Support NeoGAF

[Last Hearth]

I think we have reached the point that the "anti-woke" is now past the tipping point, where their memes can influence/find resonance with a significant portion (if not the majority)'s perception of what's "cool" and what's "lame" within gaming and geek culture in general.
And what they mock as "lame" and "not cool" will influence and cause many normies to avoid it due to that perception, particularly when the product doesn't have something else strong going for it to overcome that perception.
This was true for SS:KTJL, and now for Concord. Where it wasn't even people tried them and didn't like them, players just stayed away in droves to avoid the stink of being associated these titles.

The game publishing industry better be paying attention to what's going on, or it's going to be very financially costly for them on their future releases.

 

[xiskza]

Imagine saying "no" to Days Gone 2 but seeing Concord and thinking "that's a hit"... fire whoever made those decisions

 

[EviLore]

Well I hope is good.. just start this anime ... first season right now.. long way to go

It's a classic, hope you enjoy!

 

[DenchDeckard]

A new ip from a studio no one has heard of which didn’t have hardly any hype by definition cannot be the biggest flop of all time

It’s just a flop. Suicide squad is a bigger flop

Dude, sony planned weekly fucking cartoons for this game and full on universe building lore.

This wasn't just some come and go game. They made a controller for it. They wanted this to be a huge franchise game.

This is a massive fucking flop. The biggest I've ever witnessed. Worse than suicide squad by a mile.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

One of these three is alive and kicking. Yesterday, some people wouldn't give you an honest answer.

 

[namenotfound]

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.

They'd still have to take on their debt. I imagine the studio had creditors that funded the game development to that point

 

[Chuck Berry]

Imagine saying "no" to Days Gone 2 but seeing Concord and thinking "that's a hit"... fire whoever made those decisions

Seriously. In the eight years making this tripe we could've gotten a Days Gone 2 and Killzone 4.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Dude, sony planned weekly fucking cartoons for this game and full on universe building lore.

This wasn't just some come and go game. They made a controller for it. They wanted this to be a huge franchise game.

This is a massive fucking flop. The biggest I've ever witnessed. Worse than suicide squad by a mile.

lol, so what they made cutscenes bro?

Suicide squad loses hundreds of millions of dollars and is less of a flop?

Seriously you’re clueless

 

[Saiyan-Rox]

Man just think if they put all that money and effort into a killzone collection fully redone all maps and on pc

 

[Rat Rage]

What a time to be alive!

This has to be the biggest bomb in video game history, LOLMAO!!

Quick, somebody give Sony the address of a landfill in New Mexico!

 

[DenchDeckard]

lol, so what they made cutscenes bro?

Suicide squad loses hundreds of millions of dollars and is less of a flop?

Seriously you’re clueless

This has lost hundreds of millions.

I don't even care one bit for suicide squad but it lasted more than 11 days!

Seriously man. Take a second and think.

 

[EviLore]

lol, so what they made cutscenes bro?

Suicide squad loses hundreds of millions of dollars and is less of a flop?

Seriously you’re clueless

We'll get there bro, already at stage 2!

 

[SidViscous]

I wonder what "the call" was like.

Sony won't have told them their true plans, they've probably told them to take it offline and come up with F2P proposal in the next two weeks, which will give Sony time to chat with accounting and legal to find out how quickly they can tax refund it and close the studio. The staff won't have a clue of their fate yet, which is the reason they've been radio silent since the launch of the game.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

Someone needs to be talked to at Sony, even when the generation started most of their advertising has been "female centric" and more often than not you don't spot a white guy in it until close to the end.

 

[Ogbert]

I know it may sound weird. But I'm genuinely intrigued as to how this failed so badly in terms of nobody playing it at all. There's an awful lot of games that leave me cold that are played by millions and sell really well that I scratch my head over. I'm talking about the games that no-one bothers reading reviews for. The average gamer Joe. I wonder what does or doesn't influence them. Was X/media, was it rubbish marketing, did they cringe at the characters like we all did.

Not weird at all. I’m just as intrigued.

For example, I would have fully expected woke Twitch types to put their weight behind it and at least drum up a few thousand players. It could have been a rallying cry ‘we won’t let this fail’.

As you say, it’s intriguing.

All I can suggest is the game is fucking pointless. People are too invested in Fortnite, Overwatch etc.

Also, another mistake is that it’s too adult in design. 10-15 year olds aren’t going to be interested in playing fat women in space tunics.

 

[xiskza]

Fairgame$ is next

 

[Bernardougf]

That’s effectively zero dude, it lost hundreds of millions more

Concord had double digits players ... nobody wanted to play this... this metric alone its enough for biggest flop in the recent AAA business... maybe not monetary (TBD) but certainly from a embarrassment standpoint ... especially coming from Sony. Biggest flop can mean many things and have many angles ... biggest sales flop vs costs ? Maybe not... biggest sales flop altogether not counting revenue? Probably yes... biggest flop and embarrassment to Sony ? Definitely yes.

I just think there are better hills to die for in defense of Sony.... Concord dosent deserve your defense. Just my two cents.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

We'll get there bro, already at stage 2!

Pointing out basic facts isn’t anger, I hold no appreciation for Concord and glad it’s getting pulled, but hyperbole of claiming biggest flop of all time is…not rooted in reality

 

[Kacho]

Concord is an all-time bomba. No hyperbole needed. Suicide Squad and Fallout 76 look like successes compared to Concord. Hell, CliffyB’s Radical Heights did better.

 

[Ge Os]

 

[{insert code here}]

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

God I am hoping Assassin's Creed turns into a trainwreck this year. I cannot wait to see how that one plays out and it would top all the others so far this year.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

just think there are better hills to die for in defense of Sony.... Concord dosent deserve your defense. Just my two cents.

If I’m a business owner I don’t care if my game has 12,000 concurrent players vs 300 when my game cost $400M to make/market while the latter cost $100M

Both are failures. One massively more than the other despite having “better” user numbers

I’m not defending Concord from anything other than the claim that it’s the biggest catastrophe the world has ever seen

 

[Alebrije]

The flop of Concord is not just about the cost of the studio, the marketing and poor sales. It includes what projects were left behind because Concord and more important this Game was supposse to be Sony's "flag" Gaas.

It's not the money lost is a failed strategy that will make top ejecutives ( Bean counters) to ask for anwers.

 

[Certinty]

There’s something seriously wrong with this industry when games like Concord, Suicide Squad and God knows what else are somehow being green lighted and funded with insane budgets and extended development periods.

Any idiot could have seen the fate of these two games years and years ago.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Pointing out basic facts isn’t anger, I hold no appreciation for Concord and glad it’s getting pulled, but hyperbole of claiming biggest flop of all time is…not rooted in reality

Way bigger flop than Redfall. Dont play dumb and try to argue that fact.

So in the future when you'd post stuff and then end of your post with something akin to "not as bad as Redfall", you can now replace that with "not as bad as Concord"

 

[N30RYU]

In a few days we'll have one of these cool videos of ppl playing games waiting for the servers to close forever.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Way bigger flop than Redfall. Dont play dumb and try to argue that fact.

 

[Bernardougf]

If I’m a business owner I don’t care if my game has 12,000 concurrent players vs 300 when my game cost $400M to make/market while the latter cost $100M

Both are failures. One massively more than the other despite having “better” user numbers

As a business owner you know that public perception is everything ... maybe you loose more money with one product but it still move some units and still has some appreciation even if not what you expected... and them you have a product that costs you less and gave you a less immediate loss, but on the other hand is a complete and total embarrassment, nobody bought, and even worse you have to recall it because is actively damaging your brand name... bigger flops are not always the ones that loose more immediate money.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

As a business owner you know that public perception is everything ... maybe you loose more money with one product but it still move some units and still has some appreciation even if not what you expected... and them you have a product that costs you less and gave you a less immediate loss, but on the other hand is a complete and total embarrassment, nobody bought, and even worse you have to recall it because is actively damaging your brand name... bigger flops are not always the ones that loose more immediate money.

There’s no positive perception of suicide squad

 

[StreetsofBeige]

In a few days we'll have one of these cool videos of ppl playing games waiting for the servers to close forever.

The game is so new and the server shut down is so close, you're going to get lots of people who dont even know Concord is getting shut down in a few days. A lot of gamers dont follow news that closely like us.

I want to see someone do a video of never being able to get into a game a day after the servers shut down Sep 6.

 

[ManaByte]

You can still play Redfall.

 

[Mortisfacio]

Concord is an all-time bomba. No hyperbole needed. Suicide Squad and Fallout 76 look like successes compared to Concord. Hell, CliffyB’s Radical Heights did better.

Has there ever been a game with $100mil+ production cost that shut down 2 weeks after launch? This seems quite historic.

 

[DenchDeckard]

If I’m a business owner I don’t care if my game has 12,000 concurrent players vs 300 when my game cost $400M to make/market while the latter cost $100M

Both are failures. One massively more than the other despite having “better” user numbers

I’m not defending Concord from anything other than the claim that it’s the biggest catastrophe the world has ever seen

Suicide squad was third in npd and probably sold a 100 times more than concord. It lasted more than 11 days and was a loss of 200 mill supposedly?

I would easily put concord in that valuation on losses personally. But we will probably never find out.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

You can still play Redfall.

 

[N30RYU]

Bigget flop ever... more even so if you consider that spiderman, factions or Horizon were canceled for this gaas to have more spotlight.

 

[StueyDuck]

One of these three is alive and kicking. Yesterday, some people wouldn't give you an honest answer.

while this is obviously true, I kind of wish people wouldn't put Korean/Chinese games into the mix since they already have a massive prebuilt-in player base.

you don't have to go very far back with western games to prove the same point however, the OG overwatch did gangbusters , that was before the game pandered to everyone.

 

[Last Hearth]

Pointing out basic facts isn’t anger, I hold no appreciation for Concord and glad it’s getting pulled, but hyperbole of claiming biggest flop of all time is…not rooted in reality

Well, it all depends on how you define "biggest flop", if you define it as total loss in terms of revenue minus total cost, then maybe it's not, SS might possibly be the bigger loss.
But if you define it as revenue as a percentage of total cost, then it definitely is a bigger flop than SS. SS's peak CCU count was over 13K on Steam, Concord was less than 10% of that. In fact the revenue was so low that Sony is giving everyone a refund, which means technically it will have $0 revenue.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Redfall outlasted Concord. You can still play Redfall now and still be able to after Sept 6. And Redfall had 6,100 peak Steam users. Concord 697. And that even includes gamers playing Redfall on PC with GP who dont even show up in the tally.

 

[dorkimoe]

On the bright side we can be done with concord threads. More threads than people playing the game.

 

[bundylove]

Gaming doesn't even get cool, fashionable gays and trans. It gets fat losers who decide to transition at 32 and forget to take their hormone pills every second day and still have five o'clock shadows

I would bet these types get rejected just as much in LGBT circles and are bitter about it.

Look up gays against groomers or gays against lgbtq.

There are also transgenders against groomers ans lgbtq.

So yes all these 5 minute fame activists are not accepted in the community problem is they are pushed by the goverment.

But rules are rules and all this falls into the politics category so i dont want to go there and oh boy do i have a lot to say.

I want the world to go back to normal man. I am tired with this pussified generation. I cant even hire young people as they all want to be treated special and want 30 per hour to begin with zero experience. So my whole industry is full of middle aged men or men in their 60's as there is no one else left.

I would imagine the gaming industry will hit that wall soon where talent is getting old and dies off while the replacement is this pussy generation that cant make a decent game .

 

[freefornow]

claiming biggest flop of all time is…not rooted in reality

Sony are literally giving back every single dollar they made from this. Which wasnt a lot.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Well, it all depends on how you define "biggest flop", if you define it as total loss in terms of revenue minus total cost, then maybe it's not, SS might possibly be the bigger loss.
But if you define it as revenue as a percentage of total cost, then it definitely is a bigger flop than SS. SS's peak CCU count was over 13K on Steam, Concord was less than 10% of that. In fact the revenue was so low that Sony is giving everyone a refund, which means technically it will have $0 revenue.

The only thing that matters is PnL, unless you’re expecting to grow revenue with a loss leader or reinvestment strategy, which obviously is not the case here

 

[Nydius]

With the way James has been fighting so hard to die on this (ultimately meaningless) hill, his username should probably be changed to another three named gentleman: George Armstrong Custer.

 

[Last Hearth]

The only thing that matters is PnL, unless you’re expecting to grow revenue with a loss leader or reinvestment strategy, which obviously is not the case here

PnL matters, so does ROI.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Well, it all depends on how you define "biggest flop", if you define it as total loss in terms of revenue minus total cost, then maybe it's not, SS might possibly be the bigger loss.
But if you define it as revenue as a percentage of total cost, then it definitely is a bigger flop than SS. SS's peak CCU count was over 13K on Steam, Concord was less than 10% of that. In fact the revenue was so low that Sony is giving everyone a refund, which means technically it will have $0 revenue.

You can still play SS. In fact, it's got more users tracking on Steamdb than Concord right now. And SS is still up and running unlike Concord getting shut down after two weeks.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

PnL matters, so does ROI.

There’s no ROI without profit

 

[near]

If I’m a business owner I don’t care if my game has 12,000 concurrent players vs 300 when my game cost $400M to make/market while the latter cost $100M

Both are failures. One massively more than the other despite having “better” user numbers

I’m not defending Concord from anything other than the claim that it’s the biggest catastrophe the world has ever seen

Again, you're under the assumption it cost $100m to make, when it is almost certain that it cost more. Most people are looking at this holistically. Big new IP, massive marketing push, studio acquisition, ends up on the market for 11 days before the servers are shut down and refunds are granted. It is a fuck-up on a magnitude never seen before. It's a stylish flop.

 

[Last Hearth]

There’s no ROI without profit

It's -100%.

 

[Ogbert]

James Sawyer Ford not going down without a fight.

 

[Topher]

Suicide Squad vs Concord. Battle of the ages right here