''It was the most beautiful car that we crashed'' - Ex-CONCORD Devs

Toots said:
Multipla is the craziest one.
The guys that made it operate at a level of design i didn't even know existed, some might even say at a level of design beyond design itself.

Fiat_Multipla_%282002%29_%2829392161886%29.jpg



I spent all my youth in kangoos and twingos i can mock them, it is out of love.
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Looks like a picture generated by AI lol.
 
"I wouldn't trade the experience for anything."

I bet he'd trade the experience for making a game that more than 200 people actually liked, and thereby keeping his job.
 
I also often find in life that my only problem is that people don't work hard enough to work out how amazing I am. It is probably because I am too modest and humble.
 
crackajack said:
the numbers were desastrous, but why kill it? Just sell a few more copies, support those sells and not refund the entire thing, try your luck with f2p and hope for at least some revenue. They had some plans for content anyway. Bringing everything to a grinding halt, seemed like an overreaction.
The whole thing was embarassing, as was eg. Suicide Squad, but that is still around. By killing Concord it is cemented as their biggest flop ever and a total write off. Foamstars is still running. APB and Hellgate were both shutdown only to be still alive today. I am not much of an online gamer, so I never tested it, but most of the feedback was "i don't want to play it" and a few that actually played it said it was alright or even good. Maybe just new characters would have helped already and redoing that should not be enourmos extra work. Would just need to be done by different people, since those in charge seem to think the selection was no problem. No idea about the Overwatch-like (? or whatever is close) gameplay loop, though. OW is not hot anymore either.
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who pays for the servers, who pays for the employees that have to be kept on to make GAAS content for the game.

Sony realized there was no avenue of making money on this game so they shut it down.

Essentially no one wanted to play as some of the ugliest most annoying characters ever created.

As for the interview. Based on how 'happy and nice' everyone was in the studio; sounds like there was a whole bunch of underserved positive re-enforcement going around in the studio. Lack of any criticism or self reflection will lead to mediocre products like this. It was definitely the managements fault.
 
crackajack said:
The whole thing was embarassing, as was eg. Suicide Squad, but that is still around.
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Probably because that's a single player game with the IP wholly owned by the publisher, it doesn't really cost them anything to have it available when they've already killed all updates to it.
 
Reckheim said:
who pays for the servers, who pays for the employees that have to be kept on to make GAAS content for the game.

Sony realized there was no avenue of making money on this game so they shut it down.

Essentially no one wanted to play as some of the ugliest most annoying characters ever created.

As for the interview. Based on how 'happy and nice' everyone was in the studio; sounds like there was a whole bunch of underserved positive re-enforcement going around in the studio. Lack of any criticism or self reflection will lead to mediocre products like this. It was definitely the managements fault.
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Toxic positivity is a cancer that is rotting corporate America. Not unique to this studio or even game dev.

Spend 10 mins scrolling on LinkedIn and try not to vomit.
 
crackajack said:
the numbers were desastrous, but why kill it? Just sell a few more copies, support those sells and not refund the entire thing, try your luck with f2p and hope for at least some revenue. They had some plans for content anyway. Bringing everything to a grinding halt, seemed like an overreaction.
The whole thing was embarassing, as was eg. Suicide Squad, but that is still around. By killing Concord it is cemented as their biggest flop ever and a total write off. Foamstars is still running. APB and Hellgate were both shutdown only to be still alive today. I am not much of an online gamer, so I never tested it, but most of the feedback was "i don't want to play it" and a few that actually played it said it was alright or even good. Maybe just new characters would have helped already and redoing that should not be enourmos extra work. Would just need to be done by different people, since those in charge seem to think the selection was no problem. No idea about the Overwatch-like (? or whatever is close) gameplay loop, though. OW is not hot anymore either.
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I will use analogy so its easier to understand, imagine u are self proclaimed "10/10 bad bitch" 304, and are in gay bar full of gay(not bi, not fluid, full on gay, aka attracted to males exclusively) guys- u can advertise ur kitty as much as u can but u wont get any buyers there(concord at launch 40$), hell if u offer ur kitty for free u still wont get any takers either, concord going f2p would be like a free kitty in a bar full of gay guys- no1 fricken cared about it ;)
 
Toots said:
Multipla is the craziest one.
The guys that made it operate at a level of design i didn't even know existed, some might even say at a level of design beyond design itself.
uFXESt5BVBxGzZYA.jpg

"Yeah man we heard you liked cars so we put another car on top of your car"
Fiat_Multipla_%282002%29_%2829392161886%29.jpg



I spent all my youth in kangoos and twingos i can mock them, it is out of love.
Click to expand...
The Multipla (1st gen) was ugly, yes. But it was actually not a bad car for its intended use cases. Concord was both ugly and just not a good game.
 
crackajack said:
the numbers were desastrous, but why kill it? Just sell a few more copies, support those sells and not refund the entire thing, try your luck with f2p and hope for at least some revenue. They had some plans for content anyway. Bringing everything to a grinding halt, seemed like an overreaction.
The whole thing was embarassing, as was eg. Suicide Squad, but that is still around. By killing Concord it is cemented as their biggest flop ever and a total write off. Foamstars is still running. APB and Hellgate were both shutdown only to be still alive today. I am not much of an online gamer, so I never tested it, but most of the feedback was "i don't want to play it" and a few that actually played it said it was alright or even good. Maybe just new characters would have helped already and redoing that should not be enourmos extra work. Would just need to be done by different people, since those in charge seem to think the selection was no problem. No idea about the Overwatch-like (? or whatever is close) gameplay loop, though. OW is not hot anymore either.
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100%. Sony made it 100x worse by killing it the way they did. They could have just put it on PS+, run out the content they had, do a few updates. Give people more than a week to play it.

Yes, they can afford it. FBC Firebreak is still up, and it's self-published. Sony was just embarrassed and can't handle any negative feedback without throwing a tantrum. Redfall got updated for a year, always online removed, and it's still available for sale and I'm glad.

As for this interview, I'm glad they're talking about it. Kind of an interesting perspective. The game wasn't even glitchy or that bad, just memed to death and some cringe character designs.
 
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It has to be some sort of mental disorder at this point to always have to spin everything in a positive light. These ridiculous euphemisms and analogies. I don't get it, you dont even have to actively say you fucked up. You could just choose to be quiet or not speak in hyperbole.
 
Tbh, although I quit years ago, I love the mechanical feel and flow of Destiny PvP and would have loved an offshoot spin on it in a different new game. This was so close to being it; because despite what everyone says and lies about, the core gameplay in Concord was absolutely solid and full of potential. BUT... they had no right to think it should be a premium release, and convincing themselves that making the characters about as appealing as nasty spell of gout was acceptable, never mind appealing.
 
X1Pz7Jl.gif


Gee, I would feel a little remorseful if I spent several years and $400 million of someone else's money making this colossal embarrassment.

Maybe I'd say something like "I wish I had the balls to speak up about how repulsive the characters were, or to push back on some of the design choices". You know, some actual retrospective to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.
 
crackajack said:
the numbers were desastrous, but why kill it? Just sell a few more copies, support those sells and not refund the entire thing, try your luck with f2p and hope for at least some revenue. They had some plans for content anyway. Bringing everything to a grinding halt, seemed like an overreaction.
The whole thing was embarassing, as was eg. Suicide Squad, but that is still around. By killing Concord it is cemented as their biggest flop ever and a total write off. Foamstars is still running. APB and Hellgate were both shutdown only to be still alive today. I am not much of an online gamer, so I never tested it, but most of the feedback was "i don't want to play it" and a few that actually played it said it was alright or even good. Maybe just new characters would have helped already and redoing that should not be enourmos extra work. Would just need to be done by different people, since those in charge seem to think the selection was no problem. No idea about the Overwatch-like (? or whatever is close) gameplay loop, though. OW is not hot anymore either.
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Concord sold far less than Suicide Squad and had far less players. APB and Hellgate both, believe it or not, had a base of fans it could build on, small as it was, the resources that were put into it were commensurate with that fanbase. There was absolutely no base of fans for Concord. They couldn't even get people to play the open beta. The estimate is 25,000 copies sold but likely far less. You can't sell F2P microtransactions for a game nobody has any interest in. Also going F2P would require a massive restructuring of the game and at that point you're throwing good money after bad.
 
It was the best game ever. People were just to dumb to understand how great it was.

Lol these people are insane. They all seem to live in some collective fantasy world.
 
DonkeyPunchJr said:
X1Pz7Jl.gif


Gee, I would feel a little remorseful if I spent several years and $400 million of someone else's money making this colossal embarrassment.

Maybe I'd say something like "I wish I had the balls to speak up about how repulsive the characters were, or to push back on some of the design choices". You know, some actual retrospective to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.
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They didn't waste anyone's money. They were making a game. They showed it to Herman and Ryan. Herman and Ryan loved it bought it, bought the studio, and pumped it up saying it was the future of Playstation. Herman and Ryan were shown frequent milestone updates. They were shown trailers, and showcased it at 2 Sony events. Then Sony released it.
 
Punished Miku said:
They didn't waste anyone's money. They were making a game. They showed it to Herman and Ryan. Herman and Ryan loved it bought it, bought the studio, and pumped it up saying it was the future of Playstation. Herman and Ryan were shown frequent milestone updates. They were shown trailers, and showcased it at 2 Sony events. Then Sony released it.
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I don't see how anything you said implies that they didn't waste anyone's money.

Of course they did. You think the funding just magically appeared out of thin air?
 
I only want to know their thoughts on the insane levels of woke in that game and the hack Marvel writing.

Everything else is regular failure stuff, not "Biggest Bomb Ever" failure.
 
DonkeyPunchJr said:
I don't see how anything you said implies that they didn't waste anyone's money.

Of course they did. You think the funding just magically appeared out of thin air?
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If I go to the store and buy a movie and I don't like it, the movie company didn't waste my money. I wasted my money.

Herman and Ryan are in charge of their own money. It's bizarre to absolve them of all responsibility when they're in the driver's seat at every step of the process. Concord was being made before Sony ever funded it or hired all the employees. Sony literally inserted themselves into the process.
 
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Toots said:
Only Renault can built such a "beauty"
822q37fulaAzbUlR.jpg
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Well, unlike Concord at least this one properly does very well what it was made for. And is successful.

Power Pro said:
Sounds like deflection again to me. Basically saying "oh, our game was great, it's just no one played it!"
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Well, the game did many things right technically. But the wokism made its characters and story totally unappealing and almost insulting for most players of the competitive hero shooters audience, which happen to be over 90% of them young white or Asian heterosexual males.

If they would have made characters and story very appealing to the main demographics who really play -and pay- this game the result would have been very different.

The problem wasn't the genre: Marvel Rivals got released pretty close to it and was a huge success. And wasn't the business model: Helldivers 2 and others are very successful with that model.
 
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Punished Miku said:
They didn't waste anyone's money. They were making a game. They showed it to Herman and Ryan. Herman and Ryan loved it bought it, bought the studio, and pumped it up saying it was the future of Playstation. Herman and Ryan were shown frequent milestone updates. They were shown trailers, and showcased it at 2 Sony events. Then Sony released it.
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This kind of thing is absolutely on the big boss like you said. This is probably exactly what Sony wanted and expected their playerbase to go wild for. If it wasn't, then they werent assertive and didn't do their jobs of putting a foot in the dev's asses. Look at Nintendo coming in to go full boot camp on Metroid Prime when that game turned out to be a pile of shit and grossly mismanaged early on.

The whole Professor debacle and this absurd reaction to the failure is still its own disaster but yea, worst of all someone was asleep at the wheel above those people and didn't pull the emergency break because they didn't even know a concrete wall existed.
 
"People were kind to each other. If someone had a bad day, people would be super supportive and be like "take the time, if you're not feeling good, go home."

"This is the first studio where I felt equal and treated right. Not only is everyone super talented, but also everyone was respectful and nice. It's a green flag when I can go into the women's bathroom, and it's not only filled with feminine hygiene products, but also...there's women there. And its like 'oh, I have to share a bathroom with other women now! Like, whoa that's odd, because you usually get the whole place to yourself."

This is the kind of stupid shit that can basically sum up the culture of failure at this studio. Endless mental health days, and being more concerned about the immutable characteristics of who you work with. Working in healthcare my whole life under female bosses nearly exclusively, I've never once had the thought "you know, this place needs more dicks".
 
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Those people are so delulu it's insane

Just find another job, we need real gaming passionate devs not weird psychopathes delulus
 
In a world where initial reaction wasn't "this game sucks", and they got what they wanted for people to truly play it en masse in the beta…. The conclusion still would've been fuck this game is beyond shallow other than some cool gunplay.

I bought it and there's infinitely better games to play both charging the player or F2P. It simply was a bad game. Sprinkle in the shit character designs, woke shit, people not wanting GaaS from Sony, etc and you never stood a chance.

I hope this person played marvel rivals or overwatch just to see how far off the mark they are with their game. And I mean launch content so it's even.

I think they just thought their visuals would sell? Like… wtf?
 
Punished Miku said:
If I go to the store and buy a movie and I don't like it, the movie company didn't waste my money. I wasted my money.

Herman and Ryan are in charge of their own money. It's bizarre to absolve them of all responsibility when they're in the driver's seat at every step of the process. Concord was being made before Sony ever funded it or hired all the employees. Sony literally inserted themselves into the process.
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I'm not absolving Ryan or Hermen from blame, they definitely deserve most of it. But they weren't the ones making all the creative decisions.

And anyway even the best bosses need employees who push back and challenge them.

If you're a well-paid white collar employee, and you keep your mouth shut and go along with stupid decisions because you don't want to rock the boat, you definitely deserve part of the blame.
 
DonkeyPunchJr said:
I'm not absolving Ryan or Hermen from blame, they definitely deserve most of it. But they weren't the ones making all the creative decisions.

And anyway even the best bosses need employees who push back and challenge them.

If you're a well-paid white collar employee, and you keep your mouth shut and go along with stupid decisions because you don't want to rock the boat, you definitely deserve part of the blame.
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Part sure, I agree with what you said. The "stealing their money" line was just triggering me a bit. Not a big deal.
 
Hudo said:
The Multipla (1st gen) was ugly, yes. But it was actually not a bad car for its intended use cases. Concord was both ugly and just not a good game.
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yurinka said:
Well, unlike Concord at least this one properly does very well what it was made for. And is successful.


Well, the game did many things right technically. But the wokism made its characters and story totally unappealing and almost insulting for most players of the competitive hero shooters audience, which happen to be over 90% of them young white or Asian heterosexual males.

If they would have made characters and story very appealing to the main demographics who really play -and pay- this game the result would have been very different.

The problem wasn't the genre: Marvel Rivals got released pretty close to it and was a huge success. And wasn't the business model: Helldivers 2 and others are very successful with that model.
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First it is GymWolf GymWolf who made the comparaison (tho i found it funny and apt) so adress your complaints to him please
Second his comparaison is great since almost everyone here understood what he meant and reappropriated it in some way or other
Third he is also responsible for the Multipla which is an Italian car
 
Astray said:
The content runway built probably did not support a F2P model.

You have to be constantly launching characters and skin packs etc to keep people hooked, look at what Marvel Rivals is doing, that's much closer to how a F2P game should be doing.
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You can just make game free for 3-6 month without much of content while shifting monetization inside.
Not a big issue, some games like SWTOR or TESO did it in the past. Naraka Bladepoint started as paid game and switched to f2p along the way.
It's just this game viability ~even as f2p~ probably evaluated as very poor (f2p still should have sizable population to justify running cost) so it get closed instead

Cyberpunkd said:
Because for F2P you need a a completely different monetisation scheme which they didn't have.
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You can add it later, no prob here
 
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diffusionx said:
Concord sold far less than Suicide Squad and had far less players. APB and Hellgate both, believe it or not, had a base of fans it could build on, small as it was, the resources that were put into it were commensurate with that fanbase. There was absolutely no base of fans for Concord. They couldn't even get people to play the open beta. The estimate is 25,000 copies sold but likely far less. You can't sell F2P microtransactions for a game nobody has any interest in. Also going F2P would require a massive restructuring of the game and at that point you're throwing good money after bad.
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Further context, the sales were so bad and the player base so low that matches in the second week started taking longer to actually fill.

In a game where that's the only thing to do.
 
It was beautiful. It didn't have a shitty art Director at all.

The audience didn't find the game. It's their fault.
 
This statement:

We know. We know full well. We know what's happening.
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Completely conflicts with this statement:

And then the beta numbers dropped, and numbers were not what we were expecting. And I think our mindset started shifting to 'things could go really bad.'"
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If these were made by two different people, fine. But if the first person didn't step up and disagree with the second, that's a perfect example of what happened to this game.

We don't like hearing stories about the tyrannical leader who talks down to everyone and acts like an asshole. I'm a manager, and I despise that behavior. However, if you look at some of those examples (Steve Jobs is probably the easiest one to reach for), some (not most) of those tyrannical leaders are the way they are because they want to cut through and dispel bullshit. They also want to push people to do their best work because they are either hyper-competitive and winning is everything, or they're terrified of not succeeding.

I think the best leaders are the people who are able to navigate the above challenges with calm and polite, respectful behavior. But it's a rare person who can build a strong enough relationship with their team where they can push back and tell people no, without it leading to an ego battle. The leader that can do that strikes the appropriate balance between "tyrant makes everyone suffer for his vision" and "the inmates are running the asylum". Clearly Concord didn't have leaders like this in place.
 
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