Support NeoGAF

[blacktout]

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

If the plan was to transition to free to play, I think they would just offer a bunch of free cosmetics or other perks to players who bought the game, or force f2p players to grind for characters. Pulling the plug and offering refunds means that they lose even the tiny player base that they already have and will be forced to restart from scratch with a game that has already flopped monumentally. I don't think that's what's happening here. Pretty sure they're just cutting their losses. I'd be absolutely shocked if the game comes back in any form.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

GAF watching this trainwreck from reveal, release, the sales numbers, the rapidly declining Steam player counts and finally the cancellation.

 

[bundylove]

It's fun nothing more

I was wrong. I thought gaf has a sense of humor and would know the whats wrong witchu pastor

 

[FoxMcChief]

No, it just means one company had the balls to kill it sooner than the other

Are you trying to give credit to Sony for mercy killing something they stupidly brought into the world? Something they wasted money and time on, that could have been allocated elsewhere, like keeping more folks employed after their massive layoffs?

 

[Fahdis]

New industry precedent set. Vote with your wallets heathens. It works.

 

[funking giblet]

I dunno, maybe don't use Saints Row character creator for your shitty characters next time!

 

[Jigsaah]

If the plan was to transition to free to play, I think they would just offer a bunch of free cosmetics or other perks to players who bought the game, or force f2p players to grind for characters. Pulling the plug and offering refunds means that they lose even the tiny player base that they already have and will be forced to restart from scratch with a game that has already flopped monumentally. I don't think that's what's happening here. Pretty sure they're just cutting their losses. I'd be absolutely shocked if the game comes back in any form.

I think it's all about reputation at this point. They don't want this blemish to sustain in a year where they are launching the PS5 Pro and Astrobot. Get out ahead of it as much as possible. This will carry a narrative for bit before falling into obscurity.

 

[bundylove]

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.

 

[Fishels]

Well i think they will change the game and make it f2p. They are not going to abandon it completely.

Concord FREEgunner edition


In all seriousness I hope Sony knows the market is good with GOOD multiplayer games. Like IP we want to see more out of.

 

[Burger King]

Go woke go broke?

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Are you trying to give credit to Sony for mercy killing something they stupidly brought into the world? Something they wasted money and time on, that could have been allocated elsewhere, like keeping more folks employed after their massive layoffs?

I’m only crediting them with making the hard decision of accepting a failure early on

They could have left it to flounder like SS. Would that be better? That’s what the poster I replied to is claiming

 

[BennyBlanco]

the fact that they are giving refunds to everyone shows some kind of accountability though.

Yeah Ill give them credit for this. Game should’ve been canned after the beta and saved themselves the embarrassment, but it’s unfair to have people pay $40 for a dead game. Might as well take it on the chin.

 

[Banjo64]

from purple town

great designs bro

 

[FunkMiller]

Looking forward to this dying all over again when they rerelease it FTP, with minimal character changes.

 

[Chuck Berry]

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

Not even close

What's a bigger one?

Anthem? At least they let that one breathe for a year.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Looking forward to this dying all over again when they rerelease it FTP, with minimal character changes.

No way this goes free to play. It will be erased from the world.

 

[salva]

Haha holy shit, what a disaster. This has to be the worse game ever no? Such a waste of resources.

 

[R6Rider]

This has to be the worse game ever no?

Worst game? Not even close.

 

[SweetTooth]

Are you trying to give credit to Sony for mercy killing something they stupidly brought into the world? Something they wasted money and time on, that could have been allocated elsewhere, like keeping more folks employed after their massive layoffs?

Yeah? Sony will recoup these loses and more 3 days from now.

 

[BigBeauford]

I dunno what modern audience even objectively means, I just aligned it with “GaaS”

I don’t think Concord is indicative of a trend

People that can't enjoy a cartoon without this disclaimer:

 

[thismeinteil]

Damn, didn't expect that. But, if you're going to do it, now would be the time. Give it a few days for this news to air out and then hit gamers with Astrobot, the real GOTG contender.

 

[RAÏSanÏa]

Wild.

Even the name of this game doesn't seemed well thought out. Concord brought to mind a completely different type of game before I looked into it. Maybe the name has something to do with the story rather than the gameplay, it doesn't matter now.

The shutdown is definitely historic. Problems sound mostly cosmetic and things that can be adjusted. It's a big investment and it has a lot of attention on it. Call the rerelease UnConcord, yet they might call it Compromise. But, the type of game seems just more of the same type in a crowded market.

Doubtful this is going to be some cultural watershed because of a shitty game. lol But, can understand the jubilation of the starving getting a morsel.

 

[SlimySnake]

Did experts from Bungie reviewed and gave green light to this title ?

lmao. good point. Whoever from Bungie cancelled Factions and greenlit this trash needs to go as well.

This is not going to happen but i hope Sony does a complete makeover of the PS business after this. Move the HQ out of fucking San Francisco and get them back to Tokyo. Have it run by Japanese people, not the suits over in the west. Nintendo, Fromsoft, Capcom and other Japanese publishers seem to be handling modern game development just fine. They dont need 'help' from greedy corpo suits from the west.

Have a singular vision that revolves around creating innovative and polished video games. I was reading a quote from one of the OG Nintendo CEOs and he's like why would i do market research? Nintendo CREATES the market. Be that. Create your own trends. Dont chase the gaas fad, invent one. You are fucking playstation. You lead, you dont follow. And you definitely dont listen to anything bungie has to say.

 

[namenotfound]

I can't imagine even a rebrand and relaunch breaking even on the cost of a rebrand and redevelopment of all that post launch content they've probably done a fair amount of work towards. Got to move on rather than dig the hole deeper. This isn't FFXIV. FFXIV had an audience even at its worst. It's not Fortnite, there's no genre in the midst of new peaks like battle royale to copy in a couple months to stumble into billions. Move on

 

[Nankatsu]

Just when we thought it would be difficult to top Redfall, Sony snags the Gaming Fail Ballon D'or equivalent.

 

[Yoboman]

For sure.

Contrary to popular believe, I wouldnt have funded the game to begin with and going by general consensus, nobody would.

Curious to know why Sony decided to go ahead with this.
Maybe they thought they had invested too much already and were trying to minimize losses by recouping some money?

I don't think so. It's that their feedback loops are insulated

They are not getting feedback on these projects from gamers. They are getting it from like-minded yes men. Anybody who would have criticised the character design, art choices, clear woke mindset of the game is not considered a potential customer but instead "part of the problem".

Easy to make your project look like everyone is loving it when you can remove all criticism of it

 

[Not_A-Cop_Maybe]

Damn you gameeeers!!! Its all YOUR fault!!!

you mean GAYmerssssssssssss

/s

 

[SlimySnake]

Looking forward to this dying all over again when they rerelease it FTP, with minimal character changes.

At this point, its a tax write off. they will make more money than they ever will with a failed F2P launch.

Apparently the game cost $100 million. I know it was marketed really heavily. If they can show that they made zero money for it, they can write the whole thing off like that Batgirl movie from WB.

 

[Ogbert]

No, it just means one company had the balls to kill it sooner than the other

Neither of these games should have come to market, rocksteady is fucked now

This simply isn’t true.

Suicide Squad is a shit game. But it based on hugely popular IP and, most importantly, has no multiplayer element (in terms of a having to maintain a pvp community). It is, of course, an abject failure but it will hang around for another three or four years on skeleton support, frequently on sale but getting to the point where it claws back a certain portion of its development cost, however fractional.

Concord, in contrast, as a game is *nothing* without concurrent users. For a AAA multiplayer game from Sony to have less than 100 players after a week or so is *astonishingly* bad. It’s being euthanised because it’s very existent is an embarrassment. This hasn’t just failed to sell. It’s been shunned.

 

[Barakov]

Sony is taking Concord offline on September 6th after a disastrous launch. PS5 and PC players will be refunded, as Firewalk Studios explores options "that will better reach our players.​

An important update on Concord

Concord fans -- we’ve been listening closely to your feedback since the launch of Concord on PlayStation 5 and PC and want to thank everyone who has joined the journey aboard the Northstar. Your support and the passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us...

blog.playstation.com

We knew given how it was doing it was on borrowed time. But a week after launch? This has to be a record for the industry.

It just shows going full woke/DEI or whatever you want to call it is a recipe for losing money. Seems like a vast majority of players don't like fugly character designs and those that do most likely don't even play games.

 

[Revolutionary]

That's the funny part.
Not only did Sony not figure out this wasn't going to hit, but they thought it was going to hit so much they went ahead and bought the studio in mid development.

The only way the purchase makes sense to me is that the studio was already in trouble and Sony got it for cheap.

Otherwise, I don't know what the hell the bean counters at Sony were thinking.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

I just can't believe it... WE DIT IT ! YAHOOOOOOO ! Let's party !

Take this lame "talented" dev moaning on Twitter.

 

[Rentahamster]

Now begins the race for the elite few who can Platinum Concord before the game is shut down.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

This simply isn’t true.

Suicide Squad is a shit game. But it based on hugely popular IP and, most importantly, has no multiplayer element (in terms of a having to maintain a pvp community). It is, of course, an abject failure but it will hang around for another three or four years on skeleton support, frequently on sale but getting to the point where it claws back a certain portion of its development cost, however fractional.

Concord, in contrast, as a game is *nothing* without concurrent users. For a AAA multiplayer game from Sony to have less than 100 players after a week or so is *astonishingly* bad. It’s being euthanised because it’s very existent is an embarrassment. This hasn’t just failed to sell. It’s been shunned.

No this is objectively false, they already threw in the towel for support

And it cost way more money to make than concord, it is far more in the red even if it “sold better” (what a phony victory that is)

 

[BennyBlanco]

I’m only crediting them with making the hard decision of accepting a failure early on

They could have left it to flounder like SS. Would that be better? That’s what the poster I replied to is claiming

SS has single player content. No point in pulling it before the licenses expire. I claimed it for free on EGS and never bothered to install it. Maybe a fate worse than death.

Sony kinda had no choice because your paying customers couldn’t find games.

Biggest flop ever? It’s definitely in the conversation. Avengers was also a miserable flop considering budget vs return on investment.

 

[Mythoclast]

Do you think the physical game or the controller will be a rarer collectors item?

 

[bundylove]

Such an immature move.

This would have been the perfect bundle for ps5pro.

What a short sighted move

 

[near]

At this point, its a tax write off. they will make more money than they ever will with a failed F2P launch.

Apparently the game cost $100 million. I know it was marketed really heavily. If they can show that they made zero money for it, they can write the whole thing off like that Batgirl movie from WB.

It's just pure speculation. I'd imagine Sony paid a lot more.

 

[Topher]

Just for this you appologize with gold

Such an immature move.

This would have been the perfect bundle for ps5pro.

What a short sighted move

 

[Dusktildawn48]

from purple town

great designs bro

Being as ugly as possible is a "great design"

 

[jshackles]

Oh....but there is hope...ebay to the rescue

The meme I made a few days ago is actually coming true

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

It's just pure speculation. I'd imagine Sony paid a lot more.

For a basic pvp shooter? No this isn’t a massive AAA game

$100M is the ceiling for cost

 

[Trilobit]

 

[TheDuskwalker]

 

[Fermbiz]

 

[CLW]

Was more successful………

Nah I don’t think Concord is going to single handily crash the gaming market into another depression

 

[bundylove]

 

[skyfinch]

Good! Gives me more time to play Redfall.

 

[BuddyLaDouche]

Sony is nothing more than a shallow trendchaser.

They weren't and then they were, and that guy is gone now so hopefully they aren't. We'll see.

 

[diffusionx]

I’m only crediting them with making the hard decision of accepting a failure early on

They could have left it to flounder like SS. Would that be better? That’s what the poster I replied to is claiming

Suicide Squad sold many more copies than Concord did, and IIRC at full price.