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Is Concord headed to be Sony's biggest first party flop ever?
- Thread starter LakeOf9
- Start date
The Mad Draklor
Member
That's still only one individual case, so you cannot extrapolate to what other people think about the game just because you personally think it's fun.
The game is fun for you, but it is not fun for others which has led to extremely poor retention and the game not even in the Top 750 in the Steam wishlist charts.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
No, I'm saying the characters likely tested well with their target demo.
Redfall tested 10 points higher than its final metacritic score. (still low)
Characters don't sell PvP games.
James Sawyer Ford
Banned
You are the one extrapolating “the market” and misconstruing player count data for it “not being fun”
The two are not the same
The Mad Draklor
Member
Strawman fallacy. Making a correlation between player count and the game being fun is logical. You are the one who is misconstruing and kudos to your projection...
You say that retrospectively, but if that's what you actually meant, you would've said that already, not now.
Killer8
Member
Biggest? Let me show you Draw to Death on PS3:
Drawn to Death
Drawn To Death will be an arena shooter like you’ve never played before. Part of the reason for this is our unique gameplay. And part of the reason is that the game takes place inside the notebook of a very creative teenage kid; it’s a violent and bizarre landscape filled with all of the weird...www.metacritic.com
From what I played on the Concord beta.... No way it's worse than that abomination.
The budget for Concord is likely many, many times higher than this.
Concord is going to be a bomb on so many levels. Economically mainly, which is what Sony ultimately care about. Critically too. But also spiritually when you think about how many studios in the Sony stable were closed to be replaced by Firesprite / Firewalk / whatever the fuck other DEI-infested shithole they bought is called.
Ape Escape got a post on X to celebrate it's 25th anniversary. No new game in sight, not even a remaster. Meanwhile this slop is allowed to exist.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
"They did a bunch of focus tests on these characters. They tested well."
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James Sawyer Ford
Banned
No it isn’t
There are plenty of games that have bombed commercially but are actually solid games
Talk about a straw man fallacy
The Mad Draklor
Member
Saying that you did doesn't mean you actually did say it.
It is because you grossly represented my original statement. A game, particularly a multiplayer focused one that has a free beta, that is reliant on player retention needs to be "fun" or otherwise, the consumers won't be arsed to keep playing said game. The market has decided that despite the free status of the open beta, Concord is not worth playing.
The game is fun, for you. But based on statistics, it is apparently not fun for most people.
James Sawyer Ford
Banned
False extrapolation.
A game can be “fun” but not have sufficiently broad appeal or progression to retain high player counts
See: Lawbreakers and many other GaaS games that failed
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
"They did a bunch of focus tests on these characters. They tested well."
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Didn't herman hulst say this game was doing some really special things?
These execs are losing it.
These execs are losing it.
NickFire
Member
If you are correct then I would suggest that they diversify the focus groups.
The (lack of) numbers don't lie man.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
The Horizon movie failed because Kevin Costner died his hair.
The (lack of) numbers don't lie man.
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StereoVsn
Member
Well, I mean if you divide the budget of this game by average player count, that per player spend is special alright!
Elginer
Member
It’s looking more and more like that. It’s a goddamn virus.
ViciousAgenda
Member
Hes still arguing about fuckin Concord 
Setsuna Mudou
Member
Guys, reach deep inside your core and think if this is the game you want to go down defending... Look what happened to justice league... you don't wanna be that guy.
If you liked the demo, great, enjoy the game. No point convincing people that were out 10s into the trailer.
If you liked the demo, great, enjoy the game. No point convincing people that were out 10s into the trailer.
yurinka
Member
Like any other company, Sony had many flops before. In case it would flop, Concord wouldn't be the first one.
It depends. Some people here calls Helldivers 2 a failure even when it's the fastest selling Sony game ever and the top selling game of the year in USA (the main market for the shooters).
So even if Concord outperforms Helldivers 2 people here will say it's a failure.
The studio has a ton of top tier talent from ex-Halo, Destiny, CoD and other top tier FPS and GaaS. The first game of the studio, started before the acquisition, not achieving sales estimates wouldn't be a big deal. Big companies like Sony plan in the long term.
After releasing games, companies make postmortems to analize what went right, what went wrong and what they can learn from it and what needs to be improved for the next project.
From what we saw in the beta, they are going a great job in most of the areas: art, animation, visuals, sound design, audio design, gunplay, QA/general polish, some game design ideas. Pretty likely in terms of production they also went great achieving their milestones on time and with the quality they were looking for. So very likely they'll be happy with these and many other areas in the postmortem.
If it has low sales they'd mark it as negative and also analyze the specific points that caused it and would have caused it. Some of which may not be related to the lead dev studio but instead to other Sony teams: like being released on a bad point of the roadmap next to other better competition game, maybe a bad market research that wrongly assumed that there was going to be a market for it when not being the case, maybe the marketing & PR team didn't have a proper approach, maybe the excessive forced DEI woke agenda destroying the interest from the main FPS consumer demographics group due to lack of appealing characters for white heterosexual males (like charismatic white heterosexual men and attractive females), maybe lack of proper single player / campaign modes to be successful among Sony fans, etc.
Pretty likely they'll find out that most of the points were positive and maybe a handful were negative, so they'll be happy with the studio and will try to fix the points where they failed for the next Firewalk game.
Firewalk won't be a support studio. Their members worked on Halo, Destiny CoD and other top shooters. They'll lead another game after Concord.
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NickFire
Member
I have no idea what your point is. Are you just mad that people didn't care about this game and yelling at clouds?
Fess
Member
Internal focus tests mean nothing now. If it’s not doing well on an open beta then they need to delay it and change things. No exaggeration there.
And they need to listen to everyone, a bunch of cranky 40 year olds on GAF too. This is why they do an open beta, it’s a huge focus test.
AltogetherAndrews
Banned
Hes still arguing about fuckin Concord
I’m assuming that we’re just witnessing his transition into full joke poster form.
SkylineRKR
Member
Sadly Ape Escape doesn't fit Sony's strategy, they probably think Astro Bot is sufficient. But AE1 was legit great on PS1, and 2 was very good on PS2. Never played 3. But this IP would be a good addition to target younger gamers.
KungFucius
King Snowflake
Right because they chose to make a garbage GaS game and chose what bullshit to include. Shitty management doesn't need to lead to everyone getting shitcanned. Shitcan the leads.
The Mad Draklor
Member
He's going through the stages of grief in reverse order.
SEGAvangelist
Member
Looks like everything about this game is shitty, though.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
There was no progression in the beta. Might do a bit better with something that important being added.
I tend to think a studio making a PvP game got into trouble by listening to too many people with the PvE mindset.
Fess
Member
A delay and big changes is needed going by the charts and talk and your own threads. They can’t go away from the beta thinking ”This is fine.”
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
The beauty of Live Service is that it makes Miyamotos quote obsolete.
Rocco Schiavone
Member
Sony already lost the direction for good mp since the PS3 era.
The only notable game was Helldivers II.
They know shit about good mp games.
Destruction Allstars was a flop and the canceled Last of US mp shows they have no fucking clue developing good mp games.
Nobody asked for a shitty Overwatch clone.
yurinka
Member
Do you think GT7, MLB or Destiny 2 are bad MP games?
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Aion002
Gold Member
Strictly talking about gameplay and my enjoyment of each game, Drawn to Death is horrendous, while Concord plays likes Destiny which is a great thing for me.
I won't buy Concord because I am not sure if it will survive for long (the gaas market is just too competitive). But I would definitely play it if it was released on ps plus or if it was a f2p game, I enjoyed the closed beta quite a bit.
On the other hand, I hated every second that I played of Drawn to Death, it has been more than 7 years that I played that shit and I still hate it so much that it feels like I played yesterday.
Concord has terrible characters art style, but the gameplay is solid and the graphics are pretty. While Drawn to Death has no redeeming quality whatsoever.
So... Sure... Concord might end up being a bigger flop financially wise for Sony, but quality wise... Drawn to Death is the king.
Fess
Member
A game still needs to have a powerful start with lots of people playing, otherwise it’ll just wither away and devs won’t bother supporting it post-release. The legendary comebacks like No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 had millions of people playing at launch. Unaltered, how many do you think will play this?
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
It doesn't. Plenty of Live Service games with poor starts grew to become successful.
Difficult, but not impossible.
Edit: No Live Service game is "unaltered". The changing aspect of Live Service is its defining characteristic.
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ViciousAgenda
Member
Exoprimal = 
Multiverses = Trending
Skull and Bones =
Redfall =
Suicide Squad =
Concord =
Foamstars =
and
Rocket Arena =
Synced =
Multiverses = Trending
Skull and Bones =
Redfall =
Suicide Squad =
Concord =
Foamstars =
and Rocket Arena =
Synced =
bender
What time is it?
Name four!
Arsic
Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Moron in condom boxes would convince you these are all GOTY contenders and what devs should be making.Exoprimal =
Multiverses = Trending
Skull and Bones =
Redfall =
Suicide Squad =
Concord =
Foamstars =
Rocket Arena =
Synced =
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
I just heard that it’s #750 most wish listed game on Steam. How much would it jump if a couple of us added it, just to fuck with them? Maybe I’ll add it then remove it the day before launch.
//DEVIL//
Member
Please do not insult the Order. that game was and still is a masterclass in terms of graphics, it had a nice story and overall an acceptable game experience even if its for just a one time play.
Concord is just shit.
EDMIX
Writes a lot, says very little
Here's the problem with this how the fuck do you even know every single time a minority is in a damn game if that is surrounding the same narrative you're talking about? are you telling me it's impossible for anyone to be in a game that looks different And it MUUUUUUST be part of the same "narrative"?
Even more concerning is who the fuck cares? who's buying a video game based on this idea of wanting to know the exact intention behind why they made the person this race or this hair color? you're not gonna know this information otherwise anyway I could make the same argument about every game ever made and just argue there's some evil intent behind it....
Until you become some mind reader I'm not really sure any of this is going to matter.
OK but how do you actually know every single damn time something happens to a character that is this demographic that it's part of that same? Using this logic nothing could be done to a character in a video game in this demographic or it's you're just gonna argue about some conspiracy against them. Even this whole "I read a Kotaku" well.....you guys are NECK DEEP in this culture war shit man, not everyone cares about any of that.
I understand but the medium isn't owned by anyone, you also had multiple different countries that created games too as this seems to be an extremely narrow-minded way to think of the industry....
My God no it's not lol, this is like the most saddest shit I've seen in a long time, you're talking about a video game sir, nothing stopping a company from going independent , nothing stopping anyone from creating a game so to argue about Some sort of displacement is even more strange because you're talking about an industry anyone can be in.... You're not talking about some physical location in some finite thing
You're talking about an industry of choice in which someone could just make an independent company if they wanted to make what they wanted to make.... No one stopping anyone from continuously creating what the fuck they want to make man lol
You do not own the idea of creating games.
Here lies the issue, any minority character introduced in a video game often becomes the subject of numerous conspiracies questioning the intent behind their inclusion. This creates a narrative that implies characters can't simply exist without ulterior motives. This scrutiny has reached absurd levels. If you view the gaming industry through this lens, you might as well question the motivation behind every single character's creation or question the point of even gaming.
Game developers have the freedom to create what they want, regardless of anyone's feelings about what they see as industry "trends." If you want some specific "representation", you're free to create your own game.
This wild witch hunt, accusing every single game of having a hidden agenda simply because it features a minority character, has become extremely ridiculous. The industry is being pulled in two opposing directions, where apparently, nothing is allowed in games anymore.
Free will exists and creators are allowed to make the games they want. If you have theories about why certain characters were created, that's up to you, you are free to believe what you want. You can choose which games to support based on your views btw as I'm arguing against your own choice to buy what you want or something.
However, not all gamers are playing for these dumb reasons. For many, gaming is about enjoyment and exploration, not about dissecting every character's inclusion based on conspiracy theories. Based on both sides of the circus nothing is fucking allowed inside of games apparently...
ZVWQP-9B8TM-VH9CT
Member
lmao, stop repeating this nonsense and notice what is happening around
Ashe re-raises questions about hero diversity in Overwatch
Hero 29 has disappointed some fans
www.polygon.com
Enough with the liberals trying to justify wokeness by saying they notice "nothing special, its all conspiracies, bruh".
EDMIX
Writes a lot, says very little
No one is putting a gun to anyone's head here man lol Thats an even more strange claim btw, that anyone is FORCED lol Its like....well, you can argue this about any company, it becomes deeply moot. Sonic is blue "OMG, they FORCED HIM to be blue to FIT DA Agenda OMGBBQ"
annnnnd added to ignore. Culture war elsewhere man. You guys are neck deep in this shit, its like anyone comment about this MUST be by this side or that side, as if anyone disagreeing with you must be part of this side or group (like I give a shit or something lol)
BbMajor7th
Member
That was a whole lot of energy, but I'll just tackle the most salient part of the argument. Patterns don't need to be absolute to be visible and meaningful and, sure, people do falsely construe an 'agenda' where none exists, but that doesn't invalidate the many cases where the intent is explicit and confirmed.
You don't need to be neck deep in culture wars to have seen this argument driven intensely from both sides. And you're entirely free to call the colonisation comparison the 'saddest shit you've heard in a long time' but that isn't a rebuttal to the point. Culture has a landscape in the way that countries do; communities coalesce around shared interests, values and identity in the way analogous to geographical communities.
You need only grant that for the colonisation argument to be cogent. Be angry and go off if you want, but it's not an argument - it's just your frustration boiling over. If you want to discuss, I'm down for it, but take a breath and engage with the arguments.
diffusionx
Gold Member
A lot of people who don't play basketball buy basketball sneakers. They buy basketball sneakers because they are cool and stylish. They talk about how good the new shoes are, the designs, the colors. It's a whole thing.
Again, you might understand PVP gaming (emphasis on might) but it is clear you do not understand people.
EDMIX
Writes a lot, says very little
Well, this is one of my issues with this. I understand someone can place something in a game for reasons other then originally stated or something, but it seems folks are just accusing any game of doing this with any minority. (now I have to listen to that Green Day song =( )
Secondly, who is anyone to tell others that they must disclose their intent behind an artistic choice?
This is a level of scrutiny i'd rather not be a part of, artist are free to create what they want.
Even if someone disagrees with the intent.
What would the solution even be btw? Put a lie detector test on all artist and ask them to pledge allegiance to some idea to, you know make sure they make what you want and not an "agenda"? Would that not be forcing someone to create something or? lol I kid with the lolz, but genuinely, what on earth would the fucking solution even be to what you are saying?
edit. I genuinely like your response btw, I merely disagree and appreciate the effort you put in the post.
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diffusionx
Gold Member
TF2's character design is absolutely iconic. It's totally brilliant character design. It's some of the best in videogame history. Valve hasn't changed them in 17 years because they are so good. Instantly recognizable, tons of personality in the forms, face, and movement, simple designs, easily visible, just amazingly good design. You keep proving you just don't know what you are talking about.
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ZVWQP-9B8TM-VH9CT
Member
You are trying to have a conversation with a woke liberal who doesn't even have the courage to state his opinion on the subject but always spams nonsense as an "objective observator who doesn't support or oppose either side". This is so pathetic.
S0ULZB0URNE
Member
Yikes!
take a look around, most reviews hitting atm are praising the game, why? because its good .. they know the devs behind it, they can see the quality .. all the fear mongering is coming from the usual toxic sources. i think sony def fumbled the debut here though .. they should have come outright with what type of game it was from the start, and the intro gameplay trailer was a lot of 3rd person floating around the map shit ... just show some char select screens, and some tight fps action, which this game has in loads,, and they would ahve been on a better path.
i think this game will find its footing, why, because its fucking fun to play.
whiney bitch PC gamers who don't wanna sign into a PSN account, or have some issue with paying for stuff, or some other agenda about the race or sex of the characters .. honestly man, i'm gonna be glad not having to deal with these C$%nts online anyways. i really do think this should have been a PS5 only title .. this multiplatform push sony is doing might get a few additional sales but its not worth the damage they take when including that part of gaming culture.
i think this game will find its footing, why, because its fucking fun to play.
whiney bitch PC gamers who don't wanna sign into a PSN account, or have some issue with paying for stuff, or some other agenda about the race or sex of the characters .. honestly man, i'm gonna be glad not having to deal with these C$%nts online anyways. i really do think this should have been a PS5 only title .. this multiplatform push sony is doing might get a few additional sales but its not worth the damage they take when including that part of gaming culture.