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[ManaByte]

 

[FoxMcChief]

 

[MLSabre]

These are the teams who used to put out a lot of their genre and middle market games which filled out release calendars, as well as provided the bulk of support for their side-hustles like PSVR, PSP and Vita.

I guess the platform holders, excluding Nintendo, will have to relearn the value of having variety of games of varying budget levels. Though I suppose the greedy suits stands in the way of making sane choices.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

This is pure copium.

It is by far the biggest flop from any modern studio. It’s being taken out back and assassinated.

They don’t want the game associated with the brand. They want it to be wiped from public memory.

Some companies are self aware to kill it early rather than later

I can think of plenty of other games that also should have been killed but were left to fester in the market too long.

We know of their death because the studio is now gone.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

And Ivy is the ugliest character in the game too.

 

[mayham2199]

So expectations are something we can't measure which fits some people's narratives

Personally time and money spent on this and being a Sony 1st party title that Sony bought this studio because they showed them this game is in fact measurable

I don't know to me feels like suicide squad was a bigger flop. I don't consider the amount of time the game was on the market as much of anything really because a lot of these companies will keep a GAAS running just to try and turn it around and continue losing money.

 

[Little Chicken]

You forgot furries.

.

 

[NickFire]

When did I say it didn’t have any expectations at all?

Of course they wanted it to be the next big hero shooter, but it’s not like it’s some tentpole franchise. These GaaS titles are a lottery ticket. Expectations of some failures are baked into the cake of expectations

This game was representative of Sony’s shifting attention to a “modern audience” and entirely different type of game compared to its bread and butter god will experiences. The flop was far greater than just the game.

 

[Zacfoldor]

I see we've already entered the even MORE entertaining "it's everyone else's fault" stage. This shit is my favorite. From bigot conspiracies to white people to Sony to probably some dev suffering from Covid symptoms to who the fuck knows what, never ever the actual game nor studio.

lol yeah, this is totally all our fault.

Like if only we kept our pesky traps shut all the cool kids would be out there playing Concord right now, but we shut them down with our male gaze and our Vegeta-like social behavior.

 

[Pop]

Ya Phils track record is superb

 

[TintoConCasera]

Poor thing wasn't alive even long enough to get memed around.

Well, almost.

Spoiler

And Ivy is the ugliest character in the game too.

How about Concord? Asking for a friend.

 

[Gaiff]

When did I say it didn’t have any expectations at all?

Of course they wanted it to be the next big hero shooter, but it’s not like it’s some tentpole franchise. These GaaS titles are a lottery ticket. Expectations of some failures are baked into the cake of expectations

Dude, the game had an 8 year dev cycle, a new controller, and over $100M invested into this. It didn't last two weeks before Sony pulled the plug. Even Babylon's Fall lasted longer and had a higher player count on Steam. Suicide Squad had something like 12x the number of peak players on Steam and is still being updated. Concord is one of the biggest flops of all time. There's no way to spin this. It might be the costliest video game project ever.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

This game was representative of Sony’s shifting attention to a “modern audience” and entirely different type of game compared to its bread and butter god will experiences. The flop was far greater than just the game.

So was Helldivers 2

Again, lottery ticket. It won and has completely covered the cost of Concord’s failure and turned a profit

 

[near]

When did I say it didn’t have any expectations at all?

Of course they wanted it to be the next big hero shooter, but it’s not like it’s some tentpole franchise. These GaaS titles are a lottery ticket. Expectations of some failures are baked into the cake of expectations

Sony acquired Firewalk Studios because they tempered expectations, amirite?

 

[hemo memo]

When did I say it didn’t have any expectations at all?

Of course they wanted it to be the next big hero shooter, but it’s not like it’s some tentpole franchise. These GaaS titles are a lottery ticket. Expectations of some failures are baked into the cake of expectations

Yeah a $200m and 8 years of development and “the expectations of some failures” is that it could crash so bad that they would need to shut it down after 2 weeks and refund people? Dude c’mon.

 

[NickFire]

So was Helldivers 2

Again, lottery ticket. It won and has completely covered the cost of Concord’s failure and turned a profit

Only on the new type of game front. It didn’t alienate most people at the same time.

 

[{insert code here}]

He feels your pain like his wife feels his tongue in her asshole

 

[nickplaysgames404]

Ouch i am glad i didn't buy it, but i was sorta tempted at the time...

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Dude, the game had an 8 year dev cycle, a new controller, and over $100M invested into this. It didn't last two weeks before Sony pulled the plug. Even Babylon's Fall lasted longer and had a higher player count on Steam. Suicide Squad had something like 12x the number of peak players on Steam and is still being updated. Concord is one of the biggest flops of all time. There's no way to spin this. It might be the costliest video game project of all time.

12x0 = 0

Concord is a $100M flop when suicide squad is easily multiples more than that

Hell, Sony has had bigger flops that never even came to market, like SSM or SP’s new ps4 IPs

 

[Gaiff]

Who knows?

Iirc there's an interview with Cory Barlog floating around, think it was about GOW 2018, where he talks about how Sony let him try out a project that didnt work out prior to GOW 2018 which had cost ~150M or something.

So it's not like Sony doesn't invest such amounts of money into projects that might not lead anywhere.

Has nothing to do with what I said. Did you seriously think Sony didn't have high expectations despite pouring hundreds of millions into this? Same for Cory's project. They certainly did expect a lot, but it simply didn't pan out.

 

[Hudo]

wdym?

i’m looking at this and i’m rock hard

 

[TheChumpNation]

Another rousing success in catering to "modern audiences".

 

[[Sigma]]

 

[FoxMcChief]

But expectations are low.

 

[ViciousAgenda]

So expectations are something we can't measure which fits some people's narratives

Personally time and money spent on this and being a Sony 1st party title that Sony bought this studio because they showed them this game is in fact measurable

Hes coping real hard.

 

[Fabieter]

I am sorry but whats wrong with you people?

Go buy astrobot and have fun with it on friday.

Instead we are wasting head space on a game noone even cared to download the beta me included.

Whats wrong with you?

It's fun nothing more

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Has nothing to do with what I said. Did you seriously think Sony didn't have high expectations despite pouring hundreds of millions into this? Same for Cory's project. They certainly did expect a lot, but it simply didn't pan out.

All I’m saying is it’s objectively not the biggest flop of all time

Not even close

A $100M game has much lower expectations than a $300M+ game

This is obvious

 

[mayham2199]

All I’m saying is it’s objectively not the biggest flop of all time

Not even close

Seems like there's a lot of definitions about what flop means here. Maybe we need to establish what the main criteria is for flop first then go from there.

 

[Yoboman]

I fucking despise politics in games and in online discourse. I love that evillore banned politics on gaf. It sucks to see the industry completely fucking obsessed with pushing agendas. Star Wars outlaws is not a bad game like concord. it has a 78 on metacritic and yet its being blasted on youtube, twitter and most message boards to the point where its basically a flop now. Why? Because the main character is ugly. Why is she ugly? Because some moron decided women in modern video games cant be attractive. I do not understand. Nathan Drake is also a rat criminal and he looked like this.

Why do this? Especially when your engineers have gone above and beyond creating a beautiful next gen game? Especially when your greedy publisher has allowed you to make an AAA story driven adventure instead of shoving GaaS down your throat like most other publishers? Why have a black samurai in your very first Japanese AC game? I honestly dont care about the african samurai or the ugly lead. I think the black samurai actually looks badass, and am too big of a graphics whore to let next gen games go, but I see flops like this and I am like who is responsible? I highly doubt the CEO of ubisoft wanted an ugly female lead or a black samuari. I highly doubt Herman wanted every single character in Concord to be absolutely repulsive. Have pronouns.

It's those goddamn millennial devs who have hijacked this industry and people are too afraid to call them out and stop them in their tracks for fear of being blasted on twitter. i bet 99% of millenial workers are normal and its the mentally deranged idiots who we have let take over the asylum.

Yes

Games used to be designed on the rule of cool. Now it's about preaching a message, and that message is about 10-15 years out of date from being interesting or culturally relevant. 13 year old boys aren't going to be buying your game featuring overweight 38 year old millenials. I don't know how this is hard to see

It's the same thing I feel about Marvel style writing. It's not 2010 anymore. We can move on

I have nothing against hiring a diverse team of people. But keep that shit behind closed doors. I do not need to see a reflection of your HR policy in your character design. Like do I have to describe how fucking boring and lame that shit is? If the ideas you bring to gaming are literally skin deep nobody is going to care

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Has nothing to do with what I said. Did you seriously think Sony didn't have high expectations despite pouring hundreds of millions into this? Same for Cory's project. They certainly did expect a lot, but it simply didn't pan out.

Depends on what you consider high.
I doubt they expected it to be ranked amongst titles like OW, COD and Fortnite.
That's probably why they charged €40 upfront.

It just completely bombed, so pulling the plug this quickly was inevitable.

 

[Banjo64]

Not sure why he is trying to spin this in any direction other than it will be one of the biggest flops ever and very likely the overall leader in the clubhouse of flops considering 200 mil, 8 years dev time for 2 weeks of being online

11 days!

 

[DoubleClutch]

Oh noez I was so excited to play the game

 

[SlimySnake]

I am sorry but whats wrong with you people?

Go buy astrobot and have fun with it on friday.

Instead we are wasting head space on a game noone even cared to download the beta me included.

Whats wrong with you?

Because of this.

This game along with a dozen others came at the expense of the single player narrative driven games playstation fans love to play. 60% of their budget this year is wasted on these games. At a time where costs have risen exponentially, they have cut down investment in single player games, shut down studios, laid off almost a thousand people from talented studios like ND, GG and Insomniac, all to invest in trash like this.

Maybe you are not a fan of playstation. But people who are fans should look at how they cut down the sp investment by FY23 and then only brought it up to FY19 pre pandemic levels when they shouldve been increasing the budgets to keep up with rising costs of next gen game development. Concord survived while other studios got shut down or gutted by herman cunt and his band of morons.

That is why people care.

 

[Nydius]

Dude, the game had an 8 year dev cycle, a new controller, and over $100M invested into this. It didn't last two weeks before Sony pulled the plug. Even Babylon's Fall lasted longer and had a higher player count on Steam. Suicide Squad had something like 12x the number of peak players on Steam and is still being updated. Concord is one of the biggest flops of all time. There's no way to spin this. It might be the costliest video game project ever.

You’re arguing with a brick wall. He’s been doing this spin for a week now and many of us, myself included, have pointed out the exact same things you just did. He deflects with Xbox whataboutisms while burying his head in the sand and repeating the same tired arguments.

 

[sachos]

What should I buy with my refund? Thinking the new space marine game?

Astro Bot

 

[qbxwhi]

A piece of gaming history now!

maybe.
its kind of like buying that shitty game brink that everyone has forgotten about by now.
everyone will forget this in some years.

but sure its interesting for now.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

they have cut down investment in single player games

No they haven’t

 

[wvnative]

 

[Rudius]

I am sorry but whats wrong with you people?

Go buy astrobot and have fun with it on friday.

Instead we are wasting head space on a game noone even cared to download the beta me included.

Whats wrong with you?

They/them could have made a good game instead, one people wanted to play.

 

[Yoboman]

Who knows?

Iirc there's an interview with Cory Barlog floating around, think it was about GOW 2018, where he talks about how Sony let him try out a project that didnt work out prior to GOW 2018 which had cost ~150M or something.

So it's not like Sony doesn't invest such amounts of money into projects that might not lead anywhere.

I think you are talking about Stig Amussens project

Cory came back for the GOW reboot, he was working on that separate to the rest of the studio working on Stigs doomed project

 

[N30RYU]

Honest question... is it really better to close the game than refund it and give it with PS+ the rest of the month before even thinking of trying the f2p route?

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

You’re arguing with a brick wall. He’s been doing this spin for a week now and many of us, myself included, have pointed out the exact same things you just did. He deflects with Xbox whataboutisms while burying his head in the sand and repeating the same tired arguments.

“Whataboutism”?

 

[RainblowDash]

Damn that didn’t last long at all!!!

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Honest question... is it really better to close the game than refund it and give it with PS+ the rest of the month before even trying the f2p route?

They may do that out they need to refund everyone first before going f2p

 

[GametimeUK]

Now listen to your fans and give us Bloodborne.

 

[Zacfoldor]

I guess the platform holders, excluding Nintendo, will have to relearn the value of having variety of games of varying budget levels. Though I suppose the greedy suits stands in the way of making sane choices.

Totally, it's almost like 3-4 successful small games could make money like 1 big game but you'd never know it from the get rich quick schemers we have running the industry.

Somewhere we forgot how to grind. Japan leadership knows how to grind.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Because of this.

This game along with a dozen others came at the expense of the single player narrative driven games playstation fans love to play. 60% of their budget this year is wasted on these games. At a time where costs have risen exponentially, they have cut down investment in single player games, shut down studios, laid off almost a thousand people from talented studios like ND, GG and Insomniac, all to invest in trash like this.

Maybe you are not a fan of playstation. But people who are fans should look at how they cut down the sp investment by FY23 and then only brought it up to FY19 pre pandemic levels when they shouldve been increasing the budgets to keep up with rising costs of next gen game development. Concord survived while other studios got shut down or gutted by herman cunt and his band of morons.

That is why people care.

Coincidently, FY23 is right after a pandemic during FY20 through FY22.

 

[BigBeauford]

So was Helldivers 2

Again, lottery ticket. It won and has completely covered the cost of Concord’s failure and turned a profit

Helldivers 2 was definitely not made for modern audience. It's a shooter tailor made for out of practice gamer dads.

 

[DoubleClutch]

My opinion doesn’t matter. Nobody’s does.

The simple fact of the matter is the game is a flaming dumpster fire of total horseshit.

This is evident as Sony would rather pull the plug and make it go away than have this IP damage its entire brand. The irony… the same ideology (DEI) that calls everything else toxic, helped something become one of the most toxic IPs in gaming history.

 

[nial]

No fucking way it's happening on the same day as Astro Bot's launch. Ruthless.
I think these are good news for the most part, they're stopping any further resources on a lost cause, while everyone who bought the game got his money back. I do feel for Firewalk, tho; I wouldn't call most of the studio talentless hacks, as I think everything what happened is more of a terrible direction on the project, and shitty local studio management overall. They're not going to be open for too long.

Buying the entire studio is the strongest show of confidence possible and is a huge cause for concern as Sony’s judgement is clearly way of base for the first time its history.

I’ll say it again; the move to California has killed the brand we grew up with.

Come on now, how do you even explain Square Enix funding Avengers, which was a shitty failed GAAS as well?

This game along with a dozen others came at the expense of the single player narrative driven games playstation fans love to play.

You're fearmongering over nothing, there has been a decent amount of them on PS5 already, and they won't stop being made. Death Stranding 2 is coming next frickin' year.