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[Killjoy-NL]

I make a distinction between multiplayer mode in a game vs a standalone live service game. I'm all for MP modes in games. Loved Killzone 3 MP and GoT Legends. Would I pay $40 for just the MP if there wasn't a base SP game? I don't think I would. And I'm not saying Sony should never make a standalone live service game. My point is that they should get some experience first before going all in. Do what they did with Helldivers 2. Work with an external partner who knows how to make these games. Don't rush and bring in these brand new studios like Haven and Firewalk, give them $200m, and then expect them to make some amazing live service game that's going to sell tens of millions of copies.

They have experience. They had games like Socom, M.A.G, Warhawk and Starhawk.
Those, and games like that, would 100% become live service games if they released nowadays.

The problem is both those studios (Zipper and Incognito) aren't around anymore.
They need to invest to grow their portfolio, because their main studios alone aren't enough to run a healthy business for the marketshare they have and studios like Japan and London Studios don't sell enough either.

You can't grow without investing, but that means there are risks involved.

Concord was such a risk and while they definitely took a hit, the company isn't going to crash and burn over it.

 

[tmlDan]

why would big budget studios care about the dogshit that was concord, just make a good game and listen to gamer feedback and you have nothing to fear - not that hard.

 

[Dane]

The quintessential question is: Why Sony bought that studio?

I can imagine them buying a studio that had flawed products but have major aspects that stand out from the industry, like when MS bought Compulsion for the art direction and Undead Labs for their survival horror open world that became successful.

But a studio with their first project having zero stand out points, instead having worse qualities than its competitors? With said project being an AA with a AAA budget? How did it even get through the negotiation phase?

 

[Hawk The Slayer]

Games with shitty characters and ideas deserves to fail.

 

[AmuroChan]

They have experience. They had games like Socom, M.A.G, Warhawk and Starhawk.
Those, and games like that, would 100% become live service games if they released nowadays.

The problem is both those studios (Zipper and Incognito) aren't around anymore.
They need to invest to grow their portfolio, because their main studios alone aren't enough to run a healthy business for the marketshare they have and studios like Japan and London Studios don't sell enough either.

You can't grow without investing, but that means there are risks involved.

Concord was such a risk and while they definitely took a hit, the company isn't going to crash and burn over it.

I liked Socom and Starhawk, but let's be real, those games didn't sell gangbusters. or else the studios would still be around today. Socom IMO has the best chance of coming back, but who knows what Sony is thinking. Also, I'm in agreement that they should invest in their portfolio. However, they don't have to go all in and acquire the studio right from the beginning. Find the next Arrowhead and contract them to make a live service game for you. You can grow your portfolio without actually owning the studio. It's always worked best for Sony when they work with a studio in a 2nd party capacity for a few games. Then, if the fit is good, acquire them. Concord could've easily been a 2nd party game. There was no reason to purchase Firewalk before they've proven themselves and incurring all the additional costs of owning a studio. The risk should've just been the dev cost of the game. Acquisition of the studio was an unnecessary risk that Sony stupidly took on.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The quintessential question is: Why Sony bought that studio?

I can imagine them buying a studio that had flawed products but have major aspects that stand out from the industry, like when MS bought Compulsion for the art direction and Undead Labs for their survival horror open world that became successful.

But a studio with their first project having zero stand out points, instead having worse qualities than its competitors? With said project being an AA with a AAA budget? How did it even get through the negotiation phase?

Because at the time Sony was ramping up GAAS asap and Firewalk/Concord fit the bill. It's a GAAS game, already WIP and Probably Monsters wanted to unload it. At the time Sony was paying tons of money to buy up anything... Bungie, Haven, Neon Koi, Firewalk, their music division has been spending billions buying up songs etc... Big spending spree. So it all kind of fit together.

Like many big companies partnering or buying up small no name studios, they got teased by the "Studio was formed from veterans from big company X". So the expectation in gaming is if a new studio has a bunch of vets, it must mean it's good enough to buy up. If a guy worked on COD or Destiny or whatever, game publishers get swayed easy. I dont think any other industry is like this. If a guy was a vet from Coke or Whirlpool and wanted to start up his own drink or washing machine company, I dont think they'd be knocking on his door wanting to partner up or buy out. Maybe 10 years from now if his company is successful they'll come knocking.

But in gaming, it seems all you got to do is quit a good gig at a big company, announce to the world youre forming your own studio and suddenly every big company offers you $50M to make a game. And sometimes, they'll even straight up buy them out with nothing but a concept or tech demo.

And game publishers wonder why there's so many bombs. Crazy.

 

[lughnasadh123]

Ugly skins when cosmetics are huge selling point for games like this. Uninteresting People of Wal-mart designs. Intentionally slower gameplay so people can improve it later with abilities. Heavy focus on story cutscenes without pve content. Not going F2P alone was always going to be a hard barrier for people to cross into when they've been conditioned to expect games like this to be free.

As an Overwatch player that's bummed stuff was cut that was originally planned for OW2, I think it's a missed opportunity to have some of that co-op pve here with a dash of pvp on the side rather than just straight up, no frills modes they had at launch.

 

[lh032]

The quintessential question is: Why Sony bought that studio?

I can imagine them buying a studio that had flawed products but have major aspects that stand out from the industry, like when MS bought Compulsion for the art direction and Undead Labs for their survival horror open world that became successful.

But a studio with their first project having zero stand out points, instead having worse qualities than its competitors? With said project being an AA with a AAA budget? How did it even get through the negotiation phase?

you know...i guess Sony did try to buy up any GaaS studio after Microsoft bought Acti, the strategy really impacted Sony business decision.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Good. Get back to making good shit and not pushing a dogmatic ideological message that revolves around your entire mental identity.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Weve been hearing for years how risk averse the AAA industry is. At this point making your game design appeal to resetera types must be viewed as a huge risk. So let’s see how they adjust.

 

[MLSabre]

That's like naming your new mega cruise ship the TiTitanic.

While it isn't a mega cruise ship, a certain submersible was two letters off from Titanic.

Also met with a untimely fate.

Naming your products after unfortunate events is an ill omen.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

I liked Socom and Starhawk, but let's be real, those games didn't sell gangbusters. or else the studios would still be around today. Socom IMO has the best chance of coming back, but who knows what Sony is thinking. Also, I'm in agreement that they should invest in their portfolio. However, they don't have to go all in and acquire the studio right from the beginning. Find the next Arrowhead and contract them to make a live service game for you. You can grow your portfolio without actually owning the studio. It's always worked best for Sony when they work with a studio in a 2nd party capacity for a few games. Then, if the fit is good, acquire them. Concord could've easily been a 2nd party game. There was no reason to purchase Firewalk before they've proven themselves and incurring all the additional costs of owning a studio. The risk should've just been the dev cost of the game. Acquisition of the studio was an unnecessary risk that Sony stupidly took on.

Sure, but that's why Zipper and Incognito got shut down. Socom fell off and Sony started focussing on sp at the same time as well.
It's also why Firewalk got shut down. That's how business works.

What you also shouldn't forget is that times changed and multiplayer-gaming is much bigger today than it was back then.

The issue is that Sony put mp on the backburner for an entire gen while live services took over.
They have to catch up now and buying studios likely has a lot to do with MS buying up major publishers.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Dragon Age next.

Don't even think about buying these games for the hilarity... just watch some streamer play through it if you want that. Avoid ever giving even a single dollar to devs who go down this road. Don't even download from gamepass etc if it's free, because that helps their numbers.

 

[Loomy]

And it's not a 'crowded' genre, it's a popular genre.
Most people are dead tired of Overwatch and Call of Duty and would love something fresh to play.

It's both crowded and popular. And most people aren't "tired of CoD and want to play something else". Black Ops 6 is incredibly popular. Partially because it is "free" on GamePass. OW2 had a rough launch because Blizzard didn't do a good enough job hiding their greed, but that's doing a lot better now. The Finals is still hanging in there.

Most people outside of these 2 forums don't give a shit about pronouns.

The problem with Concord is they built that thing in a bubble and did not seek out any feedback they intended to address. That game should have had a longer closed beta, and an actual open beta where people played and gave feedback. It should also have been f2p.

That's the biggest lesson here. That's also why ExoPrimal failed. No pronouns in that one, just people not willing to pay $80 for an online only PvEvP game.

So yes, it is a crowded and popular genre. So you have to work harder showing value(beta) and completely remove the barrier to entry(cost).

 

[Killjoy-NL]

That's the biggest lesson here. That's also why ExoPrimal failed. No pronouns in that one, just people not willing to pay $80 for an online only PvEvP game.

€40 is acceptable though, just look at Hunt Showdown.

A game just needs to resonate with the gaming community and the quality and content needs to be there.

 

[Katatonic]

Concord was great and I'm pissed they took it away.

 

[Bartski]

feels like in haven

 

[mckmas8808]

They've been shivering for a while now. The writing has been on the wall for years. The bigger and more expensive games get, the higher the risk.

The money that this game cost wasn't even the top 3 biggest issues with it. How are people not understanding the real issue here?

 

[Codeblew]

Proof?

edit: it's really telling when the argument that Concord failed was because there were some minorities in the game.

It has nothing to do with minorities, it has to do with all of the characters being ugly with no sex appeal. Sex sells. They can make sexy characters with any shade of skin color.

 

[Dane]

Because at the time Sony was ramping up GAAS asap and Firewalk/Concord fit the bill. It's a GAAS game, already WIP and Probably Monsters wanted to unload it. At the time Sony was paying tons of money to buy up anything... Bungie, Haven, Neon Koi, Firewalk, their music division has been spending billions buying up songs etc... Big spending spree. So it all kind of fit together.

Like many big companies partnering or buying up small no name studios, they got teased by the "Studio was formed from veterans from big company X". So the expectation in gaming is if a new studio has a bunch of vets, it must mean it's good enough to buy up. If a guy worked on COD or Destiny or whatever, game publishers get swayed easy. I dont think any other industry is like this. If a guy was a vet from Coke or Whirlpool and wanted to start up his own drink or washing machine company, I dont think they'd be knocking on his door wanting to partner up or buy out. Maybe 10 years from now if his company is successful they'll come knocking.

But in gaming, it seems all you got to do is quit a good gig at a big company, announce to the world youre forming your own studio and suddenly every big company offers you $50M to make a game. And sometimes, they'll even straight up buy them out with nothing but a concept or tech demo.

And game publishers wonder why there's so many bombs. Crazy.

What's insane is how Sony of all companies did this, Microsoft had its own targets during the FTC leaks which are shown to be heavily curated, Nintendo bought Shiver Ent who did the amazing ports of Hogwarts Legacy and MK11. Anyone would expect Sony to have top tier headhunters that would have checked out the studios' projects and costs and concluded whether or not it was even worth to even begin any talks, they had pulled out from Deviation partnership due to quality concerns and somehow they couldn't do the same evaluation with a much more expensive negotiation.

Sony was willing to do what Embracer did.

 

[Loomy]

A game just needs to resonate with the gaming community and the quality and content needs to be there.

Absolutely this.

Had they taken the time to sell this as a good game, people would have been more than willing to spend some money on it.

 

[hemo memo]

It is very difficult to fail quite that badly. In a way, their failure is impressive. A new studio with a $400 million investment and 8 years of development time, just 14 days after a release that was heavily advertised on the official store, only to shut it all down, refund everyone, and proceed to close the studio?



So yeah. Nothing Sony studios need to worry about, honestly. There's no way they could screw up this badly even if they tried.

 

[GermanZepp]

How about making AA games prioritizing good gameplay/loops and mechanics over graphics? easyer to get back the money and shorter to develop. Then, if the game succeeds you build up on it and improve the formula..

 

[Laptop1991]

What is this massive overspend being spent on?, it's like when you watch the Rings of Power tv show, you look at it and don't see the cost, the corporate's want GAAS money and MTX from so called engagement from gamer's, but the games they are putting out won't keep many playing for long if at all after the initial release, they must know this.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

What is this massive overspend being spent on?, it's like when you watch the Rings of Power tv show, you look at it and don't see the cost, the corporate's want GAAS money and MTX from so called engagement from gamer's, but the games they are putting out won't keep many playing for long if at all after the initial release, they must know this.

Nobody knows. Tech and media seem to have infinite budgets and the company paying for it seems to have equal bottomless pockets.

As many of us goofed on in various threads over the past year, a TV show like She Hulk (9 episodes) cost $225M.

 

[Laptop1991]

Nobody knows. Tech and media seem to have infinite budgets and the company paying for it seems to have equal bottomless pockets.

As many of us goofed on in various threads over the past year, a TV show like She Hulk (9 episodes) cost $225M.

Yeah, an insane waste of money for what's being produced, hardly any of it will be remembered for being good.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

I definitely don’t agree that “everything looked great”. I’d argue from the very first reveal trailer, the entire game looked very unappealing in a way that I find hard to describe. Which is saying something.

 

[BbMajor7th]

I see the 'rare incel victory' narrative is still trying to make a case for itself.

As I said previously, this game wasn't drowned by a tidal wave of hate, it ran full-pelt into a concrete wall of indifference. The people who followed the minor-league drama around this game are a hyper-engaged but ultimately negligible minority. This game was chasing broad mainstream appeal. It was kneecapped by the fact no-one really gave a fuck. If anything, the drama probably gave it more attention than it would have otherwise attracted. Pull out the pronouns and sack The Professor and the game truly would have been unremarkable - gender-neutral aliens were probably the most interesting thing it had going.

 

[EN250]

If that was true, the new DA wouldn't release the way it's doing it, there would be delays and damage control, but at the same time "woke" game releases look to be just another fad, an expensive one that won't be supported for long as there is no ROI in bending over backwards for the twittards and reeee crew

 

[EverydayBeast]

Historically PlayStation was a shooter console and Sony killed off that genre.

 

[notseqi]

With 30% success rate, Western gaming industry is not going to survive

is there a cloud-landfill to drop all those games into and restart the industry?

 

[Boss Mog]

Only the ones that make woke garbage nobody wants to play are shaking in their boots. Gamers are always hungry for good games, so if a studio decides to make one, it will sell.

 

[Warablo]

Certainly was for some of Sony's upcoming games