PlayStation Official PS | PS Studios Megathread, v.5

[Schoolboy Q]

Concord is dead, full refunds being given.

An important update on Concord

Concord fans -- we’ve been listening closely to your feedback since the launch of Concord on PlayStation 5 and PC and want to thank everyone who has joined the journey aboard the Northstar. Your support and the passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us...

blog.playstation.com

Sounds like the could be looking into a retool and relaunch as FTP.

 

[Valhoven]

I think it’s dead. Beta didn’t have great numbers either. What a contrast to Helldivers 2. Like holy shit it’s the complete opposite. Quickest selling game to biggest flop ever. Sony will learn from this and be smarter. I’m concerned about fair games though

Sony always learns. Big L here, though.

Sting for me was there’s already a blueprint on what to do. It’s what Hunt: Showdown did and does. Refocus and blow this up with PvEvP. Get into objectives, bounties, field bosses, player stalk mechanics, the whole nine.

F your Marvel, feel-good scoreboard and wildly uninspired maps. Take TNT to that stuff.

Hunt just launched a 2.0 updated called 1896 (costs 30€) and the community is having a love affair with it; game’s aged years at this point. Concord need do some soul-searching and design for their RL segment (target audience). For the players, not politics.

Respect @ Sony refunding.

 

[Flower2dPeople]

Sony is taking Concord offline on September 6th after disastrous launch​

Sony is taking Concord offline on September 6th after disastrous launch

Concord sales will be refunded to PC and PS5 players.

www.theverge.com

Sony is taking Concord, its latest PlayStation game, offline on September 6th, following poor sales of the game. The first-person hero shooter launched exclusively on PS5 and PC on August 23rd, but estimates have put sales at under 25,000. Concord also only managed to hit an all-time peak of 697 players on Steam, lower than the launch peak of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum — widely regarded as the worst game of 2023.

 

[My Spot]

They could've remastered Bloodborne and saved $100 million instead.

 

[what-wut]

The cutscenes, animations, and netcode in Concord are better than what 99% of studios even put out or can produce right now.

The main issue with the title wasn't looks or even how generic it was conceptually, IMO; rather, it was that the game wasn't F2P like peers in the space and then that no-one 100 knew what the game was, which falls on mixed-messaging, marketing.

I honestly thought all the way up until launch that it was a PvEvP type game with even a small campaign but larger MP module. Turns out, the whole thing is a 40€ TDM? Pff, lol. Not sure it would have even done well 8 years ago at project start. Know your playerbase and landscape. Game's too slow, too. Speed it up.

/rant

100% huge own goal on the f2p part. Surprised they aren't changing it to f2p to try and save the game.

I also really believe that the game was unfairly attacked by the hive mind of single player gamers that have this bizarre hatred for multi-player/live service games.

 

[Valhoven]

100% huge own goal on the f2p part. Surprised they aren't changing it to f2p to try and save the game.

I also really believe that the game was unfairly attacked by the hive mind of single player gamers that have this bizarre hatred for multi-player/live service games.

I could see that.

Related, I think complicating things is Sony having built a reputation on SP narratives that are immersive and memorable if not industry-impactful. Live service under the Sony banner, even if done immersively and memorably, can be an unwelcome broadening of brand.

I think Helldivers 2 proved SIE can successfully publish in new areas.

But the user research, playtesting/feedback, production sprints whatnot done by Firewalk for Concord was a massive F-up. Theirs was a production methodology called waterfall thinking, I believe, which isn't as iterative or agile as it should be and moreover marginalises feedback. Studios that do this more or less plough ahead towards earlier-agreed goals to the detriment of newer data showing this, that isn't tracking or sitting with players how we need it to.

Someone was definitely not doing their job right over there. No-one at any production point wanted to play this sh*t. Like, nobody. And this apparently went on for six years as more time and money went into development (8 years apparently gets floated because the extra 2 years includes concept incubation, which is strange in itself because it's a Guardians of Galaxy TDM game absent of innovation or original thought). There should have been a point where a team lead said, hey, our feedback right now = red flags.

Sony was apparently only a project investor since 2021, but I wish they would have sent in a Winston Wolf à la Pulp Fiction from Sony HQ at that time that just slammed his nuts on the studio conference table and told everyone @ Firewalk to gather around, give me the ICP (like a target audience behavioural and personality matrix), give me global feedback to date, why is all this mismatching?

 

[Zazen]

Sony is taking Concord offline on September 6th after disastrous launch

Concord sales will be refunded to PC and PS5 players.

www.theverge.com

Had nothing to do with wokeness. Overwatch has lesbian character as the face of the franchise and the antiwoke slammed BG3 before it released because of so called "bestiality". Game ended up being a smash hit and win GOTY. They say every game is woke so eventually one will bomb and then they can claim they were right the whole time while conveniently ignoring every time they were wrong. It's tiresome lol

 

[Flower2dPeople]

Had nothing to do with wokeness. Overwatch has lesbian character as the face of the franchise and the antiwoke slammed BG3 before it released because of so called "bestiality". Game ended up being a smash hit and win GOTY. They say every game is woke so eventually one will bomb and then they can claim they were right the whole time while conveniently ignoring every time they were wrong. It's tiresome lol

 

[Zazen]

Concession accepted. Don't spend so much time on Twitter dude lol. It ain't real life. Game failed for being 40 bucks in a genre that is oversaturated. Also doesn't help that Marvel Rivals is free to play and releases later this year.

 

[Flower2dPeople]

Concession accepted. Don't spend so much time on Twitter dude lol. It ain't real life. Game failed for being 40 bucks in a genre that is oversaturated. Also doesn't help that Marvel Rivals is free to play and releases later this year.

Congrats.

 

[Zazen]

Congrats.

Thank you.

 

[Valhoven]

They could've remastered Bloodborne and saved $100 million instead.

Sobering. I saw titles listed from others too naming Killzone, Infamous 4, Sly Cooper, Days Gone 2, SOCOM, TimeSplitters, Little Big Planet 4, and Resistance – all welcome first-party projects. Some even come primed for live service, ironically, which was the driver for Concord. Hindsight 20/20, though. Lot of cool stuff can get done with 100M USD, 5+ years, and a crystal ball.

 

[Valhoven]

 

[rikwebb]

 

[Dizzy]

Congrats.

You legitimately can’t form an argument that isn’t given to you by rage bait farmers lmao.

 

[My Spot]

Sobering. I saw titles listed from others too naming Killzone, Infamous 4, Sly Cooper, Days Gone 2, SOCOM, TimeSplitters, Little Big Planet 4, and Resistance – all welcome first-party projects. Some even come primed for live service, ironically, which was the driver for Concord. Hindsight 20/20, though. Lot of cool stuff can get done with 100M USD, 5+ years, and a crystal ball.

The last Killzone game was a PS4 launch title in 2013. It's 60 FPS on PS5 but still stuck at 1080p.
They could remaster the Resistance trilogy (throw in the PSP and Vita ones as well), slap 'em on a disc and plenty of people would pay full price. Oh well.

 

[Flower2dPeople]

You legitimately can’t form an argument that isn’t given to you by rage bait farmers lmao.

Nah. I see both of you aren't worth a fuck to respond too ( I did it this once to clear the air). @Zazen might have some points as I have seen them addressed by gaming articles but knowing that the market is saturated and the one thing that would make your product stand out is to lean into ugly woke characters, made it the final nail in the coffin. Shit, it was hit by negative response 3 months before release. Execs probably thought your ilk are loud ergo you're the majority.

 

[Dizzy]

Nah. I see both of you aren't worth a fuck to respond too ( I did it this once to clear the air). @Zazen might have some points as I have seen them addressed by gaming articles but knowing that the market is saturated and the one thing that would make your product stand out is to lean into ugly woke characters, made it the final nail in the coffin. Shit, it was hit by negative response 3 months before release. Execs probably thought your ilk are loud ergo you're the majority.

You literally came into this thread with a rage bait thumbnail with an LGBTQ flag posted on it with the words “TOTAL HUMILIATION” on it, and want to talk about not being worth responding to lol.

The game wasn’t marketed for shit, didn’t allow a player base to grow or provide feedback during an early access program, didn’t do anything to distinguish itself from other titles, and then charged $40 on top of it. As you’ve been told, the last fucking thing that sank this game is fucking “woke.” Only the braindead culture war freaks have clung onto it like it’s some kind of message being sent.

 

[Zazen]

Nah. I see both of you aren't worth a fuck to respond too ( I did it this once to clear the air). @Zazen might have some points as I have seen them addressed by gaming articles but knowing that the market is saturated and the one thing that would make your product stand out is to lean into ugly woke characters, made it the final nail in the coffin. Shit, it was hit by negative response 3 months before release. Execs probably thought your ilk are loud ergo you're the majority.

What makes the characters woke? Woke was a term coined by African-Americans to raise awareness of injustices. It's funny how the people who use this word frequently can't even define it. At this point I'm convinced that the terms "woke" and "DEI" are used as some sort of soft N word or dog whistle. I exclusively see it being used in the context of a game having too many dark skinned characters. We saw that with Forspoken, God of War Ragnarok, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Concord, etc. It's funny because they'll go after the most superficial shit but completely ignore the themes of some of their favorite shows and games growing up. It proves to me these morons are completely media illiterate. Take FF7 for example, game makes obvious criticisms towards capitalism and destroying the planet because of greed. Another is X-men with the clear contrast to Professor X and Magneto and how it relates to two very famous people in American history. My point is a lot of the stuff you grew up with and enjoyed was probably more woke than Concord which doesn't even have any sort of message. It just has ugly character design which has absolutely nothing to do with wokeness. If you want a real example of a woke game look up Dustborn. That’s too out there for me because the message is a bit heavy handed.

 

[Zazen]

Astro bot reviews. 94 metacritc and 94 opencritic!