Thanks for sharing this video on reddit, you can also retweet here x.com/MRIXRT/status/1836057531468439780 Special thanks to my podcast co-hosts for providing additional footage, check out youtube.com/@crubofficial
You really jumped over the DEI issue but it's much deeper than you let on. Large multinational companies are funding game studios and inserting this forceably into games which is the bigger issue that your "minor subset of players" is aware of. Quit avoiding the truth.
Thats actually a very important mantra. Everything costs more than a blockbuster movie of yester year and the hype and expectations for nearly every AAA is make it or break it. I miss the old days where a AAA studio would have theae big budget releases and maybe 2 other AA projects and new IPs that cost significantly less and provide the team with some revenue so their AAA would not be a death sentence if it flops. Now you can have a game sell 2 million copies and still be considerd a Comercial Failure.
Number 1 unwritten rule of game creation: NEVER look at a game that just came out and say "I want to do that." Chances are that 50 other game makers had that same idea at that same time.
You would think the industry would have learned that after the age of "WoW-killer" mmos failures.. but it seems the industry is resistant to lessons from history
And movie and tv show, and while we're at it that general line of thought is also good for the stock market. "If I've heard of this good tip so have others"
While i think "I want to do that." isn't really bad, but if they wanna do it then figure out how to be different/innovative AND DON'T BE OUTDATED WHEN YOU APPEAR!
As a once diehard Overwatch player turned scorned lover...i was praying for another developer to sweep me off my feet. The characters in Concord are so cringe that nothing this game could offer would make that problem go away. Looking at these models is shockingly bad. Vomit
It will never stop being funny to me that Concord is getting so much attention and analysis in its death chiefly due to how little anyone cared about it when it was alive.
@@DangerB0ne Plus taxes. So for me it would be $886.89 total.... and then I'll need a disc drive to play my physical games... and an extended hard drive to play the new COD without uninstalling half my games... hmmmm, it's a bargain
Im still surprised with that "8 years" I know making game is hard, but cmon 8 years for this, Its almost feels like starfield, where right now everything is seamless and put loading screen as little as possible, yet it released like we're still in 2016.
@@notbot5360 Cyberpunk2077 has or had a lot off issues, but no loading screens and it is a vast huge world with some massive complexes to enter. I cant remember seeing any besides when the game is booting up. Some are hidden behind elevators I believe, but while you are taking them you are able to watch tv news.
They based designs on 70s aesthetics? Honestly, I don't see it at all. Designs to me just seemed too bright, too colorful, just nauseating, incohesive even. They all look unappealing
Ironically enough, if they were more colorful and nauseating, they would be closer to the 70's 😂Coming from someone who loves 70's aesthetics. Purple hair alien girl clearly wears modern clothes, 2005-ish. There's nothing 70's about her, nothing.
You know, Astro Bot kicked off a discussion over whether dormant IPs should be revived, and one of the main arguments against it is that "mid-sized games just don't sell much anymore." Maybe they don't, but I think a new Ape Escape or Sly Cooper game would've sold more than Concord did. And then you have H̶y̶e̶n̶a̶s̶ Fairgame$ and Marathon...
Lots of "AA" games have seen success lately. It's more that people aren't willing to spend time or money on clearly uninspired titles without a sizeable amount of their friends also moving over.
We need more fun charming games like Astro Bot. I would love a new Sly, Jak and Dexter, Ape Escape, Gravity Rush, LocoRoco heck if you want to do shooters bring back Killzone and SOCOM, they would have done 100 times better than Concord ever did.
@@reallycool totally! notably Helldivers 2, stellar blades, Space Marine 2, Pacific Drive..etc i forgot to mention. it felt more like theyre replacing over what AAA arent able to accomplish nowadays. seeing AA being the middle child has both pros of being able to develop fresh indie concepts and the manpower and budget to accomplish that scale.
@@reallycool And even then, some of those friends can be 'paid'. Like the following for something like... I don't know... that black monkey game that the anti-woke crowd was buzzing over?
I think a campaign of pve would've justified the $40 cost. Even if it was only 10-12 hours of content, but high quality, the game could've survived at least twice as long Edit: just realized, that's still not even a month... not even a February month. Lol
Yep, some people take a blind eye for that. Recently I saw a indie rpg developed by former Bioware devs or something like that, many comments mentioning that is a good thing... but really, look at the state of Bioware, if these devs were not good enough to sustain their jobs at that environment, at those standards, imagine their real talent? Sometimes people are fired for a reason, they leave companies for a reason, etc.. it's not always the big scary capitalistic dog ruining the lives of innocent workers, blablabla real life is not a melodrama
If the CEO fails and mismanages a company, the competent people will leave first. Competent employees get lots of job offers or even have enough experience to create a startup. If a company is managed competently, then it's more likely that underperforming employees will be forced to leave. Failing CEOs seem to be the default at big video developers, but I'm not part of the game industry, so what do I know? Haha 🌈@@RRRRRRRRR33
I think you’re wrong in that people wont feel nostalgic for 70s aesthetic. People wont feel nostalgic, but they will see a cool aesthetic they’ve never seen, and love it. The problem comes from the fact that who ever was in charge of art direction failed to do the 70s scifi designs justice, and instead tried to do a weird off putting hybrid of 70s Sci-Fi, and Mondern Brutalists Sci-Fi. It’s ugly to look at. Things have random puffy bits, or parts of clothes are made out of strips of harder materials. What would be a 60s style Space helmet is instead an awkward ball made up of metal plates with random oval holes in it. That isn’t “Future-Retro”.
I don't understand how a game can suffer from 'feature creep' during its development and then still release without any features that make for a compelling USP. Truly a perfect storm of hubris.
Don't forget PSN accounts are not available for over 100 countries, Sony games especially on PC are not an option for a lot of people. No one I know is risking spending on a Sony game then having their account banned.
@@reallycool And thanks for that u usually take your time with your videos! Instead of others who push 10, 10 minute videos every second day about Concord you took your sweet time, did your research and made a almost 1 hour documentary why Concord failed, thanks.
I find it insane that they so desperately wanted to copy Overwatch, even copying it down to a fault. No pve mode, a story trailer for a game without a story mode, and insisting theres a deeper lore and character development that will likely just be isolated to comics and reveal trailers on youtube. They could have planned to make a game that competed with overwatch by providing more than what the franchise offers now, but they decided to stop at the exact point Blizzard started 8 years ago.
@@samuelsolomon7330 It doesn't even compare to Overwatch properly gameplay-wise. Original Overwatch (Not Overwatch 2) had this very polished objective-oriented gameplay loop I can only compare to Tug of War. From what I've seen Concord is a chaotic team deathmatch with minimal support/tank/DPS interaction, akin to Team Fortress 2.
And Overwatch is running in circles. It's sad to see how Overwatch "represents" this genre, such a horrendous game that wasted infinite potential because of bad direction smh "hero shooters" are not supposed to be represented by this abomination, remember Team Fortress 2? That is the standard right there, they introduced the whole thing: game modes, defined classes who can't be customized, snarky trailers to present each class, etc.. Overwatch blatantly copied TF2 and Global Agenda. And here we are, Marvel Rivals only offers PvP and nothing else, it's poised to take over, straight up killing Paladins + snatch away half of the Overwatch playerbase (if not more). It's the same old TF formula, but Rivals is a fun game. Concord failed to be fun and engaging, simple as it is (and this game is not a TF, more like a mix of Halo + Destiny + TF "abilities". Overwatch "2", Paladins and Marvel Rivals are straight up TF)
I'm not a huge gamer and just happened upon this video. I don't see why so many people are saying they find the characters cringey or dislike them, can you provide insight?? I went to watch the whole cast and the only cringey one imo is the green alien girl
I think in their defense, they charged 40$ for a game was because Back in the day, it wasn't free 2 play to play overwatch 😂 But, the difference is Overwatch was a brand new idea toward a fps game. While Concord is the cheap copy of Overwatch
but even this defense shows how they never looked back at the market once they had chosen who they wanted to mimic. Yes Overwatch WAS $40 but the markets current buy in price is now free, the money coming after attachment has set it. I do find it annoying and strange that once games have earned enough money off the price of the game becoming free once enough secondary money stream have opened up (IE Overwatch with lootboxes and Sims 4 with expansions packs) but even that "precedent" requires a lot of good faith or a large audience, if not both. and Concord had neither.
This reminds me of Hyenas, the Creative Assembly looter shooter that had an abysmal beta test. Difference being that Sega decided to pull the plug on that after seeing the writing on the wall.
@@reallycoolGameplay-wise, an FPS with Zero-G elements could potentially be interesting. But in terms of overall aesthetics? Hyenas was complete garbage. Very "How do you do, fellow kids?" tiers of tone-deaf attempts to be relatable and failing miserably.
It's a huge failure all the same, Sega shouldn't be "praised" for that. Same goes if Sony cancel Fairgame$, they already wasted money and tarnished the image of the company
As someone whose life could change with $2k-10k I actually find it nauseating to see that trash like Concord and the Borderlands film burn through hundreds of millions of dollars.
Normally, most of it goes into advertising I think which to some degree makes sense.. but the first time I ever heard about this game was it's end - I didn't even know it was a game, I thought someone was talking about the aeroplane.
Obviously they're completely different genres but I just find it hilarious to see the difference in numbers: last year Capcom released a collection of 6 ~20 year old GBA games, it sold 1.4 million copies in two months and had a peak player count on Steam of over 7,000. Ports of Gameboy Advance games sold better than Concord by orders of magnitude and have a larger multiplayer community.
I like the woe is me social media posts and threads with tens of thousands of likes and updoots after this game was canned. Couldn't bother to buy and play the game.
I played it. I didn't even dislike it. But I saw the issues immediately, and was not surprised by its lack of stickiness. I did expect them to pivot to f2p instead of closing it entirely, though I still think they'll do that in a few months
the entirety of the modern audience got into a car crash and is currently recovering, they'll be back and make the next game oriented at the modern audience a billion dollars
I’m usually dissatisfied with the description of “unnecessary” in terms of quality of media, but in this case, it’s clearly right. If so few people wanted it that they pulled the plug in 12 day, it was unnecessary to release it in the first place.
Good lord that darn game Concord, with all that money wasted it could have been used in better things in PlayStation, like: -Don't shutdown Japan Studios. -Don't shutdown London Studios. -Avoided the layoffs on Bend Studio and the cancellation of Days Gone 2. -Expanded more the PlayStation Classics porting departament team. -Developed small games or publish/help porting indie games for the PS4/5 (like they did in the PS3 days). But nope everything went to this "I wanna be" Overwatch with rejected and plagiarize designs from The Guardians of the Galaxy. The only good thing that Concord achieved was the fact that finally someone dethroned E.T. of Atari in failure aspects after 42 years. Well that and another "crazy surprise" that 2024 gave us, gosh... this year has been weirdly amazing and disturbing. 😂
Tbh the PS london studio spent years without making any meaningful product/game considering its overhead cost, and the higher up got first hand experience on the employee "vibing"
If they placed the money between the Japan and London studios we would’ve been having some amazing games out like a new LittleBigPlanet or Freedom Wars for PS5/4, both would’ve outclassed this. Now Sony has IPs missing their original creative teams who had vision. Concord is at best a game created by a committee check list.
I quite enjoyed Concord, but GOD this game did almost everything wrong. From bad character design, to barely any content, to almost no focus on what made the game fun (the rivals playlist).
It might be mean to say it but im glad concord flopped so hard. Hopefully this shows companies that dev resources put into massive live services is a big risk! They arent just free money machines, and those development hours could have been put into making something great (like astro bot)
I didn’t think I’d encounter anyone to phrase my thoughts so well. 😆 I was expecting a rough launch where the game would either limp on until it was patched to working condition or it would putter out a few months before being axed. I would have never expected that Concord would fail so hard that servers were being shut down before I fully understood what was happening to it.
It's a shame, because I tried the beta and it actually wasn't that bad. The queue times were ok, and it was enjoyable once I got used to the controls. It had potential, but clearly they bet the house and it didn't pay off
Concord’s development is insane to me because they got *every resource that every developer would’ve begged for* especially in this day and age. Practically unlimited money and enough agency to only show off the game once they were confident opposed to something like anthem or andromeda where no one was ready. Yet Firewalk still completely fumbled it. They had one job for a *DECADE* and didn’t think to change anything from the start. Shockingly similar to Skull and Bones despite seemingly having none of the issues that game came across in development. FW just seemed far too confident due to the lack of interference or widespread testing until it was too late. Like surrounding yourself with a bunch of people who just say “yes” to all of your decisions despite how badly each one is being received elsewhere.
Ironically this game dying gives me hope for the future of games. Maybe such a failure is what is needed for priorities to shift back into gameplay first. May even incentivize a rise in double-A games
I imagine it was probably just to avoid a lawsuit, even if they won it that is thousands of dollars down the drain for lawyers and other legal fees, better to give the few hundred people there money back in a already failure of a game.
@@brandonlyon730That’s probably a really good point. It could have also been a case of it being cheaper to refund the few people that bought it than to sink the time, resources, costs and effort needed to keep it going.
For being in development for that long and costing that much I had not once heard of this game until videos started coming out about what a failure it was. I hadn’t heard a single peep, and I keep up with gaming news. The abysmal lack of marketing alone takes a sizable chunk of the blame for this games failure.
I disagree it had a lot of marketing here is a small list: the limited edition Concord controller, the very own CGI Amazon episode (that will air soon and definitely costed a lot of money), the merchandise yes Concord has merchandise like cups and t-shirts and so on. On PlayStation's own UA-cam channel, I myself counted all the Concord trailers and the game had over 30 of them. I think marketing can push a great game but a bad game is still a bad game, doesn't matter how much you invest into marketing.
I forgot to mention Deadlock, Deadlock had literally ZERO marketing, it had a closed beta no one was supposed to talk about and it still blew up because of word of mouth. It was a good game people shared their experience even if they were supposed not to talk about it, here you have Concord with a HUGE marketing budget where most people didn't even know about is existence and then you have Deadlock a closed secret beta that no one should talk about and had no marketing (it was there to test the game) and the game blew up like crazy.
@@Official_RetroMania I found out about Deadlock after seeing someone talking about a certain "Spanish gargoyle girl" in a comment section of a video about Concord lol. Probably the best thing I have found from dumpster diving.
IMO the biggest reason the game failed was its art style, not the character designs (although thats still a factor), if your games metal textures look like plastic or hard rubber, its just going to look ugly for the majority of consumers.
@@deadpan2866 tbh I think it’s all character design, when I see a character with a cool design that’s what gets me interested in a game, things need to look cool and unique. I simply do not want to play as unappealing looking characters, even if no one wants to admit it no one wants to play as a 300lbs fat guy in a game nor an ugly character. I want to be a ripped dude or hot alien girl, simple as that, if the characters aren’t nice to look at no amount of gameplay can make the game fun
It feels like Concord was taking a very big gamble that Hero Shooters would still be popular after 8 years and that they could slice out a market share of it. It almost feels like they saw TF2 retaining relevance after 9 years and believing that retention was due to the genre and not the game itself. In the 8 years, we spanned market trends of hero shooters, mobile gaming, battle royales, (to an extent) FPS resurgence, all of which had peaks of influence before dying out. That should've been the sign to Sony that Concord was more than likely going to die out of irrelevance before it even had the chance to take off because of the very principles it was founded on
Just started. Lets look at their early interviews about concord. "We really just want a strong foundation for concord. Something that players are familiar with" literally this is just a concept of a hero shooter pushed to release with a HUGE budget, for the foundation. The ground. Base level. Nothing innovative, nothing unique. Nothing standing. Its just a slab of "yep, this is a hero shooter."
out of everything i've heard about the game, the MOST shocking thing was that they made a hero shooter without ultimate abilities. I cannot fathom why ANY game in this day and age with a focus on specialized characters DOESN'T HAVE ULTIMATE ABILITIES
@@olianims Funny enough Mecha Break is also a hero shooter with mechs as the “heroes” with no ultimate abilities or even human characters at all outside of your create a character and a couple NPCs as skins. That mostly twitch-drop-only for the first week beta test got over 50,000 players, almost 25 times the number of players as concord’s open beta running at the same time. A game that had barely anything other than a couple of trailers and a relatively new chinese studio. People like to try new things, concord just didn’t look interesting to anyone.
Now I'm upset I didn't have the bell ringed. It's a little late to the party, but since it's a Concord discussion there really isn't a time limit. This game belongs in a museum of "What NOT to do."
I would like to extend my most heartfelt gratitude to Sony for the work they have done in uplifting the state of Indie games. I know they are not alone that deserve such praise, Ubisoft is another key member in showing the customer, repeatedly, how they are better off spending their money anywhere else but on their games. I would like also to give a shoutout to EA and Blizzard, they are doing fantastic also on that front. Thanks to all of them, the economical paradigm of the video game industry is shifting from what it once was. Thanks for sharing, cheers!
The main problem: instead of looking for specific group of gamers the game companies pushing no-burger products to global market in blind hope it will stick somehow. And now PS5 Pro should pay for Concord disaster.
The Star Citizen scope creep is so pervasive it's hitting its timeline too. Investors were not acquired until September 2012 and public funds were not taken until October that same year. Yes it has been a long, thought rapidly accelerating, ride. There is no need to creep the timeline with the scope.
It is tragic and hilarious at how Concord is finally being talked about weeks after it died. It's like someone dying in their apartment and nobody knowing about it until weeks after it happened.
Watching this actually reminded me of something Overwatch did for player retention, AND I DONT EVEN PLAY THAT GAME and I knew about it happening. I legitimatly remember people complaining about que times in Overwatch and playing it less due to match times... And then they added the free-play mode that let you run around and play tag with people while waiting for the que to load. Instant engagement and player retention, plus new people got to experiment with characters they didnt know well before combat and went in with better understanding of the game physics.
I think the biggest contributor to Concord's downfall was Sony's acquisition of Firewalk Studios. Once big names appear, it's over. Biomutant. Was hyped up as hell. Until THQ Nordic stepped in. Price tag went up from 40 to 60 and it wasn't what fans anticipated. Respawn sold the rights to Titanfall to EA. While it did bring Apex Legends, Titanfall was buried 6 feet under. And, of course, the biggest failure: Duke Nukem Forever. Randy tried to salvage the game but he should've let it die. Now, he sits on Duke Nukem all day, doing squat, and asking money for the pre-build of DNF from 2009. Greasy bastard. I personally think, if Sony hadn't acquired Firewalk, maybe Concord wouldn't have died 2 weeks after release.
They said they spent 100 million on the game's development up to 200 million, but I believe it's way more than 200 million. For sure has to be a quarter of a billion if not a little more.
A problem isn't the 70's design ( fashion trends in regular people showed it came back in the 2010's). Its how the designs were done, not one of the characters actually fit the aesthetic. Hi fi rush was a 90's to early 2000's Saturday morning cartoon like Megas XLR and the WB block shows, Mass Effect in the first game drew people in with 1980's and 90's style sci-fi. Designs were overcomplicated which didn't help with the character identities. Panzer Dragoon for example had it's art design done by Mobius of Valerian and Lauraline fame a series rooted in the 70's European comic scene and Heavy Metal. So i won't blame it on choice of style but execution.
Massively disagree on the topic of 70s sci fi aesthetics being dated. That era had a very particular, very pulpy style of science fiction that we dont get anymore, mostly thanks to star wars. we dont get Flash Gordons, Space Odysseys, or Logan's Runs anymore, but if you can nail that very specific vibe, it can work. The problem with Concord's designs isnt the 70s sci fi vibes, its just that apart from the yellow mushroom lady (who actually looks great imo) they all just look like concept characters from other games that never made it into their final products cause they were just lame designs. It isnt the 70's Sci-Fi aesthetic bringing them down, cause that vibe does have a niche, the characters are just a bunch of lame looking losers.
@@reallycool fair point, although I think there's something to be said about not only catering to such a notoriously fickle demographic, but also banking on it
As an artist, Concord's character designs failed because fundamentally they do not work. They are very generic and each character has nothing that makes sense design wise for their role. You have to tell story, and personality just in the character design and all their designs look like some npc you would find in a game. they dont stand out and on some you cant even tell anything about the character just by looking at them. You cant just add random objects on them and call it a day, and imo the games character designs are super ugly and i do not think people would want to play characters they consider ugly.
Games as a service is killing games. In the past you could just do an achievement and get the unlock or play for a week and get everything. Now you need to sink months or years of free time into a game to unlock everything. As a result, you have to choose between game types. Do I sink 1000 hours in this game or that in the same genre. I never learned the keys bindings of Starcraft 2 because used to sink 1000s of hours into League of Legends. Same thing with Halo Infinite, why grind out that game when I can just play Halo 3/Reach MCC and not have to grind 1000 hours. Concord shouldn't have been put into development, especially when LawBreakers came out the year before and flopped for the exact same reason Concord did. Valorant only initially succeeded because RIOT already had a large fan base to pull from. Same thing goes for Valve and Deadlock. Deadlock is a good game but if Valve wasn’t the one putting it out no one would be playing it, even though Deadlock is a third person MOBA. People would have lumped it in with Overwatch and SMITE. Concord’s developers have nothing in this industry close to these developers. It was a game doomed to fail, and this doesn't even include the PR nightmare they created with their marketing team.
100% Shibuya Punk would by my preferred current trend retro-future aesthetics. Stuff like SSX3, AirBlade, and what have you. And Genji already hits that mark with his design
I think the future is to go back to single and double-A games. These giant budgets and need for giant sales numbers have gotten too out of hand, and the drive to milk the market will only give us more Concords in the future. If there's one thing I expect no less out of big names in the video gaming, it's that they never read the room and double down hard when they mess up.
The game reeks of executive planning. People that don't make or play games just hear second-hand about what's popular and hire enough people to copy it.
The problem isn't Concord failing and Sony wasting tons of time/money. The issue is what they sacrificed to making Concord. Concord brings bad blood to Sony because for the last 5-6 years we have been BEGGING a Bloodborne remaster or a simple port to PC. Sony literally preffered to snipe Japan Studios in favor of Concord and here are the results: the biggest flop in gaming history. Meanwhile, Sony treats Bloodborne as Concord and we are so desperate that we had to do it ourselves because Sony preffers to bend to their CEO and make tons of money with live services instead of hearing players. It also didn't help that the devs were extremely smug with the players and at every chance, they called us talentless idiots. Do I believe that they're going to learn from this lesson? No, I don't think so. They're going to react instead of reflect
Finally someone who can explain somewhat what happened here... Concord showed up, nobody knew what to do with it, and it was gone. And no, I cant imagine it was just the character designs... Lets hope the industry finally learns something from this.
A good example I feel would be Warframe as someone who listened to their community and changed alongside them and generated a following because their community itself want them to do well and has trust that they can comeback if ever they missed something
I mean really, regardless of all the deeper context, The bottom line is that we are several years too late to release yet another character based team shooter. The market is so overly saturated, and even if this was the best of the bunch it pretty much had no chance.
The game doesnt look bad. But these team shooter royale games have been forgoten long ago. An old game for an audience that no longer is interested in these games.
I’m the top ranked northern hemisphere player. There’s one 13 year old kid in Australia who knows the game a bit better than me worldwide. Oh well, it’s over anyway.
"Inspired in the 70s aesthetics, drawing inspiration from an era that predates most of its target audience" If done right it can work like Team Fortress 2 is based in 60s~70s aesthetics, however Concord characters color pallet and design was downright ugly.
Even if Sony decides to try to rework Concord in an attempt to relaunch it, Concord will always have a massive brand on its back. The brand of being one of, if not the biggest failure in gaming history. I think it will be almost impossible to get past that
Without the huge dev time, people would have condemned Concord as a cash grab through and through. However, because of the dev time, the main thing I heard about it was "Why?" It really shows that the AAA market is full of the corpos again, much like the 80s (with the crash and all).
For me it's as you said, while detailed, the game is utterly ugly. The maps are bland and forgettable and the heros look like weirdos who you'd see at walmart at 2am. Their personalities are just as cringe as their appearance. If they really wanted to copy guardians of the galaxy then they completely failed. All the guardians are likeable while no one in their game is.
Not Sony simultaneously taking the biggest L in gaming ever and releasing the best triple a game of the year, and then the 700 dollar no Blu Ray machine
The retro-70s sci fi asthetic was, IMO, the real nail in the coffin for concord's design. In a game that was cell shaded/animated it could have worked better, but in a game that focuses on hyper-realistic looks it just looks absolutely terrible.
Its genuinely a shame that so much of your suggested solutions and problems will be ignored by sony in favour of 'diverse casts and not monetising every little thing caused this to fail' :(
The only consideration Sony put into buying out and publishing Concord seems to be, "We need a AAA multiplayer exclusive!" At no point were gamers' wants or needs considered.
Thanks for sharing this video on reddit, you can also retweet here x.com/MRIXRT/status/1836057531468439780
Special thanks to my podcast co-hosts for providing additional footage, check out youtube.com/@crubofficial
@@reallycool remember no first
You really jumped over the DEI issue but it's much deeper than you let on. Large multinational companies are funding game studios and inserting this forceably into games which is the bigger issue that your "minor subset of players" is aware of. Quit avoiding the truth.
Concord teaches an important lesson: games might be pay-to-win, but *game development* isn't.
Thats actually a very important mantra. Everything costs more than a blockbuster movie of yester year and the hype and expectations for nearly every AAA is make it or break it.
I miss the old days where a AAA studio would have theae big budget releases and maybe 2 other AA projects and new IPs that cost significantly less and provide the team with some revenue so their AAA would not be a death sentence if it flops. Now you can have a game sell 2 million copies and still be considerd a Comercial Failure.
it absolutely is p2w, the devs just bought a bunch of cosmetics instead of advertising and gameplay
Like many things in life, throwing more money at a problem stops working after a certain point (cough, Hyenas)
Poetry
@@volcanic_sloth and product research! They forgot that.
Number 1 unwritten rule of game creation: NEVER look at a game that just came out and say "I want to do that." Chances are that 50 other game makers had that same idea at that same time.
You would think the industry would have learned that after the age of "WoW-killer" mmos failures.. but it seems the industry is resistant to lessons from history
millions of shareholders had that idea all at the same time....
And movie and tv show, and while we're at it that general line of thought is also good for the stock market. "If I've heard of this good tip so have others"
While i think "I want to do that." isn't really bad, but if they wanna do it then figure out how to be different/innovative AND DON'T BE OUTDATED WHEN YOU APPEAR!
As a once diehard Overwatch player turned scorned lover...i was praying for another developer to sweep me off my feet. The characters in Concord are so cringe that nothing this game could offer would make that problem go away. Looking at these models is shockingly bad. Vomit
It will never stop being funny to me that Concord is getting so much attention and analysis in its death chiefly due to how little anyone cared about it when it was alive.
It is remarkable how unremarkable it was😂
The milk toast man concord was isn't interesting
The corpse it became is
"The bigger they are, the louder they crash."
"alive"
because analyzing success does not translate to other success, but analyzing failure can prevent further failures.
"Sony's reputation took a hit..."
And then Jim Ryan said, "Hold my beer!" and allowed them to announce the PS5 Pro for $800
Seven hundred ninety-nine dollars
@@DangerB0ne Plus taxes. So for me it would be $886.89 total.... and then I'll need a disc drive to play my physical games... and an extended hard drive to play the new COD without uninstalling half my games... hmmmm, it's a bargain
The xbox series x is 600$ no upgrades at all...........
@@beenjammin971 no upgrades compared to What?
Still 250€ less than ps5 pro, and it includes The disc drive @@beenjammin971
Ok but seriously losing 8 years of development and spending like 200M and failing is honestly one of the biggest failures in videogame history.
That’s why it’s causing such a splash with the scale of its failure.
@@mikoto7693 It is a great failure indeed, heard from around the world.
Who would have thought that "FAT: the video game" would have failed?" 😂
Im still surprised with that "8 years"
I know making game is hard, but cmon 8 years for this,
Its almost feels like starfield, where right now everything is seamless and put loading screen as little as possible, yet it released like we're still in 2016.
@@notbot5360 Cyberpunk2077 has or had a lot off issues, but no loading screens and it is a vast huge world with some massive complexes to enter. I cant remember seeing any besides when the game is booting up. Some are hidden behind elevators I believe, but while you are taking them you are able to watch tv news.
They based designs on 70s aesthetics? Honestly, I don't see it at all. Designs to me just seemed too bright, too colorful, just nauseating, incohesive even. They all look unappealing
@@Sizifus "Incohesive" is the single most apt way to describe this entire game's visuals.
Maybe they based their designs on what Fortnite thinks 70s aesthetics are?
It's so strange, the designs were very colorful but somehow incredibly drab and lifeless. I don't know how in the world they managed that "feat"
Ironically enough, if they were more colorful and nauseating, they would be closer to the 70's 😂Coming from someone who loves 70's aesthetics. Purple hair alien girl clearly wears modern clothes, 2005-ish. There's nothing 70's about her, nothing.
They're not based on a 70's aesthetic
They're based on what James Gunn and Jon Favreau convinced people was the 70's aesthetic
A freaky latina gargoyle girl from a MOBA Hero-shooter hybrid that is currently in its Alpha phase has more fanart than any Concord character.
What character from what game?
@@TheSonOfDumbthat gargoyle is Ivy, the game is Deadlock
@@TheSonOfDumbValve's latest alpha game
@@camaroneedsanewdesign4892 Shoulda figured, thanks
More than 10x of all of them combined according to the green website.
Not... not that Ive checked... or anything.
You know, Astro Bot kicked off a discussion over whether dormant IPs should be revived, and one of the main arguments against it is that "mid-sized games just don't sell much anymore." Maybe they don't, but I think a new Ape Escape or Sly Cooper game would've sold more than Concord did.
And then you have H̶y̶e̶n̶a̶s̶ Fairgame$ and Marathon...
Lots of "AA" games have seen success lately. It's more that people aren't willing to spend time or money on clearly uninspired titles without a sizeable amount of their friends also moving over.
that message seeing the contrast between Concord and Astro Bot👌
We need more fun charming games like Astro Bot. I would love a new Sly, Jak and Dexter, Ape Escape, Gravity Rush, LocoRoco heck if you want to do shooters bring back Killzone and SOCOM, they would have done 100 times better than Concord ever did.
@@reallycool totally! notably Helldivers 2, stellar blades, Space Marine 2, Pacific Drive..etc i forgot to mention. it felt more like theyre replacing over what AAA arent able to accomplish nowadays. seeing AA being the middle child has both pros of being able to develop fresh indie concepts and the manpower and budget to accomplish that scale.
@@reallycool And even then, some of those friends can be 'paid'. Like the following for something like... I don't know... that black monkey game that the anti-woke crowd was buzzing over?
Imagine if Concord had the PvE coop mode that Overwatch 2 promised and failed to deliver.
Might have saved the franchise for at least another week.
@@SourRobo8364 Funny enough, there's a little cartoony Chinese game called "Gunfire reborn" that hits this spot for me for 4 years already.
I think a campaign of pve would've justified the $40 cost. Even if it was only 10-12 hours of content, but high quality, the game could've survived at least twice as long
Edit: just realized, that's still not even a month... not even a February month. Lol
@@S_raB They should have followed Halo Infinite route, free multiplayer but paid campaign.
@@EngieMak that's a good idea... if only you consulted with them 3-4 years ago.
@@SourRobo8364 That'd be another 8 years of development.
you see, there is a good REASON why these people were EX bungie developers, and not current ones.
Current bungie isn't doing so hot either
Yep, some people take a blind eye for that. Recently I saw a indie rpg developed by former Bioware devs or something like that, many comments mentioning that is a good thing... but really, look at the state of Bioware, if these devs were not good enough to sustain their jobs at that environment, at those standards, imagine their real talent? Sometimes people are fired for a reason, they leave companies for a reason, etc.. it's not always the big scary capitalistic dog ruining the lives of innocent workers, blablabla real life is not a melodrama
If the CEO fails and mismanages a company, the competent people will leave first. Competent employees get lots of job offers or even have enough experience to create a startup. If a company is managed competently, then it's more likely that underperforming employees will be forced to leave. Failing CEOs seem to be the default at big video developers, but I'm not part of the game industry, so what do I know? Haha 🌈@@RRRRRRRRR33
I think you’re wrong in that people wont feel nostalgic for 70s aesthetic.
People wont feel nostalgic, but they will see a cool aesthetic they’ve never seen, and love it.
The problem comes from the fact that who ever was in charge of art direction failed to do the 70s scifi designs justice, and instead tried to do a weird off putting hybrid of 70s Sci-Fi, and Mondern Brutalists Sci-Fi.
It’s ugly to look at.
Things have random puffy bits, or parts of clothes are made out of strips of harder materials. What would be a 60s style Space helmet is instead an awkward ball made up of metal plates with random oval holes in it.
That isn’t “Future-Retro”.
@@LinkiePup deadlock out there nailing the 1920's aesthetics and people loving it because the mix with occultism and robots makes it really compelling
In order to do a retro aesthetic, you have to be able to see outside of your personal bubble.
I don't understand how a game can suffer from 'feature creep' during its development and then still release without any features that make for a compelling USP. Truly a perfect storm of hubris.
Don't forget PSN accounts are not available for over 100 countries, Sony games especially on PC are not an option for a lot of people. No one I know is risking spending on a Sony game then having their account banned.
For me it was 100% the characters. The gameplay looks good but they look too stupid to even want to try.
Concord the best example how to NOT make a video game. Devs around the world should study this game and avoid doing the same mistakes.
This video provides a list of all the major mistakes :)
@@reallycool And thanks for that u usually take your time with your videos! Instead of others who push 10, 10 minute videos every second day about Concord you took your sweet time, did your research and made a almost 1 hour documentary why Concord failed, thanks.
its rarely the devs making the mistakes in regards to triple a flops
@@buttermilkjudas well.... i can spot at least a dozen mistakes that the devs made without higher-up interference.....
Easy, reject Blackrock money and DEI checkboxes.
I find it insane that they so desperately wanted to copy Overwatch, even copying it down to a fault. No pve mode, a story trailer for a game without a story mode, and insisting theres a deeper lore and character development that will likely just be isolated to comics and reveal trailers on youtube. They could have planned to make a game that competed with overwatch by providing more than what the franchise offers now, but they decided to stop at the exact point Blizzard started 8 years ago.
"Stopped at the point blizzard started at 8 years ago" is a great way to put it, wish I'd said it
@@samuelsolomon7330 It doesn't even compare to Overwatch properly gameplay-wise. Original Overwatch (Not Overwatch 2) had this very polished objective-oriented gameplay loop I can only compare to Tug of War. From what I've seen Concord is a chaotic team deathmatch with minimal support/tank/DPS interaction, akin to Team Fortress 2.
@@Miraihigameplay in tf2 is still better
@@Mrhouse-k1x I dislike the gameplay of TF2, Overwatch 2 and Concord pretty equally.
And Overwatch is running in circles. It's sad to see how Overwatch "represents" this genre, such a horrendous game that wasted infinite potential because of bad direction smh "hero shooters" are not supposed to be represented by this abomination, remember Team Fortress 2? That is the standard right there, they introduced the whole thing: game modes, defined classes who can't be customized, snarky trailers to present each class, etc.. Overwatch blatantly copied TF2 and Global Agenda. And here we are, Marvel Rivals only offers PvP and nothing else, it's poised to take over, straight up killing Paladins + snatch away half of the Overwatch playerbase (if not more). It's the same old TF formula, but Rivals is a fun game. Concord failed to be fun and engaging, simple as it is (and this game is not a TF, more like a mix of Halo + Destiny + TF "abilities". Overwatch "2", Paladins and Marvel Rivals are straight up TF)
This game costed more than an F-35.
And disappeared just as fast.
@@youdonthavetocomment Amelia Earhart would be proud.
I cringe every time I see concord hero's. It's straight cringe 🤢
@@theumtheum1357 Yea exactly, one reason why I didn’t want to play it
@@gunslinger2261 the main reason NOBODY wants to play concord is because it is full of "diversity" hired cultists.
I'm not a huge gamer and just happened upon this video. I don't see why so many people are saying they find the characters cringey or dislike them, can you provide insight?? I went to watch the whole cast and the only cringey one imo is the green alien girl
I think in their defense, they charged 40$ for a game was because Back in the day, it wasn't free 2 play to play overwatch 😂
But, the difference is Overwatch was a brand new idea toward a fps game. While Concord is the cheap copy of Overwatch
Overwatch wasn't even that new of an idea. But it did have decent gameplay and characters people liked
but even this defense shows how they never looked back at the market once they had chosen who they wanted to mimic. Yes Overwatch WAS $40 but the markets current buy in price is now free, the money coming after attachment has set it. I do find it annoying and strange that once games have earned enough money off the price of the game becoming free once enough secondary money stream have opened up (IE Overwatch with lootboxes and Sims 4 with expansions packs) but even that "precedent" requires a lot of good faith or a large audience, if not both. and Concord had neither.
This reminds me of Hyenas, the Creative Assembly looter shooter that had an abysmal beta test.
Difference being that Sega decided to pull the plug on that after seeing the writing on the wall.
Similar issues with Hyenas actually, an ultra colorful beginner friendly game charging too much for the market with abysmal marketing
@@reallycoolGameplay-wise, an FPS with Zero-G elements could potentially be interesting.
But in terms of overall aesthetics? Hyenas was complete garbage. Very "How do you do, fellow kids?" tiers of tone-deaf attempts to be relatable and failing miserably.
It's a huge failure all the same, Sega shouldn't be "praised" for that. Same goes if Sony cancel Fairgame$, they already wasted money and tarnished the image of the company
As someone whose life could change with $2k-10k I actually find it nauseating to see that trash like Concord and the Borderlands film burn through hundreds of millions of dollars.
Normally, most of it goes into advertising I think which to some degree makes sense.. but the first time I ever heard about this game was it's end - I didn't even know it was a game, I thought someone was talking about the aeroplane.
I wish they would ask if the game has a purpose to exist before making it.
Absolutely the key takeaway
The purpose is money.
@@lannobile7260Of course, but it has to have more than profit otherwise Concord is the result.
Obviously they're completely different genres but I just find it hilarious to see the difference in numbers: last year Capcom released a collection of 6 ~20 year old GBA games, it sold 1.4 million copies in two months and had a peak player count on Steam of over 7,000. Ports of Gameboy Advance games sold better than Concord by orders of magnitude and have a larger multiplayer community.
I like the woe is me social media posts and threads with tens of thousands of likes and updoots after this game was canned. Couldn't bother to buy and play the game.
I played it. I didn't even dislike it. But I saw the issues immediately, and was not surprised by its lack of stickiness. I did expect them to pivot to f2p instead of closing it entirely, though I still think they'll do that in a few months
@@reallycool There was a free beta. It got as few players as the paid beta. Going F2P wouldn't help.
That dang modern audience not showing up again.
@@reallycoolModern Audience is an anti-woke thing
It's a conspiracy theory that black people, women and the LGBT crowd don't exist
@@reallycool But you don't understand the metrics say -
In all seriousness, if I could, I'd make the word 'metric' a dirty word.
the entirety of the modern audience got into a car crash and is currently recovering, they'll be back and make the next game oriented at the modern audience a billion dollars
But they did show up, all 680 of them
@@LimitedCheetah they were busy that week watching the latest capeshit movie
I’m usually dissatisfied with the description of “unnecessary” in terms of quality of media, but in this case, it’s clearly right.
If so few people wanted it that they pulled the plug in 12 day, it was unnecessary to release it in the first place.
Good lord that darn game Concord, with all that money wasted it could have been used in better things in PlayStation, like:
-Don't shutdown Japan Studios.
-Don't shutdown London Studios.
-Avoided the layoffs on Bend Studio and the cancellation of Days Gone 2.
-Expanded more the PlayStation Classics porting departament team.
-Developed small games or publish/help porting indie games for the PS4/5 (like they did in the PS3 days).
But nope everything went to this "I wanna be" Overwatch with rejected and plagiarize designs from The Guardians of the Galaxy.
The only good thing that Concord achieved was the fact that finally someone dethroned E.T. of Atari in failure aspects after 42 years.
Well that and another "crazy surprise" that 2024 gave us, gosh... this year has been weirdly amazing and disturbing. 😂
@@Totavier -BLOODBORNE REMASTER!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
E.t was more memorable atleast
Tbh the PS london studio spent years without making any meaningful product/game considering its overhead cost, and the higher up got first hand experience on the employee "vibing"
If they placed the money between the Japan and London studios we would’ve been having some amazing games out like a new LittleBigPlanet or Freedom Wars for PS5/4, both would’ve outclassed this.
Now Sony has IPs missing their original creative teams who had vision. Concord is at best a game created by a committee check list.
I quite enjoyed Concord, but GOD this game did almost everything wrong. From bad character design, to barely any content, to almost no focus on what made the game fun (the rivals playlist).
The truth is that gamers don’t care about graphics anymore. The indie games market has proven that in spades.
@@dragonfire5568 I agree, but adding graphical filters to concords characters was like polishing a turd
It might be mean to say it but im glad concord flopped so hard. Hopefully this shows companies that dev resources put into massive live services is a big risk! They arent just free money machines, and those development hours could have been put into making something great (like astro bot)
They could have made 3-4 AstroBots
In a way yes, because I found the beta mediocre and hopefully they can make something more interesting and unique (in a good way)
Concord *Has rough launch*
Me:Eh…expected
Concord *Friking dies within 2 weeks*
Me:WHAT, THE, ACTUAL, FUC@?
I didn’t think I’d encounter anyone to phrase my thoughts so well. 😆 I was expecting a rough launch where the game would either limp on until it was patched to working condition or it would putter out a few months before being axed.
I would have never expected that Concord would fail so hard that servers were being shut down before I fully understood what was happening to it.
It's a shame, because I tried the beta and it actually wasn't that bad. The queue times were ok, and it was enjoyable once I got used to the controls. It had potential, but clearly they bet the house and it didn't pay off
Concord’s development is insane to me because they got *every resource that every developer would’ve begged for* especially in this day and age. Practically unlimited money and enough agency to only show off the game once they were confident opposed to something like anthem or andromeda where no one was ready.
Yet Firewalk still completely fumbled it. They had one job for a *DECADE* and didn’t think to change anything from the start. Shockingly similar to Skull and Bones despite seemingly having none of the issues that game came across in development. FW just seemed far too confident due to the lack of interference or widespread testing until it was too late. Like surrounding yourself with a bunch of people who just say “yes” to all of your decisions despite how badly each one is being received elsewhere.
Everyone keeps using “catastrophic” to describe this when “cataclysmic” is way more fitting
Everyone keeps using catastrophic to describe this when my word is cooler.
@@Elijah42069yes
Ironically this game dying gives me hope for the future of games. Maybe such a failure is what is needed for priorities to shift back into gameplay first. May even incentivize a rise in double-A games
They were trying for "Guardians of the Galaxy", but we got "Diabetics of the Walmart" instead.
Sony forgot the Ferengi rule of acquisition #1.
Once you have their money, you never give it back.
I imagine it was probably just to avoid a lawsuit, even if they won it that is thousands of dollars down the drain for lawyers and other legal fees, better to give the few hundred people there money back in a already failure of a game.
@@brandonlyon730That’s probably a really good point. It could have also been a case of it being cheaper to refund the few people that bought it than to sink the time, resources, costs and effort needed to keep it going.
There's also the "Game developers MUST not mock and insult gamers on Twitter" factor. Remember the Saints Row Reboot?
The funny thing is that @anim_xander is a contract developer, not a full employeed developer
For being in development for that long and costing that much I had not once heard of this game until videos started coming out about what a failure it was. I hadn’t heard a single peep, and I keep up with gaming news. The abysmal lack of marketing alone takes a sizable chunk of the blame for this games failure.
Yes, the lack of marketing is a major component of its failure
I disagree it had a lot of marketing here is a small list: the limited edition Concord controller, the very own CGI Amazon episode (that will air soon and definitely costed a lot of money), the merchandise yes Concord has merchandise like cups and t-shirts and so on. On PlayStation's own UA-cam channel, I myself counted all the Concord trailers and the game had over 30 of them.
I think marketing can push a great game but a bad game is still a bad game, doesn't matter how much you invest into marketing.
I forgot to mention Deadlock, Deadlock had literally ZERO marketing, it had a closed beta no one was supposed to talk about and it still blew up because of word of mouth. It was a good game people shared their experience even if they were supposed not to talk about it, here you have Concord with a HUGE marketing budget where most people didn't even know about is existence and then you have Deadlock a closed secret beta that no one should talk about and had no marketing (it was there to test the game) and the game blew up like crazy.
@@Official_RetroMania I found out about Deadlock after seeing someone talking about a certain "Spanish gargoyle girl" in a comment section of a video about Concord lol. Probably the best thing I have found from dumpster diving.
It's unreal that established companies like Sony and veterans like Bungie didn't do an ounce of market research in a overcrowded market.
IMO the biggest reason the game failed was its art style, not the character designs (although thats still a factor), if your games metal textures look like plastic or hard rubber, its just going to look ugly for the majority of consumers.
@@deadpan2866 tbh I think it’s all character design, when I see a character with a cool design that’s what gets me interested in a game, things need to look cool and unique. I simply do not want to play as unappealing looking characters, even if no one wants to admit it no one wants to play as a 300lbs fat guy in a game nor an ugly character. I want to be a ripped dude or hot alien girl, simple as that, if the characters aren’t nice to look at no amount of gameplay can make the game fun
This game could have been the first videogame adaptation of my boy thugnificient but they messed it... S M H
It feels like Concord was taking a very big gamble that Hero Shooters would still be popular after 8 years and that they could slice out a market share of it. It almost feels like they saw TF2 retaining relevance after 9 years and believing that retention was due to the genre and not the game itself. In the 8 years, we spanned market trends of hero shooters, mobile gaming, battle royales, (to an extent) FPS resurgence, all of which had peaks of influence before dying out. That should've been the sign to Sony that Concord was more than likely going to die out of irrelevance before it even had the chance to take off because of the very principles it was founded on
Tf2 was Made by valve and in the source engine ofc it's still alive
Just started. Lets look at their early interviews about concord. "We really just want a strong foundation for concord. Something that players are familiar with" literally this is just a concept of a hero shooter pushed to release with a HUGE budget, for the foundation. The ground. Base level. Nothing innovative, nothing unique. Nothing standing. Its just a slab of "yep, this is a hero shooter."
out of everything i've heard about the game, the MOST shocking thing was that they made a hero shooter without ultimate abilities. I cannot fathom why ANY game in this day and age with a focus on specialized characters DOESN'T HAVE ULTIMATE ABILITIES
@@olianims Funny enough Mecha Break is also a hero shooter with mechs as the “heroes” with no ultimate abilities or even human characters at all outside of your create a character and a couple NPCs as skins. That mostly twitch-drop-only for the first week beta test got over 50,000 players, almost 25 times the number of players as concord’s open beta running at the same time. A game that had barely anything other than a couple of trailers and a relatively new chinese studio. People like to try new things, concord just didn’t look interesting to anyone.
I like how standing out is a herculean task for big games but indie games do it all the time
Last year there was like 20 thousand games launched on Steam, for a indie to stand out among this tsunami of "content", that is way more impressive
I'm curious how much of the blandness was a result of design-by-committee.
@@Laekith plane riddled with bullets on certain parts png:
That one character literally looks like my water boiler in my basement
I like how AMD came out with a software patch for concord two days after it was canceled. Lol
Now I'm upset I didn't have the bell ringed. It's a little late to the party, but since it's a Concord discussion there really isn't a time limit.
This game belongs in a museum of "What NOT to do."
They made a staggering number of mistakes
Nintendo naming the location of their new game Concordia right after this is such a power move.
I would like to extend my most heartfelt gratitude to Sony for the work they have done in uplifting the state of Indie games. I know they are not alone that deserve such praise, Ubisoft is another key member in showing the customer, repeatedly, how they are better off spending their money anywhere else but on their games. I would like also to give a shoutout to EA and Blizzard, they are doing fantastic also on that front. Thanks to all of them, the economical paradigm of the video game industry is shifting from what it once was. Thanks for sharing, cheers!
FINALLY SOMEONE WHO EXPLAINS THE REASONS WHY THIS GAME FAILED THAT AREN'T "WOKE BAD" I LOVE YOU
The main problem: instead of looking for specific group of gamers the game companies pushing no-burger products to global market in blind hope it will stick somehow. And now PS5 Pro should pay for Concord disaster.
All involved KNEW what the game was like before it was shipped, If I had worked there I would have been looking for a job months before release
the character designs make me laugh every time
They will learn nothing, and this will continue.
The Star Citizen scope creep is so pervasive it's hitting its timeline too. Investors were not acquired until September 2012 and public funds were not taken until October that same year.
Yes it has been a long, thought rapidly accelerating, ride. There is no need to creep the timeline with the scope.
Im sure the "Modern Audience" will purchase the next game.... 😂
I will if it's good!
It is tragic and hilarious at how Concord is finally being talked about weeks after it died. It's like someone dying in their apartment and nobody knowing about it until weeks after it happened.
Characters are lame. The one single reason it failed.
Watching this actually reminded me of something Overwatch did for player retention, AND I DONT EVEN PLAY THAT GAME and I knew about it happening. I legitimatly remember people complaining about que times in Overwatch and playing it less due to match times... And then they added the free-play mode that let you run around and play tag with people while waiting for the que to load. Instant engagement and player retention, plus new people got to experiment with characters they didnt know well before combat and went in with better understanding of the game physics.
Concord is to Gen Z what ET: The Video Game was to Gen X.
Great video man, Concord is going to go down in gaming history as a colossal failure lol
I think the biggest contributor to Concord's downfall was Sony's acquisition of Firewalk Studios. Once big names appear, it's over. Biomutant. Was hyped up as hell. Until THQ Nordic stepped in. Price tag went up from 40 to 60 and it wasn't what fans anticipated. Respawn sold the rights to Titanfall to EA. While it did bring Apex Legends, Titanfall was buried 6 feet under. And, of course, the biggest failure: Duke Nukem Forever. Randy tried to salvage the game but he should've let it die. Now, he sits on Duke Nukem all day, doing squat, and asking money for the pre-build of DNF from 2009. Greasy bastard. I personally think, if Sony hadn't acquired Firewalk, maybe Concord wouldn't have died 2 weeks after release.
That's one of the arguments I make yeah
The reason the game failed is not because of ambition. It's because of the complete opposite
They said they spent 100 million on the game's development up to 200 million, but I believe it's way more than 200 million. For sure has to be a quarter of a billion if not a little more.
the 200 mill is just a guess, even the biggest insiders were discussing about it being either between 80 or 300 mill, but nobody is sure..
@@raafmaat Well, whatever amount it was they were clearly okay with wasting it.
@@computersandgaming6664 thats very true! haha
A problem isn't the 70's design ( fashion trends in regular people showed it came back in the 2010's). Its how the designs were done, not one of the characters actually fit the aesthetic. Hi fi rush was a 90's to early 2000's Saturday morning cartoon like Megas XLR and the WB block shows, Mass Effect in the first game drew people in with 1980's and 90's style sci-fi. Designs were overcomplicated which didn't help with the character identities. Panzer Dragoon for example had it's art design done by Mobius of Valerian and Lauraline fame a series rooted in the 70's European comic scene and Heavy Metal. So i won't blame it on choice of style but execution.
Massively disagree on the topic of 70s sci fi aesthetics being dated. That era had a very particular, very pulpy style of science fiction that we dont get anymore, mostly thanks to star wars. we dont get Flash Gordons, Space Odysseys, or Logan's Runs anymore, but if you can nail that very specific vibe, it can work. The problem with Concord's designs isnt the 70s sci fi vibes, its just that apart from the yellow mushroom lady (who actually looks great imo) they all just look like concept characters from other games that never made it into their final products cause they were just lame designs. It isnt the 70's Sci-Fi aesthetic bringing them down, cause that vibe does have a niche, the characters are just a bunch of lame looking losers.
I like the aesthetic, but betting on it for a game aimed primarily at children is a losing proposition
I agree so much with you
@@reallycool fair point, although I think there's something to be said about not only catering to such a notoriously fickle demographic, but also banking on it
As an artist, Concord's character designs failed because fundamentally they do not work. They are very generic and each character has nothing that makes sense design wise for their role. You have to tell story, and personality just in the character design and all their designs look like some npc you would find in a game. they dont stand out and on some you cant even tell anything about the character just by looking at them. You cant just add random objects on them and call it a day, and imo the games character designs are super ugly and i do not think people would want to play characters they consider ugly.
Games as a service is killing games. In the past you could just do an achievement and get the unlock or play for a week and get everything. Now you need to sink months or years of free time into a game to unlock everything. As a result, you have to choose between game types. Do I sink 1000 hours in this game or that in the same genre. I never learned the keys bindings of Starcraft 2 because used to sink 1000s of hours into League of Legends. Same thing with Halo Infinite, why grind out that game when I can just play Halo 3/Reach MCC and not have to grind 1000 hours.
Concord shouldn't have been put into development, especially when LawBreakers came out the year before and flopped for the exact same reason Concord did. Valorant only initially succeeded because RIOT already had a large fan base to pull from. Same thing goes for Valve and Deadlock. Deadlock is a good game but if Valve wasn’t the one putting it out no one would be playing it, even though Deadlock is a third person MOBA. People would have lumped it in with Overwatch and SMITE. Concord’s developers have nothing in this industry close to these developers.
It was a game doomed to fail, and this doesn't even include the PR nightmare they created with their marketing team.
70s nostalgia ended in the 2000s, 2010s was 80s nostalgia, and this decade is all about the 90s. Imagine releasing a game with a dated aesthetic.
100%
Shibuya Punk would by my preferred current trend retro-future aesthetics.
Stuff like SSX3, AirBlade, and what have you.
And Genji already hits that mark with his design
Imagine setting fire to $68,493 a day for 8 years. That is how much this catastrophy cost.
Just the perfect amount to write off for tax breaks one can assume
I think the future is to go back to single and double-A games. These giant budgets and need for giant sales numbers have gotten too out of hand, and the drive to milk the market will only give us more Concords in the future. If there's one thing I expect no less out of big names in the video gaming, it's that they never read the room and double down hard when they mess up.
The game reeks of executive planning. People that don't make or play games just hear second-hand about what's popular and hire enough people to copy it.
The problem isn't Concord failing and Sony wasting tons of time/money. The issue is what they sacrificed to making Concord.
Concord brings bad blood to Sony because for the last 5-6 years we have been BEGGING a Bloodborne remaster or a simple port to PC.
Sony literally preffered to snipe Japan Studios in favor of Concord and here are the results: the biggest flop in gaming history.
Meanwhile, Sony treats Bloodborne as Concord and we are so desperate that we had to do it ourselves because Sony preffers to bend to their CEO and make tons of money with live services instead of hearing players. It also didn't help that the devs were extremely smug with the players and at every chance, they called us talentless idiots.
Do I believe that they're going to learn from this lesson? No, I don't think so. They're going to react instead of reflect
Well at least they announced Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered the day this video dropped
Finally someone who can explain somewhat what happened here... Concord showed up, nobody knew what to do with it, and it was gone. And no, I cant imagine it was just the character designs...
Lets hope the industry finally learns something from this.
They basically made Valorant, except didn't balance it and added literally no personality to any of the characters
A good example I feel would be Warframe as someone who listened to their community and changed alongside them and generated a following because their community itself want them to do well and has trust that they can comeback if ever they missed something
This was literally Hayenas but Sega saw the writing on the walls and cancelled it IMMEDIATELY
I mean really, regardless of all the deeper context, The bottom line is that we are several years too late to release yet another character based team shooter. The market is so overly saturated, and even if this was the best of the bunch it pretty much had no chance.
The game doesnt look bad. But these team shooter royale games have been forgoten long ago. An old game for an audience that no longer is interested in these games.
I’m the top ranked northern hemisphere player. There’s one 13 year old kid in Australia who knows the game a bit better than me worldwide. Oh well, it’s over anyway.
"The game isn't for you, CHUDS!"
later:
"WHY AREN'T THESE GAMERS BUYING OUR GAME REEEEEE"
I’m proud to be a CHUD.
"Inspired in the 70s aesthetics, drawing inspiration from an era that predates most of its target audience"
If done right it can work like Team Fortress 2 is based in 60s~70s aesthetics, however Concord characters color pallet and design was downright ugly.
Even if Sony decides to try to rework Concord in an attempt to relaunch it, Concord will always have a massive brand on its back. The brand of being one of, if not the biggest failure in gaming history. I think it will be almost impossible to get past that
I couldn’t care less about characters design but it being a hero shooter is what killed any interest I had in it
biggest reason i never played concord was that it costed $40
Without the huge dev time, people would have condemned Concord as a cash grab through and through. However, because of the dev time, the main thing I heard about it was "Why?" It really shows that the AAA market is full of the corpos again, much like the 80s (with the crash and all).
Well it has been a fun journey to see how bad the game did.
For me it's as you said, while detailed, the game is utterly ugly. The maps are bland and forgettable and the heros look like weirdos who you'd see at walmart at 2am. Their personalities are just as cringe as their appearance. If they really wanted to copy guardians of the galaxy then they completely failed. All the guardians are likeable while no one in their game is.
The maps are wildly bland. It's nearly impossible to describe them and have anyone know what you're talking about.
There’s a case being made that Sony was hoping to showcase this game as an ultra quality multiplayer game for the PS5 Pro…
Likely it was intended to be a major IP yeah
The free beta didn't attract anyone, so $40 was a given failure.
Not Sony simultaneously taking the biggest L in gaming ever and releasing the best triple a game of the year, and then the 700 dollar no Blu Ray machine
When you go into gamedevelopment and instead of specing into computer skills you max out speechcraft to 100. 200 million budget in the bag!
The retro-70s sci fi asthetic was, IMO, the real nail in the coffin for concord's design. In a game that was cell shaded/animated it could have worked better, but in a game that focuses on hyper-realistic looks it just looks absolutely terrible.
Yes, I said the same thing. I mocked up a cel shaded version and it was way better
Its genuinely a shame that so much of your suggested solutions and problems will be ignored by sony in favour of 'diverse casts and not monetising every little thing caused this to fail' :(
The only consideration Sony put into buying out and publishing Concord seems to be, "We need a AAA multiplayer exclusive!" At no point were gamers' wants or needs considered.
it's crazy there's exponentially more people who have watched videos on how concord failed than people who actually played concord.
More people have seen this video than units of the game were sold
the colours of Concord are just so disgusting every frame is an eyesore