Concord.

I just hope Sony make these "talentless freaks" cry.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

I called this game dead on arrival multiple times, and even so this game ended up performing worse tham my already pessimistic expectations. Not even reaching 1k concurrent players on a weekend to a game that received a good amount of marketing is really something.

It's pretty damn impressive to achieve such a low count. Normally a big marketing campaign can trick more people than this, but then again the game is $40 and looks like a cheap ripoff of hundreds of done-to-death games/movies.

 

[Holammer]

It's pretty damn impressive to achieve such a low count. Normally a big marketing campaign can trick more people than this, but then again the game is $40 and looks like a cheap ripoff of hundreds of done-to-death games/movies.

I think they knew they had a dud on their hands, have you seen any big YTbers cover or play it at all? (I don't). Usually when EA release a new BF they grease the palms of everyone with a pulse.

 

[Nydius]

The clowns think the reason this game will flop is because its not F2P....

How many F2P games is already dead? lol

The "it would be thriving if it was F2P" crowd can be shut down with one statement:

If the cost is the issue, how come less than 2500 people could be bothered to play it when it was completely free for four days on PC's biggest platform?

Even when it was free and required exactly two clicks to download and install, no one wanted it.

 

[Interfectum]

 

[Stuart360]

It was Epic exclusive until yesterday (Concord's launch day). So, a late release of a pretty universally panned Ubisoft "AAAA" game still has more players than this new Sony launch with millions sunk in marketing.

Of course, i totally forgot.

 

[BennyBlanco]

This is embarrassing.

Gollum was also a $60 game iirc and this is $40. Spectacular flop.

 

[simpatico]

Question: Is Concord bad enough to get Fairgame$ canceled by proxy? I think so. Very little chance that game sees the light of day after this financial bath.

 

[clarky]

Steamdb currently at 398.

Just woke up, dreams shattered.

 

[Spooky Scary Skeleton]

Its dead jim

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Question: Is Concord bad enough to get Fairgame$ canceled by proxy? I think so. Very little chance that game sees the light of day after this financial bath.

No, they will roll the dice and see where it turns up

But there may be some lessons learned and changes to the game. Needs to be unique, have long progression systems to keep people hooked, and perhaps a reevaluation of pricing model used

 

[clarky]

No, they will roll the dice and see where it turns up

But there may be some lessons learned and changes to the game. Needs to be unique, have long progression systems to keep people hooked, and perhaps a reevaluation of pricing model used

These are not lessons to be learned. Anyone with half a brain already knows what you stated is totally obvious. Apart from Sony and the Concord Dev's apparently.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

These are not lessons to be learned. Anyone with half a brain already knows what you stated is totally obvious. Apart from Sony and the Concord Dev's apparently.

Sony is the one funding it, so yes to them there will be lessons learned

 

[Denorion]

Question: Is Concord bad enough to get Fairgame$ canceled by proxy? I think so. Very little chance that game sees the light of day after this financial bath.

FairGame$ is supposedly a PvPvE Heist game, after Payday 3 flopped, there must be an audience for a heist game

That said, it will need a full-on soft reboot, because that debut trailer was cringe



-Drop the whole "Eat the rich" aesthetic, redesign the characters to look more like professional criminals, among other things

 

[clarky]

Sony is the one funding it, so yes to them there will be lessons learned

I think they should already know to make games unique, have a decent progression systems and take a look at the pricing models of your direct competitors before the fact not after.

Thats basic GAAS shit that even i could have told you.

 

[Raven117]

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.

So, they made a game no one wanted…. (And didn’t have a real market position)

 

[Nydius]

FairGame$ is supposedly a PvPvE Heist game, after Payday 3 flopped, there must be an audience for a heist game

If Payday 3 flopped, and Rockay City flopped even harder, I don't know how much of an audience is left for heist games.

 

[Plague Doctor]

Steamdb currently at 398.

I don't believe you! It's the weekend!

This game has body positivity! This is what people want!! Representation! Breaking away from the toxic past!

I have it on good authority from a professor.

 

[Ozriel]

That includes overhead

The actual wages are far less than that

What are the other 40 employees working on?

They had two other projects in incubation at the time.

They are in Cambridge, which is probably second only to London in terms of compensation in tech (and costs of living, for that matter).
The 150k cost per employee is also not unreasonable (usual rule of thumb for overhead is 50% of the cost is salary), especially after MS acquired them. The bigger question is how much they spent outside of core studio.
Anyway, going from what a 'similarly sized' AAA game cost back in 2013 (also inside MSs umbrella, with similarly high expectations riding on it), 100M isn't at all unreasonable budget for HB2.


I recall og HB quoting 20-25M in their dev/project presentation, but it's been ages since I've seen it, so maybe I remember wrong.

The studio themselves quoted under $10m. Made by 20 devs.
The sequel hit a peak of 80 developers. And they also carried across their frugality to the sequel as I showed earlier.

There’s no justification for anywhere near the $100m estimate you guys are reeling out. None.

 

[StereoVsn]

SteamDB shows these estimates. No idea what their methodology is or how accurate they are.

But yeah… 6.5K at $40 each, minus Steam’s cut…. They probably made enough money to pay for like 6 weeks of The Professor’s salary + benefits.

Yep, that checks out considering they hit max like 600 concurrent.

And yeah, that’s basically not covering the cost to even oat the admins to run the servers.

Plus Sony is still spending on marketing, which is lol worthy.

 

[clarky]

FairGame$ is supposedly a PvPvE Heist game, after Payday 3 flopped, there must be an audience for a heist game

That said, it will need a full-on soft reboot, because that debut trailer was cringe



-Drop the whole "Eat the rich" esthetic, redesign the characters to look more like professional criminals, among other things

I quite fancy a heist game but they got the asthenic all wrong on this as well like you say.

Make it look like Heat and Point Break. You know shit that actually appeals to your core audience. Then you can sell movie tie in skins and such. Put the wacky DEI shit in after your game is successful if you must, like COD does. Its not rocket science.

This will bomb as well as is.

 

[adamsapple]

 

[delirium trigger]

The pc police are always quick to spoil everyone else's fun but they don't even buy their own shit. They need to stay in their lane.

 

[MH3M3D]

Honestly its a good videogame. But it just came out way too late. The hype for this kind of game is dead. If it was unique, nobody would even care about the woke crap thats everywhere anyway.

 

[geary]

Question: Is Concord bad enough to get Fairgame$ canceled by proxy? I think so. Very little chance that game sees the light of day after this financial bath.

Fairgames will have to beat Payday 3..

 

[N30RYU]

 

[StereoVsn]

They had two other projects in incubation at the time.

The studio themselves quoted under $10m. Made by 20 devs.
The sequel hit a peak of 80 developers. And they also carried across their frugality to the sequel as I showed earlier.

There’s no justification for anywhere near the $100m estimate you guys are reeling out. None.

Plus we know MS spent jack and shit on marketing. Like literally there were a few dumb tweets and that’s about it.

 

[clarky]

Look on the bright side. They have at least 3 seasons planned so we can laugh at the CCU once per quarter from here on out.

This is the most profitable game this year.......for steamdb.

 

[Wishmaster92]

This is actually hilarious

 

[Shake Your Rump]

They are committing to support the game with content till April 2025? LOL. ya right.

Sony's fiscal year ends every March 31. My theory is that they keep it running until then, and shut it down at the end of March. That's why this roadmap coincidentally stops at April.

 

[clarky]

This is actually hilarious

Thats bollocks, the tags are user generated. Steam just uses the most popular tags.

 

[Holammer]

Thats bollocks, the tags are user generated. Steam just uses the most popular tags.

They are user generated, but developer/publisher, whomever runs the game account can remove tags.
If not, every game would be tagged psychological horror.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Honestly its a good videogame. But it just came out way too late. The hype for this kind of game is dead. If it was unique, nobody would even care about the woke crap thats everywhere anyway.

The problem is certainly the game itself, 99% of the game playing public couldn't care less about the character bios in a video game. The game looked technically sound but extremely uninspired/generic from the jump. That's not good when you have the entrenched GaaS games sucking up the majority of players as it is.

 

[clarky]

They are user generated, but developer/publisher, whomever runs the game account can remove tags.
If not, every game would be tagged psychological horror.

Any evidence they removed it? Lets face it the game oozes LGBTQ , it hardly needs a tag to point it out.

 

[Raven117]

I quite fancy a heist game but they got the asthenic all wrong on this as well like you say.

Make it look like Heat and Point Break. You know shit that actually appeals to your core audience. Then you can sell movie tie in skins and such. Put the wacky DEI shit in after your game is successful if you must, like COD does. Its not rocket science.

This will bomb as well as is.

Man… something like Heat or Point Break in vibe. Maybe even a little single player campaign would be awesome!

 

[Killjoy-NL]

This is embarrassing.

Yeah, this is one of the biggest flops ever.
Especially given that it's a Sony 1st party.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

They are user generated, but developer/publisher, whomever runs the game account can remove tags.
If not, every game would be tagged psychological horror.

From any certain point of view, it would not be inaccurate to tag every game as psychological horror though

 

[clarky]

From any certain point of view, it would not be inaccurate to tag every game as psychological horror though

Especially Concord lol.

 

[Holammer]

Any evidence they removed it? Lets face it the game oozes LGBTQ , it hardly needs a tag to point it out.

Tag was removed 21h ago. Did they remove it manually or was it the ghost in the machine? The tag is not present among popular user-defined tags.

https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/history/

From any certain point of view, it would not be inaccurate to tag every game as psychological horror though

People add stupid tags to everything. It was removed here too along with the LBGTQ+ tag.

 

[clarky]

Tag was removed 21h ago. Did they remove it manually or was it the ghost in the machine? The tag is not present among popular user-defined tags.

https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/history/

People add stupid tags to everything. It was removed here too along with the LBGTQ+ tag.

So they are making the game harder to find for their (very small) potential audience. This lot are fucking genius