It's totally salvagable if the money is there to float it while it gets reprepped for whatever they want to attempt. Sony has that money normally, its whether or not they want to gamble it or not.

It doesn't take an analyst or," expert" to know that trying to revive Concord is a horrible idea. This is like saying Charles Manson might not make a good school teacher in the future.

I'd say the only thing it distinguished itself on was diversity and inclusion. I don't think that is enough, or should be a reason, to try and revive the game though.

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 11:47:
It doesn't take an analyst or," expert" to know that trying to revive Concord is a horrible idea. This is like saying Charles Manson might not make a good school teacher in the future.

Dead people generally don't make good school teachers.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 11:49:

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 11:47:
It doesn't take an analyst or," expert" to know that trying to revive Concord is a horrible idea. This is like saying Charles Manson might not make a good school teacher in the future.

Dead people generally don't make good school teachers.

Analogy still works but you ironically made sound a little more palatable. What's your take on the game's potential revival?

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 12:19:
What's your take on the game's potential revival?

As several here have pointed out, the game only failed because of its political agenda and use of pronouns plus DEI/Woke/Inclusivity stuff that enrages incels. If it weren't for that the game would be Number 0ne on the charts and all other games would fail. We don't want that.
At this point the only way the game can be revived is if they changed all of the characters and made them good looking, preferably cis males. But if females have to be shoehorned into this ip they need to have large mammalian protuberances and exhibit tradwife qualities.

/Sarcasm

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.....

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 12:19:
What's your take on the game's potential revival?

It's dead. The stink of failure will loom over the IP for a very long time to come.

However, Concord's failure is a symptom more than anything else. Long story short, we're currently living an era of reactionary extremism that hasn't been seen in the US since McCarthyism took root. Accusations and the loudest voices (no matter their actual size) are more valued than context and nuance. Combine that with a victimhood mentality on all sides and, yeah, entertainment properties like Concord only have two possible outcomes: they either raise to the top of the zeitgeist or they get pummeled in to a crater so deep that even gneiss exclaims "Daaaaaaamn!"

Whether the game had uninspired characters or gameplay, was poorly marketed, or its price point is largely irrelevant to why it failed when the above factors come in to play.

RedEye9 wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 12:50:
But if females have to be shoehorned into this ip they need to have large mammalian protuberances...

Yeah? Now you got my attention!

Big tiddies is definitely always a good start to... anything, really...

RedEye9 wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 12:50:
...large mammalian protuberances and exhibit tradwife qualities...

<secretly misses having that in his life>

Has there ever been a game that started as a paid game but switched to free to play that didn't die soon after? I don't remember if Lawbreakers ever switched. Battleborn did it after a fashion I suppose, but it died quickly anyway. Evolve died a month after going f2p. Overwatch just lied to everyone and slapped a '2' at the end of the title and said the newest 1.3 patch was a new game. I don't know if lying, stealing, and deceiving counts. Maybe TF2? I remember you initially had to buy the "Orange Box" to get it. Maybe that one? A lot of MMO's made the switch back in the day when it became clear that it was impossible for any game not called WoW to charge a recurring subscription. But I think that those are a different animal as they were subscriptions. I am sure I am forgetting one or two that did it but my point is that it almost never works. The game and studio end up just getting embarrassed twice. You only really get one chance to make a good first impression.

Having talked with a former coworker on the dev team, it was supposed to be F2P except that management changed their mind in the last year. It was designed a more of a Counterstrike/Valorant style game, but again the lead designers pivoted in the last year to more casual. 4 characters had years of design done for them, but the rest came in hot with a lot of complaints internally as they failed to have distinct silhouettes and were not recognizable in fast paced gameplay. Designers didn’t listen to feedback thinking they knew best even after the horrible playtest.

Lastly, tremendous amount of time, effort, and money went into the cinematics. They had a year of cinematics backlog made. The reason for this is suspect, but my friend said the cinematic director was sleeping with the game director (married at the time) and received three promotions in the space of the year to creative director.

If you want to make a year of cinematics, locking down the look of the entire roster early and with no room to pivot is what happens. Characters had to be rushed to make movies for them and then they couldn’t change since their “look” was locked in.

Ignoring the gossip about the affair, that alone would cause your character design to be flawed. Using the Sony Motion Capture studio is expensive and probably also another reason the additional characters were just generic humanoid as you don’t have the cash to do motion capture for extreme body types.

Why someone thought a multiplayer game needed weekly movies is beyond me.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 13:58:

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 12:19:
What's your take on the game's potential revival?

It's dead. The stink of failure will loom over the IP for a very long time to come.

However, Concord's failure is a symptom more than anything else. Long story short, we're currently living an era of reactionary extremism that hasn't been seen in the US since McCarthyism took root. Accusations and the loudest voices (no matter their actual size) are more valued than context and nuance. Combine that with a victimhood mentality on all sides and, yeah, entertainment properties like Concord only have two possible outcomes: they either raise to the top of the zeitgeist or they get pummeled in to a crater so deep that even gneiss exclaims "Daaaaaaamn!"

Whether the game had uninspired characters or gameplay, was poorly marketed, or its price point is largely irrelevant to why it failed when the above factors come in to play.

Are you saying the battle of woke vs anti-woke is what killed this game more than anything? I agree that it's a polarizing force that ended up hurting more than helping but the bad core game play and bland design was the real cause imo. The over-the-top reactions by everyone I agree is a big issue, primarily because of social media's ubiquitous nature. It just amplifies everything and we see the impact immediately instead of days or weeks afterwards now.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 14:23:

RedEye9 wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 12:50:
...large mammalian protuberances and exhibit tradwife qualities...

<secretly misses having that in his life>

You can get your boobs done in a jiffy nowadays. Do it!
😂

SimplyMonk wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 15:43:
Having talked with a former coworker on the dev team, it was supposed to be F2P except that management changed their mind in the last year. It was designed a more of a Counterstrike/Valorant style game, but again the lead designers pivoted in the last year to more casual. 4 characters had years of design done for them, but the rest came in hot with a lot of complaints internally as they failed to have distinct silhouettes and were not recognizable in fast paced gameplay. Designers didn’t listen to feedback thinking they knew best even after the horrible playtest.

Lastly, tremendous amount of time, effort, and money went into the cinematics. They had a year of cinematics backlog made. The reason for this is suspect, but my friend said the cinematic director was sleeping with the game director (married at the time) and received three promotions in the space of the year to creative director.

If you want to make a year of cinematics, locking down the look of the entire roster early and with no room to pivot is what happens. Characters had to be rushed to make movies for them and then they couldn’t change since their “look” was locked in.

Ignoring the gossip about the affair, that alone would cause your character design to be flawed. Using the Sony Motion Capture studio is expensive and probably also another reason the additional characters were just generic humanoid as you don’t have the cash to do motion capture for extreme body types.

Why someone thought a multiplayer game needed weekly movies is beyond me.

Really appreciate sharing inside info like this. It's very obvious that someone in charge of design decisions made a lot of bad choices with the game. The $40 entry fee is likely the #1 cause of the game's failure. I think if it was free, more people would have tried it and been a little more patient instead of jumping on the hate bandwagon so quickly.

As for the cinematics, that's yet another page from the Overwatch play book they borrowed. Corcord was all in with the characters being the stars just like OW did but they missed the mark even if one ignores any, "woke/anti-woke" opinions. It seems like the creative direction was just stuck a few years too far in the past that ended up missing the mark by a lot upon landing. If the game had done well enough, I think the cinematics would have helped keep the hype going very much like it helped OW.

SimplyMonk wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 15:43:
The reason for this is suspect, but my friend said the cinematic director was sleeping with the game director (married at the time) and received three promotions in the space of the year to creative director.

Typical. Someone can't keep their dick in their pants and everything goes to shit. The failing of Concord may luckily be rather insignificant but entire nations have disappeared this way throughout history. Seks is the devil's work!

RogueSix wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 16:20:

SimplyMonk wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 15:43:
The reason for this is suspect, but my friend said the cinematic director was sleeping with the game director (married at the time) and received three promotions in the space of the year to creative director.

Typical. Someone can't keep their dick in their pants and everything goes to shit. The failing of Concord may luckily be rather insignificant but entire nations have disappeared this way throughout history. Seks is the devil's work!

That's why I'm a devil worshipper.

* REMOVED *

This comment was deleted on Sep 8, 2024, 10:39. Reason: Pointless vulgarity

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 16:05:
Are you saying the battle of woke vs anti-woke is what killed this game more than anything? I agree that it's a polarizing force that ended up hurting more than helping but the bad core game play and bland design was the real cause imo. The over-the-top reactions by everyone I agree is a big issue, primarily because of social media's ubiquitous nature. It just amplifies everything and we see the impact immediately instead of days or weeks afterwards now.

I'm saying the reaction to the game was a primary cause in its demise. Optics and publicity are an important part of selling a product. Dustborn has a similar problem (and is also laden with gameplay complaints). Both it and Concord were not overly well received by both sides of the woke/anti-woke divide. One sides blows the DEI dogwhistle and the other side says it's pandering. Thus my previous statement of extreme reactionism and every side playing the vicitmhood card comes in to play.

You can recover from a bad launch. It's difficult as Hell but not impossible. No Man's Sky is a good example of this. So are most Bethesda games (Not you, Starfield. Sit down). What you cannot recover from is a bad look.

I want to be clear that I am all for inclusion and I think there plenty of examples we can use to illustrate where it was done well and naturally. For example, Suvi in Mass Effect: Andromeda was gay and Claire in Cyberpunk 2077 was trans. Those were neat bits of information about them as characters but it wasn't their whole personality. But when you make that one of the points of your game, you're not stepping on a landmine. You're jumping up and down on it with both feet as hard as you can. It's like the corporations that go balls deep on Pride Month. My LGBTQIA+ friends look at it with no small amount of derision because they know it's pandering to generate more revenue. Then you have the other side (MAGAts, "DEI IS TEH DEBIL" mouthbreathers, and so on) that go apeshit as well.

Regardless of their persuasion, no one likes having an ideology, any ideology, shoved in their face and that is exactly what happens when you make "representation" a selling point. Do it naturally and do it in a way that makes sense to the overall universe your entertainment is presenting. Then it becomes part of the universe.

Pr()ZaC wrote on Sep 7, 2024, 16:08:
You can get your boobs done in a jiffy nowadays. Do it!
😂

I was referring to my late wife in that post. I do miss her singing and humming as she puttered away around the house being the housewife she always wanted to be. I also miss her DDs.

Meanwhile I am looking for an actual review of Dustborn on YouTube that isn't people complaining that it is woke propaganda or saying it's great because it pisses off the anti-woke crowd. I never thought this would be an issue. Guess I am just buying it and I'll see for myself. If it ends up sucking I blame you woke/anti-woke crusaders.

In the meantime I am considering a breast reduction