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[Angry_Megalodon]

Spider-man 2 had sold 5 million in the first two weeks. By April of this year, it reached 11 million sales. There was no longer any “blind buying” after the first few weeks, the small amount of people invested in this stupid “culture war” would have heard by then, yet those six million additional sales came from people who don’t care about this irrelevant stuff that nerds on forums scream about and just bought the game because they like Spider-man. Just like Hogwarts Legacy succeeding and the third Fantastic Beasts film failing had nothing to do with certain opinions JK Rowling had.

Stop thinking this “culture war” is that relevant. It really ain’t, pal, no matter what either side wants to tell themselves so they can feel special and superior to the “opposing side”.

Tell me a woke original IP made after 2010 that has become a big hit. Spiderman, HP, Pokemon or any other legacy IPs are not good examples.

 

[CherryFalls]

Do you think CoD should be shut down for forcing trans bullets?

yes

 

[Kerotan]

Oversaturated market. There's too many other solid games out there with years of updates.

 

[SonGoku]

Woke bs aside nothing in the game is interesting and everything screams generic trend following soul less GaaS corporate trash

 

[Sooner]

Concord is bring sacrificed in the name of we're sick of hero shooters.

 

[Bkdk]

There is never a war, these they/them can add up all their genders and it would still be just 0.01% of the normal gamers. They just had to embarrass themselves even more trying to release a lgbtabcd game to show how much games dislike them.

 

[intheinbetween]

Culture wars my arse, they spent eight fff years on this

 

[Doom85]

Tell me a woke original IP made after 2010 that has become a big hit. Spiderman, HP, Pokemon or any other legacy IPs are not good examples.

-The Last of Us (spare me the “it started with Part 2!”, people were whining about the kiss in Part 1’s DLC)
-Horizon Zero Dawn (cue people with the flimsy conspiracy theories on the game’s sales)
-Overwatch (was called this well before 2 launched, when Soldier 76 was revealed to be gay)

 

[Ridicululzz]

Game had pretty much everything going against it. They should've listened to the feedback upon its initial reveal, or at least during the beta. It seems like they just ignored every critique and took it personal.

 

[Danjin44]

In my opinion, “culture war” has nothing to do with Concord’s failure…..this “woke” arguments mostly happening on gaming forums among gaming enthusiasts, most normal people zero fucks about any of this.

 

[Doom85]

In my opinion, “culture war” has nothing to do with Concord’s failure…..this “woke” arguments mostly happening on gaming forums among gaming enthusiasts, most normal people zero fucks about any of this.

When it comes to this “war”:

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Do you think CoD should be shut down for forcing trans bullets?

My guns don't shoot any trans bullets

CoD did not force anything

Your spin is getting bad James, take a break dude

 

[StreetsofBeige]

My guns don't shoot any trans bullets

CoD did not force anything

Your spin is getting bad James, take a break dude

Give him credit. He's a one man crusade.

Even some of the other gaffers who lean Sony are having a laugh at Concord.

 

[Quantum253]

In my opinion, “culture war” has nothing to do with Concord’s failure…..this “woke” arguments mostly happening on gaming forums among gaming enthusiasts, most normal people zero fucks about any of this.

True. But in most cases, people generally don't care about most things until it's at their front door

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

In my opinion, “culture war” has nothing to do with Concord’s failure…..this “woke” arguments mostly happening on gaming forums among gaming enthusiasts, most normal people zero fucks about any of this.

Though you may be right for the "war" part, having woke devs made the game the way it is. So yes, being woke is the main and only reason why it failed, because it influenced every single aspect of it, not only the characters.

You hire cool people, you most likely get cool games. You hire deranged activists and you get shit.

 

[{insert code here}]

The more hate I see for this game, the more I think it can't possibly be that bad.

I've seen reviews that say the gameplay is pretty solid.
Obviously, not many people have played the game anyway, so that can't be the real problem.

The main problem people seem to have is the character designs.
I'm no fashion expert, but they made me think of something like "Most bizarre outfits from Paris Fashion Week".
Definitely made by somebody who knows their stuff, but made to stand out rather than to be likable.

But what makes the designs so incredibly unlikable to a vast majority of gamers?
I honestly can't tell.

They actually remind me a lot of Mass Effect and Apex Legends, which didn't receive any backlash of this magnitude.

It seems this game isn't being judged on its merits, and rather became a target in the ongoing culture wars.
A collective message from gamers to the gaming industry.

It is the perfect sacrifice - large enough to flop, but mid enough to skip.
Just super bad luck for the developers.

 

[fersnake]

i didnt have to see any gameplay when i hear woke and saw the trash character design. not to mention the terrible name they gave to it. Concord? wtf is that airplane? fakkk.

 

[semiconscious]

Can't believe 93 of you voted for oversaturated market.

Umm Marvels Rivals and Deadlock. Its not an oversaturated problem, its this game was trash.

well, unlike the games you mention, you have to pay to play concord, eh? &, in a market now loaded with ftp, why in the hell would someone cough up $40 to check out yet another one? that's where the oversaturated element comes in - loads of variations of concord, that, unlike concord, are all ftp...

 

[Quantum253]

i didnt have to see any gameplay when i hear woke and saw the trash character design. not to mention the terrible name they gave to it. Concord? wtf is that airplane? fakkk.

I'm still trying to figure out why I thought Concord was a space/action/RPG type game. PlayStation's Starfield if you will.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

My guns don't shoot any trans bullets

CoD did not force anything

Your spin is getting bad James, take a break dude

My concord players don’t have to be minorities either

 

[TintoConCasera]

Can't believe 93 of you voted for oversaturated market.

Umm Marvels Rivals and Deadlock. Its not an oversaturated problem, its this game was trash.

Deadlock's more of a MOBA.

 

[Begleiter]

It'll have been a mix of all three, though I think the overwhelming problem is that none of the characters looked cool, fun or attractive and that's a huge mistake for a hero shooter to make. The lead character designer should expect never to work in the industry again.

If it'd been something truly amazing to play then word of mouth would've led to sales picking up, so we know that gameplay wasn't there either, and the competition is dense with most alternatives being free to play.

 

[Guerilla Munch]

 

[Fbh]

The game tried to enter a segment of the market dominated by popular F2P games with a $40 price tag while simultaneously offering no compelling reasons as to why anyone should pick it over any of the more popular options with a lower entry barrier.
Also woke crap doesn't sell nor does it appeal to (almost) anyone. At best it's irrelevant to normal people and at worst, like this case, it makes your game unappealing.

In my opinion, “culture war” has nothing to do with Concord’s failure…..this “woke” arguments mostly happening on gaming forums among gaming enthusiasts, most normal people zero fucks about any of this.

I just think most normal people don't look at everything in terms of "woke or not woke".
Most normal people don't want to play as fat ugly characters or awkward looking characters, or characters that look like that annoying pink haired chick at work who is always complaining to HR. The "woke" type mentality that hurt this game was the devs thinking that having "non traditionally" attractive or cool characters is actually a plus for anyone but a very small vocal minority.

I think most normal people don't really care about the race, gender or sexual orientation of their character in an online shooter. They just want characters with good art direction and appealing designs that look cool, or sexy, or cute or fun or anything in between.

 

[nkarafo]

In my opinion, “culture war” has nothing to do with Concord’s failure…..this “woke” arguments mostly happening on gaming forums among gaming enthusiasts, most normal people zero fucks about any of this.

It did fail partly because it's woke, but also because the hero shooter genre is saturated and because it's not great enough to make any difference.

All these three things combined contributed to this huge failure.

 

[bender]

No matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, I can't imagine many, if any, of the character designs in Concord would be appealing. Most games can overcome poor artistic choices if the game play is outstanding but my limited time with the beta left me thinking, "well, it's another one of these". While it isn't bad, it didn't really do anything to hook me either. Further, when you are a Hero Shooter GaaS title and the longevity of your title relies on strong character designs for future monetization, I'm not sure that even if the game play was amazing, they would have been able to clear that hurdle.

 

[Jsisto]

I don’t see a single character that looks remotely interesting or that I think id enjoy playing as. Overwatch has……dozens. That is a huge, huge problem in a character based shooter. Good character designs should have been one of the main draws of the game because that is the main draw of this particular genre.

 

[ReBurn]

No matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, I can't imagine many, if any, of the character designs in Concord would be appealing. Most games can overcome poor artistic choices if the game play is outstanding but my limited time with the beta left me thinking, "well, it's another one of these". While it isn't bad, it didn't really do anything to hook me either. Further, when you are a Hero Shooter GaaS title and the longevity of your title relies on strong character designs for future monetization, I'm not sure that even if the game play was amazing, they would have been able to clear that hurdle.

Yep, no hook. With gameplay that was ok at best and heroes nobody cared about the game had nowhere to go.

 

[simpatico]

It is a bit of a perfect storm, but if somebody posts the Legendary Skins, you'll see the developers were not blameless.

 

[nkarafo]

-The Last of Us (spare me the “it started with Part 2!”, people were whining about the kiss in Part 1’s DLC)
-Horizon Zero Dawn (cue people with the flimsy conspiracy theories on the game’s sales)
-Overwatch (was called this well before 2 launched, when Soldier 76 was revealed to be gay)

I haven't played any of these games myself so i'm going to post my opinion as an outsider.

- The first Last of Us didn't look like a woke game. It got great reviews and it was made by the darlings at Naughty Dog so it was a sure success. It was also released in 2013, before the whole gamergate thing, so there was no such thing as culture wars yet, in gaming at least. Personally, i wasn't interested in this game because it was too cinematic, i never even thought about it being "woke"at the time.

- Horizon Zero Dawn also didn't look like it's going to be that woke. You have to play the game, meet all the NPCs, etc to figure it out. For the normies, this was the next great looking exclusive for the PS4.

- I'm not sure about Overwatch though. My opinion is that it was simply the next big Blizzard game and many people (including two of my friends, anecdotally) only played it for a while because of that reason alone. And these people hate wokeness in media.


You must also take into account that "wokeness" is not an ON/OFF switch. Something can be a little woke or a lot. People can tolerate different levels and neither of these games come close to the level Concord is.

 

[bender]

Yep, no hook. With gameplay that was ok at best and heroes nobody cared about the game had nowhere to go.

Not being free-to-play was another mistake but Concord seems rife with outdated design and go-to-market decisions.

Due to the climate of gaming coverage, or greater climate of society as a whole, Concord's failures might get painted in this culture war but that's lazy and a disservice to the reasons why it failed in the first place.

 

[VinnyMac]

People are tired of the "woke" agenda it's that simple. That and live service games are a dime a dozen now gamers are tired of them

 

[TheInfamousKira]

This game failed so much it's over 100%

 

[Dynasty8]

I am legit shocked this game failed. It had everything.

From left to right:

1. First Playable Black Trans "Woman"...literally
2. Generic LGBTQIA Ally Django
3. ResetEra Cosplayer
4. "Fat People Need Love Too"
5. "Non Binary" the Character
6. AI Generated Winston
7. They/Them Sex Robot
8. Emo "Girl Boss" Main Character
9. Gender Neutral Claptrap
10. Square Head Ghost Buster
11. Generic White Football Guy
12. Lizzo cosplaying as Doom Soldier
13. Forspoken Sniper
14. Asian Grandma Dr. Strange
15. Wish.com Starlord Cuck
16. Reddit Mod

 

[Neff]

It's lazy, uninspired, ridiculously late, and costs money upfront despite clearly basing itself on -and looking to prosper from- the F2P model. It was always going to struggle.

The awful designs, woke-approved presentation and developer tantrums/bad PR simply hastened its inevitable demise.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

People around here will tell you it was killed by the woke, but the reality is it was a bland looking game in an oversaturated genre. It may very well be fun but who wants to pay a premium to play yet another hero shooter clone at this point when there are plenty of f2p options?

Making a AAA game is already hard enough without having the Albatross of "being visually unappealing" around its neck.

Being "Woke" is just another word for ugly. Just as "Cancel" is just another word for Bullying. Trying to succeed as a game is very hard, and any handicap you add basically sinks 99% of attempts.

Do you make games that look good? Or do you make a game that look bad, intentionally? That should not be a difficult choice, but here we are.

 

[ReBurn]

Not being free-to-play was another mistake but Concord seems rife with outdated design and go-to-market decisions.

Due to the climate of gaming coverage, or greater climate of society as a whole, Concord's failures might get painted in this culture war but that's lazy and a disservice to the reasons why it failed in the first place.

I agree. Chalking the failure up to culture war is lazy. This game just didn't appeal to anyone. The game definitely pandered to a specific audience, but even the people it was supposedly made for didn't want it.

 

[MrMephistoX]

I recognize it’s a well made game I just don’t enjoy it at all…last Soul’s game I liked was Dark Soul’s 1 and even then I got bored and never finished it. I also deeply dislike COD because I don’t find getting murdered by racist 10 year olds to be fun. Always been more of a Halo and Destiny guy and that pedigree is pretty apparent in the gameplay of Concord.

 

[diffusionx]

I am legit shocked this game failed. It had everything.

From left to right:

1. First Playable Black Trans "Woman"...literally
2. Generic LGBTQIA Ally Django
3. ResetEra Cosplayer
4. "Fat People Need Love Too"
5. "Non Binary" the Character
6. AI Generated Winston
7. They/Them Sex Robot
8. Emo "Girl Boss" Main Character
9. Gender Neutral Claptrap
10. Square Head Ghost Buster
11. Generic White Football Guy
12. Lizzo cosplaying as Doom Soldier
13. Forspoken Sniper
14. Asian Grandma Dr. Strange
15. Wish.com Starlord Cuck
16. Reddit Mod

I like the robot tho frfr

 

[Danjin44]

I recognize it’s a well made game I just don’t enjoy it at all…last Soul’s game I liked was Dark Soul’s 1 and even then I got bored and never finished it.

 

[Danjin44]

I just think most normal people don't look at everything in terms of "woke or not woke".
Most normal people don't want to play as fat ugly characters or awkward looking characters, or characters that look like that annoying pink haired chick at work who is always complaining to HR. The "woke" type mentality that hurt this game was the devs thinking that having "non traditionally" attractive or cool characters is actually a plus for anyone but a very small vocal minority.

I think most normal people don't really care about the race, gender or sexual orientation of their character in an online shooter. They just want characters with good art direction and appealing designs that look cool, or sexy, or cute or fun or anything in between.

I can agree with that. This has more to do with the fact that when you make hero shooter then you want to make sure to have appealing looking character that so people willing play as those characters…..It’s same with Fighting games or even Gatcha games.

The most important part of character centric MP games is the character appeal.

This is why this has less to do with “woke” and more to do with fact there are other hero shooters out there does things better and with more appealing character designs.

Overwatch is “woke” as well but to average person it has more appealing character design compare to Concord.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

Concord didn’t fail because it’s “woke”. It failed because it entered a market that is crowed. Plus it isn’t as good as the free to play games that do exactly what Concord does.

GaaS is rough because you got to make a game that’s good enough to pull people away from the other GaaS games that they already invested a lot of time and money into. Plus their friends have to like your game enough for it to stick. That’s a lot of things that have to go right for your game to succeed.

 

[Moochi]

1. Characters with ZERO sex appeal
2. Visual design full of colors that silently announce its wokeness.
3. Dated game genre in an overly-saturated market with no features to distinguish it from the competition.
4. Charging for entry in a genre that has entirely gone free to play.
5. Poor handling of marketing and PR.

It's not a question of why this flopped. It's a question of why didn't they see it coming two years ago.

 

[Moochi]

I don't believe Concord flopped because it looked woke. Plenty of games that look woke do great numbers. I am, however, highly suspicious of it's survival through thr protracted dev cycle. I wonder, if Concord wasn't being made by a woke studio and say your average team of pimply misogynists, would it have been canned four years ago when the writing was on the wall for these kinds of games?

Gamming companies are doomed if they make decisions without doing market research. Any halfwit could have glanced at the glut of 5v5 hero shooter and the first thing they would have asked is, "And what does yours do that theirs doesnt." And they'd better have a damn good answer. These chuckleheads didn't even have an established IP to suck the blood from.

This failure is not due to bad luck. It failed because of hubris, complete incompetence, or because someone up top gave it more chances and funding than it deserved because it was aligned with The Message.

 

[KURDISTAN YPG]

Nope, its a just a terrible game, and all that woke shit was just a cherry on the top

 

[Sgt.Asher]

I said it before but it's a game lesser than the sum of it's parts.

Put everything together and what you get is just a bad game, plain and simple.

 

[Lord Malachite]

The gameplay is the definition of mediocre and if you're a gamer who wants to sink their time and money into a live service title, you have a vast multitude of better options to go with, it's as simple as that. We can talk about culture wars, wokeness, unattractive design, etc. until the cows come home. But when Joe Gamer who doesn't spend his time scouring articles and game forums just wants to play a live service game, he has so many better options than Concord. There is literally nothing special about Concord to make anyone sit up and say "oh man, I've got to play this.". The market is beyond saturated for this type of game, and the gameplay itself is ho hum. That is why it failed.

Everything else going against it isn't the reason why it failed. Rather, it's the guarantee of why it won't make a comeback. If Concord had been an SP campaign title with a lackluster, tacked on MP mode, it might have survived, or at the very least, done better. Mediocrity isn't a death sentence for an SP game, it just gives it a big uphill battle to being big player. Mediocrity in live services...oof. There's just too many options out there.

 

[MayauMiao]

oops

 

[Jesb]

I don’t get whole craze of making a gaas game. The premise behind it is destined to fail since you’re going after the gamer that latches onto one game and sticks to that game. You’re not going after the gamer that’s looking to play multiple games. They find their Fortnite and play it mostly because that’s where their friends are. And you don’t need some massive 8 year budget. How is this green lit but than factions gets cancelled and was already done. Sony looks completely lost today.

 

[ByWatterson]

People are dramatically downplaying the impact of the pronoun inclusion and overweight characters. They were massive factors.