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[PeteBull]

Avengers probably had a much bigger budget and more devs working on it. But that had 31k players peak ccu. Not breaking 1,000 players is unbelievably bad but Avengers was probably more money down the drain considering the IP and all that. Skull and Bones also had a huge budget and was in development forever. I didn't even realize it had came out because nobody gave a shit.

Those were all terrible games that bombed hard;p

 

[MethodRed]

8 years of development

 

[RoboFu]

Eternal Champions is finally not the worst first party flop anymore.

 

[BbMajor7th]

The game could have none any of the character pronouns, or controversial elements, and still sold 700 copies. I didn't even know about them until I came across this thread, and I've been 'following' the game, even played the Beta.

I don't think the internet discourse surrounding this particular element had a measurable impact, particularly when you weigh it against the other prominent factors that relate to game releases. Of course, it may have played a factor for some gamers, but there is nothing to suggest that gaming audiences are politically to the Right to the extent that a high profile Sony title could die at launch. And that's my argument; not that some would have been put off, but rather that it cannot account for sales this low.

The memes don't help. I think the bigger problem is that the 'modern audience' isn't a real thing. It's an attempt to create products with an appeal so broad, inclusive and inoffensive, that it ends up being a formless morass of tired PG13 cliches too bland to appeal to anyone.

It's no coincidence that the word 'slop' has become such a common descriptor: this stuff has no defining or interesting traits - it has every edge filed off, every offensive word or idea removed, every type of human being represented and every popular facet of whatever they're making included.

It's the nadir of a modern product development mindset that believes big data algorithms rather than human ingenuity delivers great products; a cynical effort to make something for everyone that is really meant for no-one.

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

The game could have none any of the character pronouns, or controversial elements, and still sold 700 copies. I didn't even know about them until I came across this thread, and I've been 'following' the game, even played the Beta.

I don't think the internet discourse surrounding this particular element had a measurable impact, particularly when you weigh it against the other prominent factors that relate to game releases. Of course, it may have played a factor for some gamers, but there is nothing to suggest that gaming audiences are politically to the Right to the extent that a high profile Sony title could die at launch. And that's my argument; not that some would have been put off, but rather that it cannot account for sales this low.

Being sick of these lame ass character designs has nothing to do with political ideology my guy. Wtf are you on about. I'm pretty much to the left myself and called this shit out straight from the reveal trailer.

It's 100% about the presentation. That's what is putting people off from even trying the game. It's not the gameplay loop, it's not the story, it's not the gunplay, it's none of the technical achievements or any kind of bugs that made this bomb. I know that because no one wanted to even try it to discover those elements. People just don't want to play a game looking like this and characters looking like this.

You can take this to the bank.

 

[elbourreau]

I often quote this bit from Mr Plinkett Ghostbusters 2016 review. (timestamp). Glad to be working.

WTH ? Tom Hardy is doing reviews ?

 

[Robb]

 

[ArtHands]

On the plus side, Concord's all time peak is better than fan favs such as: I was a teenage exocolonist, Thank goodness youre here, and that Hall of Fame game called Nothing.

Game needs to do a bit better to surpass legendary games like: Milfs of Sunville, Storage Hustle and a Lucky Hunter Demo download.

Time to overtake MILFs of Sunville - Season 2

 

[FunkMiller]

Of course, it may have played a factor for some gamers, but there is nothing to suggest that gaming audiences are politically to the Right to the extent that a high profile Sony title could die at launch. And that's my argument; not that some would have been put off, but rather that it cannot account for sales this low.

As others have readily pointed out, not wanting to buy a game due to poor character design is not 'right wing'.

I think the issue your struggling with is that including diversity and inclusivity in a game is perfectly possible to do successfully - but it requires talent, hard work, and an understanding of the audience.

The people who made this game were not like this. They simply threw out a bunch of characters that checked off items on a list, and put zero thought into any of them beyond what their identities were.

In a hero shooter, that's suicidal. The first thing you have to do in those types of games is make likeable characters people want to play as. In a fun, interesting environment.

Nobody actually hates having diversity in their games (except a very small minority who are super 'right wing' and can be safely ignored for the shaved monkeys they are) but we all hate BAD diversity in our games.

The message to devs is simple: put some bloody effort in. Make your games appealing to a wide audience. Increase your creativity. Stop being lazy and pandering to a very small minority.

 

[laynelane]

This is all I could think of when I got to the wanting to be seen as valid and getting a hug part. When people unknowingly lay themselves bare like that, it's kind of awkward to read.

 

[STARSBarry]

Man I'm so glad they added pronouns to the characters, it really helps with game discussion.

 

[Superposition]

Man I'm so glad they added pronouns to the characters, it really helps with game discussion.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

The memes don't help. I think the bigger problem is that the 'modern audience' isn't a real thing. It's an attempt to create products with an appeal so broad, inclusive and inoffensive, that it ends up being a formless morass of tired PG13 cliches too bland to appeal to anyone.

It's no coincidence that the word 'slop' has become such a common descriptor: this stuff has no defining or interesting traits - it has every edge filed off, every offensive word or idea removed, every type of human being represented and every popular facet of whatever they're making included.

It's the nadir of a modern product development mindset that believes big data algorithms rather than human ingenuity delivers great products; a cynical effort to make something for everyone that is really meant for no-one.

 

[LegendOfKage]

Of course, it may have played a factor for some gamers, but there is nothing to suggest that gaming audiences are politically to the Right to the extent that a high profile Sony title could die at launch. And that's my argument; not that some would have been put off, but rather that it cannot account for sales this low.

Not everything is left / right. I've never quite understood why so many of the people who argue gender is non-binary, and just about every classification can be defined as a spectrum, are also so inclined to see everything through the binary lens of "left or right?" Not sure if that applies to you, but it might be something to think about. Loads of people don't identify as left or right, because they either dislike both or see themselves as a mix of both.

I'll also make the point that while I don't believe most people would avoid playing a game that appeals to them because it's "woke," I will say the "woke" (admittedly a subjective term) intent behind the character design likely led to a bunch of characters that people didn't want to play as. And characters no one wants to play as isn't a good thing when you're trying to sell people on playing your game.

Also "woke" in this case doesn't mean diversity in terms of skin color or gender identity. Loads of people play Apex and Overwatch, and those games are quite diverse. Apex has trans and gay characters, and so does Overwatch, so why didn't all the Apex and Overwatch players show up for Concord? Because this was never about rejecting diversity, it's about rejecting terrible character designs in a 40 dollar online only title that should have been free to play like literally ALL it's major competition.

To expend on this, here's my post from the "saving concord" idea thread:

Hold the game back with a general message of "We've heard the criticism, and we want this to be the best product it can be." Make the game free to play, and give refunds.

Hire a new team to rework / redesign the characters and their outfits. Without changing race or weight, devote your team to making everyone look either attractive, or cool, or badass, or all three. The idea here is make people want to be like the characters in your game. That's what gets people to want to spend money.

Give all robot and face covering helmet characters an optional human character model, and add at least two or three new characters.

 

[Akuji]

Sucks for the devs but will Show Sony that their strenghts are in other genres.

Quite happy about it actually

 

[MayauMiao]

Number of fans on Reddit are not doing any better:

 

[DirtyBast8rd]

I don't know why but I get a warm fuzzy feeling everytime I read about this shitstorm of a game.

 

[Darchaos]

Guys, you dont have to be beatiful to be beatiful, the devs(they, them, it, coffe, who, Hey mom) just took theire inner beuty and transversed it to the chars ingame! Nothing wrong with that. And the 10ths of people playing i think will all agree!

 

[Eimran]

fuck you Sony, well deserved

They get a lot of hate. But honestly, I don't think they get enough hate.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Saving Concord in 4 steps:

1 - Fire the directors, The Professor and their acolytes.

2 - Hire the best character designers money can pay.

3 - Tease major changes with a cutscene in which 2-3 of the diverse cast return from an assignment in their spaceship and then a new ship uncloaks before attacking them. 5 mysterious figures enter the ship and kill everyone onboard except our heroes, who are captured. A sexy twin female warriors tease the latino fatty and right after they kill him in the most gruesome way possible, like Negan's introduction in TWD.

The new evil characters are the sexy and cool looking ones, on a mission to fuck up the diversity bunch.

4 - Announce the game will be F2P, but people who already paid get super dupper skins / weapons / animations for the new characters

 

[N30RYU]

fuck you Sony, well deserved

Tbh they deserve worse. Anyone who bought this should call a refund due to lower player base in a gaas.


The game is beyond salvation... not even free with PS+ and deleting all characters and making a character creator would save it


Ass Creed Black and Starwars UglyBounty will follow the go broke route.

Eventually they will learn the hard way comparing numbers with games like wukong and stellar blade

 

[k1t4j]

I'm sure firestorm has their top he/him/she/her/they/them people working on turning this around; that plus the guidance of the Professor and I can see this becoming the next success story in the vein of ARR.

 

[BigDeadFreak]

Isn't it interesting how game which should include everyone hardly appeal to anyone? Maybe people want play cool heroes, which has none of the problems or struggles they have in their real life... Just a thought

Also, the problem with focusing everything on inclusion is that these people often forget to answer the question of: Included into what?

People only want to be included into things that have value so you have to first create value. Creating a load of bland slop which has a diverse collection of characters won't appeal to anyone. You have to create something high value which, by its very nature, will be exclusive rather than inclusive.

Because this is anathema to the woke mindset they struggle to create anything new that people actually want. It's not that they never do this but it's very rare. What is more common is that they latch onto existing IP and make it more diverse. Even then, their inability to understand how to create exclusive, high value stuff takes over and they often end up killing the host.

 

[Jack Videogames]

I thought astroturfing had to be believable for it to work?

 

[near]

The game could have none any of the character pronouns, or controversial elements, and still sold 700 copies. I didn't even know about them until I came across this thread, and I've been 'following' the game, even played the Beta.

I don't think the internet discourse surrounding this particular element had a measurable impact, particularly when you weigh it against the other prominent factors that relate to game releases. Of course, it may have played a factor for some gamers, but there is nothing to suggest that gaming audiences are politically to the Right to the extent that a high profile Sony title could die at launch. And that's my argument; not that some would have been put off, but rather that it cannot account for sales this low.

Internet discourse can and always will have a measurable impact, to what extent depends on the wider appeal of the game to begin with. In this case there are a multitude of problems the game presents, and just doesn't have enough going for it to push through public discourse. But it would've sold more if one of its core design tenants wasn't being woke. The criticism levelled at the character designs and the inclusion of pronouns in the game has very little to do with being politically to the right. Gamers do not want ideologies forced on them through games. Of course there are extremities on either end, but you're looking at this the wrong way.

 

[yurinka]

Concord is not a Firesprite game

Saving Concord in 4 steps:

1 - Fire the directors, The Professor and their acolytes.

2 - Hire the best character designers money can pay.

3 - Tease major changes with a cutscene in which 2-3 of the diverse cast return from an assignment in their spaceship and then a new ship uncloaks before attacking them. 5 mysterious figures enter the ship and kill everyone onboard except our heroes, who are captured. A sexy twin female warriors tease the latino fatty and right after they kill him in the most gruesome way possible, like Negan's introduction in TWD.

The new evil characters are the sexy and cool looking ones, on a mission to fuck up the diversity bunch.

4 - Announce the game will be F2P, but people who already paid get super dupper skins / weapons / animations for the new characters

A meteor strike kills Bazz, DaVeers, Daw, Duchess, Emari, Lark, IT-Z, Kyps and they dissapear from the game.

A new ship arrives with white, heterosexual player friendly replacements:

• Badass blonde white fit chad
• Badass red haired white jacked mega chad
• Badass brown haired white super jacked giga chad
• Badass ninja robot
• Sexy blonde white woman
• Sexy red haired white woman with big boobs
• Sexy brown haired white woman with huge boobs

Take note from the character design from The First Descendant and ZZZ.

Remember that over 90% of the FPS players, over 90% of the tactical shooter players and over 90% of the eSports games players are (cis) men, and statistically most of them heterosexual. Also remember that most FPS are played in Europe and mostly NA. So, looking at the skin color statistics in these regions, most are white (which includes Mediterranean/latin tan whites).

I mean, most FPS players are white heterosexual cis men from NA and EU. So the character design should be mainly focused to appeal them, who mostly are the ones who pay these games. "Diverse" characters are ok as fillers to complete the cast adding visual variety with different colors and body shapes, but if you want to make a character based (hero shooter, fighting, gatcha) game successful you must make several characters very appealing to the demographics of that gaming genre instead of filling woke/DEI representation quota checklists.

 

[SportsFan581]

The memes don't help. I think the bigger problem is that the 'modern audience' isn't a real thing. It's an attempt to create products with an appeal so broad, inclusive and inoffensive, that it ends up being a formless morass of tired PG13 cliches too bland to appeal to anyone.

The endless focus grouping of characters is certainly one of the bigger issues in narrative games today, it really cuts into the originality and believability of the characters. Here, in a pvp game with limited narrative, they could have put any kind of characters in that they wanted, so long as they didn't get exclusionary in their efforts for diversity. The game itself needed to stand out and they didn't land that part first.

 

[Shubh_C63]

Saving Concord in 4 steps:

1 - Fire the directors, The Professor and their acolytes.

2 - Hire the best character designers money can pay.

3 - Tease major changes with a cutscene in which 2-3 of the diverse cast return from an assignment in their spaceship and then a new ship uncloaks before attacking them. 5 mysterious figures enter the ship and kill everyone onboard except our heroes, who are captured. A sexy twin female warriors tease the latino fatty and right after they kill him in the most gruesome way possible, like Negan's introduction in TWD.

The new evil characters are the sexy and cool looking ones, on a mission to fuck up the diversity bunch.

4 - Announce the game will be F2P, but people who already paid get super dupper skins / weapons / animations for the new characters

If they remotely ended up doing anything close to that, doing a U-Turn that is, The new articles that would come from gaming sites currently praising Concord stance and blaming gamers would be an interesting read in updated articles.

Implying Sony will die on this hill for sure.

 

[Fabieter]

I wonder what else the industry needs before we finally see all those activists get fired from every single studio they infested.

Disney still isn't getting it so there is basically no hope left for western gaming industry either.

 

[Robb]

Concord is not a Firesprite game

Good eye! Always jumble those together.

 

[Topher]

This is actually hilarious

uh oh

The removal of the LGBTQ+ tag was a MAJOR slap in the face to all of us LGBTQ+ folx who bought this game. :: Concord™ General Discussions

I will be refunding immediately. Shame on the devs for this disgusting choice. The only thing worse than all the hateful chuds on here is a company who pretends to stand up for a value only to back down the instant they face backlash. Absolutely shameful behavior. I will be convincing my wife...

steamcommunity.com

 

[ThisIsMyDog]

uh oh

The removal of the LGBTQ+ tag was a MAJOR slap in the face to all of us LGBTQ+ folx who bought this game. :: Concord™ General Discussions

I will be refunding immediately. Shame on the devs for this disgusting choice. The only thing worse than all the hateful chuds on here is a company who pretends to stand up for a value only to back down the instant they face backlash. Absolutely shameful behavior. I will be convincing my wife...

steamcommunity.com

I love this kind of trolling.

 

[winjer]

uh oh

The removal of the LGBTQ+ tag was a MAJOR slap in the face to all of us LGBTQ+ folx who bought this game. :: Concord™ General Discussions

I will be refunding immediately. Shame on the devs for this disgusting choice. The only thing worse than all the hateful chuds on here is a company who pretends to stand up for a value only to back down the instant they face backlash. Absolutely shameful behavior. I will be convincing my wife...

steamcommunity.com

10 years ago, this would be an Onion article. In 2024, it's just another day....

 

[tamago84]

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

If they remotely ended up doing anything close to that, doing a U-Turn that is, The new articles that would come from gaming sites currently praising Concord stance and blaming gamers would be an interesting read in updated articles.

Implying Sony will die on this hill for sure.

Of course. Cultists would rather die. They must feel betrayed by their cheerleaders in the media.

 

[lughnasadh123]

deleted: wrong thread!

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

uh oh

The removal of the LGBTQ+ tag was a MAJOR slap in the face to all of us LGBTQ+ folx who bought this game. :: Concord™ General Discussions

I will be refunding immediately. Shame on the devs for this disgusting choice. The only thing worse than all the hateful chuds on here is a company who pretends to stand up for a value only to back down the instant they face backlash. Absolutely shameful behavior. I will be convincing my wife...

steamcommunity.com

That last line though

I will be convincing my wife and her boyfriend to refund as well

 

[Dirk Benedict]

Time to overtake MILFs of Sunville - Season 2

You may have inadvertently got that game a new sale.

 

[PeteBull]

That last line though

I will be convincing my wife and her boyfriend to refund as well

thats how u know some1 wanted to get internet famous and trolled ;D

 

[PeteBull]

Looks like even with sony employes trying to make artifical crowd game is so bad it cant retain even this tiny audience

https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/#48h

237 atm, 24h peak 473, alltime peak 697

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Time to overtake MILFs of Sunville - Season 2

Hey it just past the 2019 hit - Tree of Savior (Japanese Ver.)

[h3][/h3]

 

[adamsapple]

Welcome back Men_in_Boxes

 

[Moridianae]

I'm sure firestorm has their top he/him/she/her/they/them people working on turning this around; that plus the guidance of the Professor and I can see this becoming the next success story in the vein of ARR.

Hahaha. That's a fatter chance than the character in the game!

Tangentially, I don't think any game will ever have a success story in video game history like ARR. Closest I could think of is No Man's Sky

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Welcome back Men_in_Boxes

Men_in_Boxes

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

I think they should ask people who support the petition for Acolyte to play the game.

Of course, it may have played a factor for some gamers, but there is nothing to suggest that gaming audiences are politically to the Right to the extent that a high profile Sony title could die at launch

The fact that you immediately thought that by not liking the game it makes a person right leaning is completely bonkers.

 

[near]

Welcome back Men_in_Boxes

 

[SportsFan581]

The fact that you immediately thought that by not liking the game it makes a person right leaning is completely bonkers.

He's actually stating that he doesn't believe that politics tanked the game "there is nothing to suggest that gaming audiences are politically to the Right to the extent that a high profile Sony title could die at launch". A bad game tanked, some corners of the internet are looking for something more in that, up next water is wet....

 

[Fake]

uh oh

The removal of the LGBTQ+ tag was a MAJOR slap in the face to all of us LGBTQ+ folx who bought this game. :: Concord™ General Discussions

I will be refunding immediately. Shame on the devs for this disgusting choice. The only thing worse than all the hateful chuds on here is a company who pretends to stand up for a value only to back down the instant they face backlash. Absolutely shameful behavior. I will be convincing my wife...

steamcommunity.com

Literally Unplayable.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

The memes don't help. I think the bigger problem is that the 'modern audience' isn't a real thing. It's an attempt to create products with an appeal so broad, inclusive and inoffensive, that it ends up being a formless morass of tired PG13 cliches too bland to appeal to anyone.

It is pretty clear that the modern trend is to do show more booty. Concord was too later to the market with their poisonous frog colors.

Concord seems to have developed quite the fan art following

 

[BlackTron]

Welcome back Men_in_Boxes