ShadyAcshuns
Member
Because Sony are the media's darlings. If Nintendo or especially MS had this happen to them it would be doom all over everywhere.
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Kotaku: Sony's Concord might be the biggest entertainment failure of all time, so why wasn't it news?
- Thread starter ArtHands
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OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
If only MS could afford to pay off the media like Sony has.
Represent.
Banned
Because the mainstream still doesnt care about video games.
Why are people so butthurt about this article? The fuck? Its true. If your fav YouTuber said the same thing youd be in agreement. Stop being baby shit soft. Its an accurate article.
"kOtAkU bAd!"
Its one of the biggest entertainment flops of all time and its barely talked about. Let a movie like Avatar come out and flop like this and see the coverage it gets.
Why are people so butthurt about this article? The fuck? Its true. If your fav YouTuber said the same thing youd be in agreement. Stop being baby shit soft. Its an accurate article.
"kOtAkU bAd!"
Its one of the biggest entertainment flops of all time and its barely talked about. Let a movie like Avatar come out and flop like this and see the coverage it gets.
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AtomicStarving
Member
This gotta be a joke right? The amount of coverage of this historic fail is all over youtube and websites, it was massive news. WTF this clown talking about lol
Horseganador
Member
There has been talk for weeks about the failure of Concord, or do Kotaku want us to spend months talking about the same thing?
Synless
Member
Why? How does that make sense? Sony panders to the woke crowd so that’s an ally to them.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
The media (and me) wants to give Concord a chance
Quake Fans May Want to Give Concord a Chance
Concord's hero shooter gameplay may not be breaking any new ground for the industry, but it might give Quake fans what they've been looking for.
gamerant.com
Give Concord a Fair Chance
"While Concord might have faced some initial challenges, its distinct gameplay mechanics and varied character roster contribute to an enjoyable sh...
captainpat
Member
Is this some 5D chess move to rally more mainstream outlets to cover videogames better so game journos still have jobs when their sites closedown.
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
It cost (if you believe the rumors) $400 million and spent 8 years in development, barely sold any, then got canceled and all purchases refunded. MINUS ONE HUNDRED % return on investment. Literally a total loss.
What other entertainment product failed worse than that?
Dick Jones
Gold Member
It's accurate? Where did they interview employees of Firewalk? How many did they interview?
thismeinteil
Member
You have to remember when it comes to the box office, movie studios only see roughly half of what a movie makes. That's why they say that a movie has to make, on average, 3x it's production budget to make cover production and advertising budgets and break even.
So, in Dial of Destiny's case, it lost ~$210M on just the production budget. Throw in marketing , it's probably at a $300M-$400M loss. Sure, some of that will be made up by Blu-ray and streaming revenue, but considering no one liked it, I doubt it'll be much.
@ OP
Yea, they're right. My uncle that works at Xbox, but knows a lot about the inner workings of PS, told me it cost $2B to make. That might go up in a week's time.
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BigBeauford
Member
lughnasadh123
Member
How are people supposed to find bias in the media when they can't look past their own?
Fbh
Member
I'd argue it didn't get that much coverage in mainstream news because
1: Unlike movies games are way more secretive about budgets and sales. With movies we have pretty concrete information about "it cost this much to make and it made this much at the box office", with games it's not the same as no one really knows how much Concord cost to make or how much it sold before being retroactively cancelled, it's all guesses by analysts and rumors from "insiders".
2: Usually when movies bomb it's a big project with lots of notoriety. It's Joker 2 the sequel to that popular Joker movie from a few years ago based on the super popular Joker character. On the other hand no one cared about Concord from the moment it was revealed.
1: Unlike movies games are way more secretive about budgets and sales. With movies we have pretty concrete information about "it cost this much to make and it made this much at the box office", with games it's not the same as no one really knows how much Concord cost to make or how much it sold before being retroactively cancelled, it's all guesses by analysts and rumors from "insiders".
2: Usually when movies bomb it's a big project with lots of notoriety. It's Joker 2 the sequel to that popular Joker movie from a few years ago based on the super popular Joker character. On the other hand no one cared about Concord from the moment it was revealed.
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Walter Matthau
Member
It never had any hype to start with and doesn’t severely impact Sony.
Represent.
Banned
.... Thats the point of the article.... Its a huge flop, one of the biggest in the history of entertainment.. and its getting no discussion in mainstream media. What are you people even mad about? lol
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Jinxed
Member
Who is hoping for a relaunch of that monstrosity?
clarky
Gold Member
Me?
I have toughily enjoyed watching this game crash and burn, hopefully this isn't the end of the story.
xrnzaaas
Member
Not entirely 100%. Some people actually bought the disc copies for their collections, hoping that a completely useless bluray will be worth a lot of money in 10+ years.
Jinxed
Member
To see it crash and burn again? That's kind of evil lol
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
Okay, fair point. Let’s say they really did generate $1 million in revenue on $400 million spent. So -99.75% return.Not entirely 100%. Some people actually bought the disc copies for their collections, hoping that a completely useless bluray will be worth a lot of money in 10+ years.
th4tguy
Member
I thought gaf hates Kotaku?
Also, let’s not pretend this game failed because it’s woke.
It could have had half naked anime chicks running around grunting and making sexual noises the whole time and it would have failed.
The art and gameplay were unimaginative. Graphics were very basic.
The whole package offered nothing unique to pull users away from other games.
Having unattractive characters had nothing to do with the overall failure.
The game just sucked
Also, let’s not pretend this game failed because it’s woke.
It could have had half naked anime chicks running around grunting and making sexual noises the whole time and it would have failed.
The art and gameplay were unimaginative. Graphics were very basic.
The whole package offered nothing unique to pull users away from other games.
Having unattractive characters had nothing to do with the overall failure.
The game just sucked
Dick Jones
Gold Member
So it's accurate by claiming it cost 400m but not showing any proof it cost 400m? No source, not even one. You accept that's accurate? You don't know the meaning of the word. It is not fact as there is no proof, therefore it is not accurate.
Khyle
Neo Member
I don't know about your countries but certainly in mine it's almost a miracle for any gaming-related thing to make it into any news bulletin at all. Maybe when a new console is released or announced and that's basically it. In comparison you get several news per week about things like fashion shows, for some reason.
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The game seriously needed to match the fantasy presented in its initial trailer, or the animated short. It presented scenarios in bustling environments, with dynamic, reactive, and bombastic PvPvE in ‘shit is constantly going sideways’ sort of thing. It seemed grand enough that controlling ships and vehicles as a part of the gameplay could have been in play, hell, even stealth.
The CGI trailer, even as Guardians inspired as it was, had life.
Almost like Helldivers but more complex and ambitious.
Instead it was a limited rip off of a near dead genre of games.
The game seriously needed to match the fantasy presented in its initial trailer, or the animated short. It presented scenarios in bustling environments, with dynamic, reactive, and bombastic PvPvE in ‘shit is constantly going sideways’ sort of thing. It seemed grand enough that controlling ships and vehicles as a part of the gameplay could have been in play, hell, even stealth.
The CGI trailer, even as Guardians inspired as it was, had life.
Almost like Helldivers but more complex and ambitious.
Instead it was a limited rip off of a near dead genre of games
Represent.
Banned
So you're just being nitpicky.
400million or 200 million is besides the point. Because even 200 million would make it one of the biggest flops of ALL TIME. The game had 700 PLAYERS at launch. And NO ONE in the mainstream media has mentioned it.... that is the point of the article.. not the 400m price tag. jesus. you people just see a website and have a vendetta against it forever. reminds me of American politics - can never acknowledge when the other side makes a good point...
Video games are still not mainstream enough. thats what i get from this article.
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Dick Jones
Gold Member
I apologise that I cannot ever praise a site that showed digital child porn. It seems you can forgive that but it's a bridge too far for me. I guess we are different in that regards.
The article is shit as it offers zero to current discourse. There were articles about Concord failing and the cherry on top is a "news media" source inadvertently calls itself out for being shit. Is there anything new we learned from this article? If the answer is no, then what was the point of the article?
Here in the UK that last gaming thing I recall was a bizarrely long 5 minute advert for Final Fantasy 16 on the main 1 o'clock news, before that was the GTA 6 trailer discussion.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
It wasn't news. Its a game that nobody cared about. Sony was right to pull the plug on it quickly and they deserve props for that.
Still they should get ridiculed for wasting so much money on this flop when it could have been put towards other things.
Still they should get ridiculed for wasting so much money on this flop when it could have been put towards other things.
Topher
Identifies as young
And yet the vast majority of people have never even heard of Concord. Joker 2 being a flop was bigger news to most folks.
Topher
Identifies as young
The article is off base. Concord's massive failure was big news in gaming circles and it was reported thoroughly. Why Kotaku thinks CNN or other mainstream outlets are going to take away focus from corporate layoffs, war in the middle east, the presidential election in the US and other heavy hitting topics is beyond me. We are talking about a video game that even gamers didn't care about and yet the general non-gaming populace is supposed to?
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DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
Yeah, it’s interesting to think about.
I think it’s because gaming, while huge and mainstream, is not monolithic. It’s more like a massive patchwork of niche audiences. You can have 10 people who consider themselves “gamers” yet they might have no overlap between the stuff they’re interested in or the genres they follow. One guy only plays Destiny 2, one guy plays hero shooters, one plays DotA, one is a Sony Pony, one plays Fortnite, one plays streamer-friendly survival crafting games, one plays Stardew Valley, etc etc.
And anyway, nobody watches CNN or Fox to get gaming news. They get that from more specialized sites/Youtube channels/streamers etc. Some of the bigger ones have audiences that rival that of the 24 hour news networks.
The xbox is going bankrupt, MS spent 100 billion on purchases for the xbox to stay in the same place. Bought high and now the market is low.
He spent 100 billion on Xbox when he could have spent that on AI and be ahead of everyone in that market.
This clearly should affect the market and be relevant to all MS shareholders
CNN doesn't talk about this, why should they talk about ONE failed PlayStation game?
In addition, the reason why Xbox is moving "slowly and discreetly" towards the third party is precisely to avoid attracting media attention.
MS cares more about their image, maintaining a "winning" image, than about xbox's products or profit.
He spent 100 billion on Xbox when he could have spent that on AI and be ahead of everyone in that market.
This clearly should affect the market and be relevant to all MS shareholders
CNN doesn't talk about this, why should they talk about ONE failed PlayStation game?
In addition, the reason why Xbox is moving "slowly and discreetly" towards the third party is precisely to avoid attracting media attention.
MS cares more about their image, maintaining a "winning" image, than about xbox's products or profit.
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HogIsland
Member
not sure why you're taking a sarcastic tone about this. it's a single anonymous source, colin's reputation has been in tatters for years, and this report is probably giving him more attention than he's received since the ign days.
whether his reporting is 100% accurate, a bogus source, or an outright lie, there's plenty of reason to doubt it, and plenty of plausible incentive for him to run with a dodgy story.
JerryinSoCal
Member
Does Kotaku think this is even a big story to most people? Yes gaming is popular but the vast majority of people are not even going to know this game existed in the first place, stories are for clicks and other than the gaming audience who's already read about this game many times if they were interested nobody else is going to care. The Joker 2? that's far more known than concord even if it didn't lose as much money it's got stars attached to it so they'll draw interest, WB is struggling and this happened, there are all kinds of reasons why that would be a story and a video game that had its funding spread out through 2-3 companies over the lifetime of the studio isn't being focused on in the entertainment space.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
There's an additional factor: even if we removed the wokeness from the equation, for the media to tell this news they should first educate the audience on the circumstances (or themselves, if they don't know). "Sony lost 400M" is a catchy headline but for a proper media coverage the audience needs to know why that amount is outrageous, why the purchase of the studio was irrational and many other things.
The failure of Joker 2 is pretty straight forward. People loved the first movie, not the second, sabotaged by its own director. That's it, you can sum it up in one sentence, unlike Concord's.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
sloppyjoe_gamer
Gold Member
Because the gaming outlets are all about these blue haired, woke, DEI infused games now. Why would they cover a massive failure of something they all support and simped for?
Saturn Dragon
Member
Concord lives in our hearts. That's why.
moxing
Neo Member
The game was an extraordinarily ugly foray into the hero shooter genre- a genre which makes most of its money off of not being ugly.
Ugly games can be great! I have fond memories of Loadout (RIP) which didn't take itself terribly seriously and had truly over the top character designs- and pretty much all of them were ugly. It really leaned into how messy it was and kind of stood in that identity, y'know? "This is Loadout, there are floppy mosaic-censored dicks onscreen and everyone bursts into loose lasagna when you shoot them." --But Loadout wasn't a hero shooter. Hero shooters communicate to their audience with a different visual language.
It's impossible not to think about Concord's contemporaries, in the context of Concord itself. I'll pick the easy ones, Overwatch and Paladins- both have a smooth, cartoony aesthetic that focuses on character silhouette. Even characters like Junkrat and Dredge hold appeal for someone- and we really do need to give a lot of credit to how much a game communicates to us when we first look at it. Yeah, we can say we don't want to judge a book by its cover, but we absolutely do, that's... why the emphasis is placed on character appeal in the first place. You're drawn to the flavor of Roadhog because you like Mad Max, and then you find out about the hook-and-pop gameplay loop and decide if you like it.
Concord didn't have a lot of characters, and out of all of them, only a few really made any similar attempt at appeal. 1-Off for the robot enjoyers, Duchess for lunatics like me who think it's fun to play as an old woman, and Star Child for the gorilla fans in the audience. That's... it. Everyone else is just the average person you meet in line at a food truck. Yes, even the mushroom person.
Concord doesn't exist anymore for me to like, actually boot up and get a feel for the gameplay. All that's left is imagery, and it's ugly as sin. And I think if you're just the average consumer on the street and you're being asked to choose your favorite character between Zenyatta, Moji, and Kyps, you're gonna say, "who the fuck is Kyps? Is that a robot real estate agent?" before you even get around to picking a favorite.
Ugly games can be great! I have fond memories of Loadout (RIP) which didn't take itself terribly seriously and had truly over the top character designs- and pretty much all of them were ugly. It really leaned into how messy it was and kind of stood in that identity, y'know? "This is Loadout, there are floppy mosaic-censored dicks onscreen and everyone bursts into loose lasagna when you shoot them." --But Loadout wasn't a hero shooter. Hero shooters communicate to their audience with a different visual language.
It's impossible not to think about Concord's contemporaries, in the context of Concord itself. I'll pick the easy ones, Overwatch and Paladins- both have a smooth, cartoony aesthetic that focuses on character silhouette. Even characters like Junkrat and Dredge hold appeal for someone- and we really do need to give a lot of credit to how much a game communicates to us when we first look at it. Yeah, we can say we don't want to judge a book by its cover, but we absolutely do, that's... why the emphasis is placed on character appeal in the first place. You're drawn to the flavor of Roadhog because you like Mad Max, and then you find out about the hook-and-pop gameplay loop and decide if you like it.
Concord didn't have a lot of characters, and out of all of them, only a few really made any similar attempt at appeal. 1-Off for the robot enjoyers, Duchess for lunatics like me who think it's fun to play as an old woman, and Star Child for the gorilla fans in the audience. That's... it. Everyone else is just the average person you meet in line at a food truck. Yes, even the mushroom person.
Concord doesn't exist anymore for me to like, actually boot up and get a feel for the gameplay. All that's left is imagery, and it's ugly as sin. And I think if you're just the average consumer on the street and you're being asked to choose your favorite character between Zenyatta, Moji, and Kyps, you're gonna say, "who the fuck is Kyps? Is that a robot real estate agent?" before you even get around to picking a favorite.
Shifty1897
Member
#ColinWasRight
Really though, we have seen companies in the past come forward to correct false news but Sony hasn't said a word when that 400m price tag was brought up...
Really though, we have seen companies in the past come forward to correct false news but Sony hasn't said a word when that 400m price tag was brought up...
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