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[StreetsofBeige]

They would've needed probably a year delay to redesign the characters and add some other QoL that the game was severely lacking. Given the glacial output of this team, maybe 2 years would've been more likely.

Ya. 2 years and probably another $40M. Sony CEO said fuck that.

Were just gonna release this turd, scrape up as much lucky sales as possible and sunset it. They just didnt know it'd bomb this bad making it shut down in two weeks. they probably thought if H2 can do 12M copies in half a year, Concord has got to at least do 500k or 1M at the same $40. I dont think even the most pessimistic player thought it would do this bad. I think Amonsgold a month ago who hated this game even predicted it might hit 20,000 gamers online and then fizzle out. Actual CCU was not even 700. Even he was off by a mile.

H2 topped out at 458,000 CCU. How would anyone on Earth think Concord would do 1/650th what H2 did.

To put that in perspective, if a high school had 1,300 students playing H2, there would be only 2 dudes playing Concord.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Jim initiated the deal to buy, but Hulst could've pulled the game back when he saw the shit reception from the reveal and beta.
So in my mind, Hulst is mostly to blame for this poop show

In this kind of transaction the CEO always has the final say (otherwise why pay his so much to begin with?) so ultimately the responsibility must fall on Jim, although of course Hulst must have been the one pushing it hard so he is guilty also

I never liked him. I dunno why. Maybe its just his face.

I long for the PS4 days man. I miss these guys

 

[FunkMiller]

It's weird that the absolute obvious has to be restated over and over:

Make what the consumer wants, not what you want.

But it does need restating over and over, because so many companies can't or won't accept that golden rule. It's impossible to successfully market and sell a product that does not go out of its way to deliberately appeal to the audience it is targeting.

The broken feedback loop she talks about is absolutely spot on. I've seen it in other industries, where people are so enamoured by their own bullshit and ego, they can't even begin to cope with the fact that maybe what they love is not what their consumer loves. Working in PR & marketing, I have to push back on that kind of mentality more often than I'd like

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It's weird that the absolute obvious has to be restated over and over:

Make what the consumer wants, not what you want.

But it does need restating over and over, because so many companies can't or won't accept that golden rule. It's impossible to successfully market and sell a product that does not go out of its way to deliberately appeal to the audience it is targeting.

The broken feedback loop she talks about is absolutely spot on. I've seen it in other industries, where people are so enamoured by their own bullshit and ego, they can't even begin to cope with the fact that maybe what they love is not what their consumer loves. Working in PR & marketing, I have to push back on that kind of mentality more often than I'd like

Agreed.

With the only caveat being if it's a small time person hobbying making vases or oil paintings in his spare time for the love of it. One of those situations where if he sells them all or none, he doesnt give a shit as he has a day job. I can totally understand people doing this for the pure enjoyment of it.

But making a game with AAA budgets and zero business sense and feedback loop is insane. Almost seems impossible for something to go wrong this much.

 

[Barakov]

I never liked him. I dunno why. Maybe its just his face.

I long for the PS4 days man. I miss these guys

You can see it in their eyes : They knew they already won. For bigwigs these guys were pretty personable.

The current playstation leadership on the other hand :

 

[kruis]

Some game studios just don’t give a shit. They do their own thing and hope for the best. That creative genius energy was so high no gamers are needed for feedback in 8 years.

Concord ran into a different issue beyond gameplay since the overarching story, graphics and he/him crap would take more time and budget to adjust.

Just about every other shooter looks decent and isn’t political. So any beta tests giving feedback are easy to tweak in time for launch (gun tweaks, basic graphic improvements, etc…)

Concord would need a mass overhaul. And impossible to do from May reveal to august launch.

Sony's new marketing strategy of revealing games just a couple of months before launch bit them in the ass. There was absolutely no time to steer the ship in another direction even if they'd wanted.

 

[Deerock71]

 

[rnlval]

they made a game without market research or focus testing?!

.... they knew exactly what they were doing...and they paid the price.

Concord's DEI has excluded certain large demographics revealed by Ubisoft's mentorship program. DEI's "inclusion" argument is a con job and poorly executed.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

In this kind of transaction the CEO always has the final say (otherwise why pay his so much to begin with?) so ultimately the responsibility must fall on Jim, although of course Hulst must have been the one pushing it hard so he is guilty also

Ryan probably saw the game for a total of 30 seconds, as a CEO you don’t get paid to nit-pick on everything. Whoever was doing due diligence is to blame:
1. Where’s the market research?
2. How big is the potential market?
3. What is the preliminary reception from gamers?

In the end GAAS should be heavily user-led, you want to sell something people will buy and play for a long time.

 

[Shubh_C63]

She brings up an interesting point about QA telling devs they wanted "aspirational characters to play as". Then she says "They were right. How do I know they were right? Because I worked on Gotham City Imposters which had ugly characters and that game failed."

Yet she ignores Minecraft, Roblox, Counter Strike, TF2, Lethal Company, Valheim, Rocket League, DotA, and PUBG etc...

Posting for clarification, are you saying she ignored the aspirational characters critique for games like Minecraft, Roblox, CS, TF etc because these games characters also sucked yet game was successful ?

..which we know isn't the truth.

She produces a theory.
She scans the environment for a single example that supports her theory.
That's not how you test theories. That's how you preach to choirs.

Yes but she is also saying unsuccessful games have un-aspirational characters in common. I haven't seen the video on full.

 

[gerth666]

Concord was a much needed sacrificial lamb.

The games industry will, if they’re not completely dumb, steer away from crap like that from now on.

Yeah, you seen the same in Hollywood, that has started to course correct after all the expensive bombs.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Yeah, you seen the same in Hollywood, that has started to course correct after all the expensive bombs.

The problem, both for the Hollywood and the Western gaming industry, is that it's not only a question of willingness to correct themselves but the talent to do so. They got rid of the best creators and swapped them for hacks that have ruined everything. It will take years of rebooting until the gaming landscape returns to normal.

In the case of Hollywood it will take longer than that. They can't create anything new, the only non-woke movies are nostalgia bait trash scarcely any better than the woke ones.

 

[gerth666]

The problem, both for the Hollywood and the Western gaming industry, is that it's not only a question of willingness to correct themselves but the talent to do so. They got rid of the best creators and swapped them for hacks that have ruined everything. It will take years of rebooting until the gaming landscape returns to normal.

In the case of Hollywood it will take longer than that. They can't create anything new, the only non-woke movies are nostalgia bait trash scarcely any better than the woke ones.

Oh I agree it's going to take time.
But the idiots will be whittled out over time. At the end of the day entertainment is a business, and the bosses will not except expensive flops like this.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Posting for clarification, are you saying she ignored the aspirational characters critique for games like Minecraft, Roblox, CS, TF etc because these games characters also sucked yet game was successful ?

Yes.

Yes but she is also saying unsuccessful games have un-aspirational characters in common. I haven't seen the video on full.

There is very, VERY little correlation between a multiplayer games success and the quality of its character design. She overstates its impact to a laughable degree.

 

[BehemothBlade]

Holy ****! 250 million dollar budget?! Eat that Concord fanboys!

Xer/xims.

 

[McCarth]

Sounds like the fugly designs were just one of the many issues with this whole debacle.

The whole social media culture trend of shitting on gamers, you know the ones that actually buy games, added fuel to the fire in this whole situation. Sounds like a pretty text book case of doomed to fail.

Normally I look at a headline like this and just shrug it off as another extreme overreaction to how crazy the 'woke' have got...

But nowadays I'm just not sure anymore, and that's both sad and a little terrifying.

 

[proandrad]

Concord has been the best thing to happen for content creators all year. The revenue they have farmed off of explaining the same obvious shit for views is higher than the amount of revenue concord generated. This is the type of engagement gaas dream about. The only thing more generic than these videos is concord itself.