4 ms·

It still amazes me that a project can fail this hard without anyone speaking up. Based on what was said in the clip, there wasn't a great overarching direction

It still amazes me that a project can fail this hard without anyone speaking up. Based on what was said in the clip, there wasn't a great overarching direction to define the game. I haven't even heard anyone discussing the Concord story, what were they cooking to make them think they would be able to create something comparable to StarWars? Nearly everything I've heard about this game has been that it's a fairly generic hero shooter. Did they ever do player testing or get outsiders to try it out before release? Were the people working on this game dogfooding it themselves?

flohofwoe 2y ago
I mean... the game was in development for 8 years and paid the bills for (apparently) 150 people working on the game for nearly a full decade. That's pretty good for a complete failure ;) I guess they just couldn't find the magic formula to keep the game even longer in development like Star Citizen managed to do.
- chii 2y ago
  > like Star Citizen which has amazing content - as judged by the sales of the ships and such in the game, even before gameplay existed. The problem with concord is that there are a bunch of wokes at the helm, trying to push a personal agenda via this project, but failing to see that gamers aren't buying what they're selling. Gamers who, first and foremost, want fun games, cool graphics and immersion in fantasy.
  - walls 2y ago
    The lottery has amazing content - as judged by the sales of tickets and such.
  - nerdjon 2y ago
    I guarantee you that was not the actual problem with this game. The more inclusive part of this game was barely talked about because most don’t care and have realized they the world is bigger than their narrow view. Most games today are diverse, some more than others. Including many Sony games that sell incredibly well.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      > The more inclusive part of this game was barely talked about because most don’t care and have realized they the world is bigger than their narrow view. This is never the problem with games that fail due to "woke" things. You, probably like the Concord devs, have a different definition of "woke" to the critics, and until you realise that you'll continue to make this mistake.
      - BoxFour 2y ago
        You’ve made a valid point mainly because, for a significant portion of people who use the term, "woke" has become a blanket term for anything they don’t like. The word has lost any specific meaning. “The game is bad because it’s bad”.
        robertlagrant 2y ago
        You've just made the same mistake as the OP.
        BoxFour 2y ago
        Ok.
      - nerdjon 2y ago
        So educate me. What exactly is the critics definition of “woke” that somehow is anything other than diverse?
        Jensson 2y ago
        Hostility towards anyone who criticizes anything that could be considered diverse. You see a lot of that. When you can't criticize something that is diverse then it ensures it will be shit. You can have diverse things that are good, but not when it isn't allowed to be criticized since they will call anyone who criticizes it a racist bigot. That is what the critics means with woke.
  - some_random 2y ago
    Concord didn't even sell enough for "people aren't buying it because it's woke" to be plausible lmao
  - flohofwoe 2y ago
    I rather suspect the game was just boring, "woke" or not.
- karlgkk 2y ago
  Star citizen has been more or less shipping continual updates, and openly engaging with community. It’s still a disaster, it’s impressive that concord is somehow doing worse
- jprete 2y ago
  Disregarding the finances, 150 people spent eight years of their life on this. I don't think they were all just phoning it in and paying the bills. It probably stings more than a little bit.
  - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
    > 150 people spent eight years of their life on this. Wasting a huge part of your life for your employer is what you get paid for if you have a job.
    - some_random 2y ago
      This might be hard for you to believe but some people actually want their work to be more than just an exchange of their time for money.
      - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
        > some people actually want their work to be more than just an exchange of their time for money. Nearly everybody has grandiose wishes.
  - flohofwoe 2y ago
    Yes, but on the other hand working on one game after another that are never released or flop spectacularly is not unusual at all in the games industry, especially in AAA (the long development cycle until the money stopped flowing is though).
- CM30 2y ago
  The difference being that Star Citizen has some very passionate fans willing to put an obscene amount of time and money into the game. Lots of people dislike that game or think it's a grift, but lots of people also like it and throw lots of money at it for things like fancy virtual ships. Concord basically doesn't have fans, at least in any number that can support a moderately successful game. No matter what they did business wise, the idea and characters and world simply weren't appealing enough to justify the work put into it.
digitallis42 2y ago
I'm not sure it's a play test failure. If it were, you would think there would have been a burst of users and then nothing. It seems to me more like a market appeal failure. I didn't get the sense that anyone was intrigued by the story or characters, and the hero shooter as a genre has Overwatch, TF2, Deadlock and the bodies of Battleborne and others. They didn't showcase any stunning new mechanics in their intro, nor did they manage to make a funny or compelling story. The marketing seemed to basically rely on "if they see 30s of gameplay, that will be compelling enough". If we remember TF2, they launched with a bunch of really well conceptualized "Meet the character" videos which built humor and personality into the characters as well as taught some of the mechanics. Overwatch launched a whole pile of interesting and very fresh player mechanics, as well as about triple the characters available with TF2. Again, I can easily imagine they had players testing it. I'm not sure they had many people market testing.
ytch 2y ago
It already happened many times: Fallout 76, No Man's Sky (at least they managed to improved after release). The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Redfall, Babylon's Fall (Dead after release?). And many games just force player to do meaningless things (for example, cast one magic 100 times for an achievement or unlock an unique item). Do they actually think this is funny during QA or design stage?
- t0bia_s 2y ago
  You forgot Star Citizen. "Unlimited" budget but nothing special.
- deadlydose 2y ago
  > cast one magic 100 times for an achievement I was playing Bioshock Infinite recently and it had an achievement along the lines of "Loot 200 Containers." Not a huge deal except it pops up every time, 200 times, as you are looting. > Do they actually think this is funny.. What's funnier is that thousands of players discovered there was a word to describe what they wanted to do to the team: defenestration.
akimbostrawman 2y ago
its the same thing with Gemini. if speaking up can get you fired, socially ostracized and black listed there is ample reason to just shut up.
Strom 2y ago
> Were the people working on this game dogfooding it themselves? Well they certainly weren't dogfooding it after launch. The Concord credits list 1,972 professional roles [1] while a week after release the game had fewer than 150 players on Steam. [2] The game was so bad that not even the people who spent 8 years working on it had any interest in it. -- [1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/229488/concord/credits/playstation-5/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/229488/concord/credits/playst... [2] https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/#max https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/#max

flohofwoe 2y ago

I mean... the game was in development for 8 years and paid the bills for (apparently) 150 people working on the game for nearly a full decade. That's pretty good for a complete failure ;) I guess they just couldn't find the magic formula to keep the game even longer in development like Star Citizen managed to do.

chii 2y ago
> like Star Citizen which has amazing content - as judged by the sales of the ships and such in the game, even before gameplay existed. The problem with concord is that there are a bunch of wokes at the helm, trying to push a personal agenda via this project, but failing to see that gamers aren't buying what they're selling. Gamers who, first and foremost, want fun games, cool graphics and immersion in fantasy.
- walls 2y ago
  The lottery has amazing content - as judged by the sales of tickets and such.
- nerdjon 2y ago
  I guarantee you that was not the actual problem with this game. The more inclusive part of this game was barely talked about because most don’t care and have realized they the world is bigger than their narrow view. Most games today are diverse, some more than others. Including many Sony games that sell incredibly well.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    > The more inclusive part of this game was barely talked about because most don’t care and have realized they the world is bigger than their narrow view. This is never the problem with games that fail due to "woke" things. You, probably like the Concord devs, have a different definition of "woke" to the critics, and until you realise that you'll continue to make this mistake.
    - BoxFour 2y ago
      You’ve made a valid point mainly because, for a significant portion of people who use the term, "woke" has become a blanket term for anything they don’t like. The word has lost any specific meaning. “The game is bad because it’s bad”.
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        You've just made the same mistake as the OP.
        BoxFour 2y ago
        Ok.
    - nerdjon 2y ago
      So educate me. What exactly is the critics definition of “woke” that somehow is anything other than diverse?
      - Jensson 2y ago
        Hostility towards anyone who criticizes anything that could be considered diverse. You see a lot of that. When you can't criticize something that is diverse then it ensures it will be shit. You can have diverse things that are good, but not when it isn't allowed to be criticized since they will call anyone who criticizes it a racist bigot. That is what the critics means with woke.
- some_random 2y ago
  Concord didn't even sell enough for "people aren't buying it because it's woke" to be plausible lmao
- flohofwoe 2y ago
  I rather suspect the game was just boring, "woke" or not.
karlgkk 2y ago
Star citizen has been more or less shipping continual updates, and openly engaging with community. It’s still a disaster, it’s impressive that concord is somehow doing worse
jprete 2y ago
Disregarding the finances, 150 people spent eight years of their life on this. I don't think they were all just phoning it in and paying the bills. It probably stings more than a little bit.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > 150 people spent eight years of their life on this. Wasting a huge part of your life for your employer is what you get paid for if you have a job.
  - some_random 2y ago
    This might be hard for you to believe but some people actually want their work to be more than just an exchange of their time for money.
    - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
      > some people actually want their work to be more than just an exchange of their time for money. Nearly everybody has grandiose wishes.
- flohofwoe 2y ago
  Yes, but on the other hand working on one game after another that are never released or flop spectacularly is not unusual at all in the games industry, especially in AAA (the long development cycle until the money stopped flowing is though).
CM30 2y ago
The difference being that Star Citizen has some very passionate fans willing to put an obscene amount of time and money into the game. Lots of people dislike that game or think it's a grift, but lots of people also like it and throw lots of money at it for things like fancy virtual ships. Concord basically doesn't have fans, at least in any number that can support a moderately successful game. No matter what they did business wise, the idea and characters and world simply weren't appealing enough to justify the work put into it.

digitallis42 2y ago

I'm not sure it's a play test failure. If it were, you would think there would have been a burst of users and then nothing. It seems to me more like a market appeal failure. I didn't get the sense that anyone was intrigued by the story or characters, and the hero shooter as a genre has Overwatch, TF2, Deadlock and the bodies of Battleborne and others. They didn't showcase any stunning new mechanics in their intro, nor did they manage to make a funny or compelling story. The marketing seemed to basically rely on "if they see 30s of gameplay, that will be compelling enough". If we remember TF2, they launched with a bunch of really well conceptualized "Meet the character" videos which built humor and personality into the characters as well as taught some of the mechanics. Overwatch launched a whole pile of interesting and very fresh player mechanics, as well as about triple the characters available with TF2. Again, I can easily imagine they had players testing it. I'm not sure they had many people market testing.

ytch 2y ago

It already happened many times: Fallout 76, No Man's Sky (at least they managed to improved after release). The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Redfall, Babylon's Fall (Dead after release?). And many games just force player to do meaningless things (for example, cast one magic 100 times for an achievement or unlock an unique item). Do they actually think this is funny during QA or design stage?

t0bia_s 2y ago
You forgot Star Citizen. "Unlimited" budget but nothing special.
deadlydose 2y ago
> cast one magic 100 times for an achievement I was playing Bioshock Infinite recently and it had an achievement along the lines of "Loot 200 Containers." Not a huge deal except it pops up every time, 200 times, as you are looting. > Do they actually think this is funny.. What's funnier is that thousands of players discovered there was a word to describe what they wanted to do to the team: defenestration.

akimbostrawman 2y ago

its the same thing with Gemini. if speaking up can get you fired, socially ostracized and black listed there is ample reason to just shut up.

Strom 2y ago

> Were the people working on this game dogfooding it themselves? Well they certainly weren't dogfooding it after launch. The Concord credits list 1,972 professional roles [1] while a week after release the game had fewer than 150 players on Steam. [2] The game was so bad that not even the people who spent 8 years working on it had any interest in it. -- [1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/229488/concord/credits/playstation-5/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/229488/concord/credits/playst... [2] https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/#max https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/#max