Concord Never Stood A Chance...

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The launch of Concord has gone worse than most pundits thought, but I think the reasons why are blindingly obvious.

[@BellularNews]

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[@thatguyshwag]

neat but they use AI generated images :(

[@darugdawg2453]

the problem is photoreal. lmao this is new. lol. the problem is dei stop pretending

[@user-ex5pg3oy9c]

@@darugdawg2453 both are true

[@Packin-Heat.]

Weird that PC players are fine with Deadlock when Sweet Baby Inc consulted on it.

[@marcusclark1339]

to take what another comment said @renmcmanus "risk averse" NO! Hot women in hot outfits is risk averse. This game bet absolutely everything on a absolute minority population. It was so risky that one could coin the word Riskophilic. Litaraly slurping up risk as if it were the last liquid on a desert planet.

[@ralphengland8559]

Every time I see gameplay of Concord I think, "I'd rather play overwatch" ... and I don't even want to play Overwatch.

[@game-sheriff]

And they don't play anything alike this game is more like destiny or any other non-military ADS shooter.

[@ELTABULLO]

I rather play paladins, the switch version

[@Number704]

I just uninstalled it. I've been playing since 2019. It's so boring now.

[@thagomizer8485]

​@@game-sherifftell that to Battleborn. Truth is, doesn't matter how much you vary from a giant like Overwatch in the details. If you look like the big guy, you'll be compared to the big guy.

[@lucasLSD]

@@game-sheriff ADS? So it's even worse?

[@CapitalTeeth]

The second this game was revealed, everyone already knew this game would be a boring corporate slop game made by committee. And that's exactly what it is.

[@loneskankster2242]

This game is 99.9% Market Research. Not a shred of originality

[@prime-of-two3753]

“But the chart says…”

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

Sometimes a game is unfairly judged for its cover but sometimes that judgment is right.

[@Sirfortune881]

I dont think thats entirely true look at fortnight and over watch they rake in the money ​@kmeanxneth

[@kmeanxneth]

@@loneskankster2242 saying this is from Market Research is wrong, if they would have done real Market Research this game wouldn't exist.

[@daeamiralis]

Tf2 is arguably the genetic ancestor of this genre. Class shooters became hero shooters. If your characters arent as interesting as tf2s, and your gameplay isnt as interesting, I'm not biting.

[@daeamiralis]

The characters aren't interesting and neither is the gameplay, so no one is playing.

[@rawrdino7046]

Tf2 has interesting characters besdies the girl?

[@olegshkurenko-0448]

​@@rawrdino7046the classes?

[@somederp8915]

@@rawrdino7046 You mean miss pauling? Did we look at the same "meet the team" videos?

[@InvidiousIgnoramus]

@@rawrdino7046 Do you even know what TF2 is?

[@0taku912]

Devs called us "talentless freaks" on Twitter That's rich coming from a team who wasted 8 years on a generic hero shooter and charging $40 in an oversaturated market of f2p hero shooters.

[@HumanPerson_final]

I’ve never even heard of the game. Maybe they should use their Twitter to market their game.

[@steak5599]

@@HumanPerson_final Good games markets themselves via word of mouth (social media).

[@alidan]

@@steak5599 I remember the gearbox one, they did not want any porn of it, and as it was dying, they seemingly made porn of it themselves

[@steak5599]

@@alidan well, there is a reason a lot of game that died on Steam made those alteration and succeeded on a platform has 30% more players than Steam.

[@robbieburns3564]

@@HumanPerson_final Probably shouldn't use Twitter to market their game. Or anything. Just bury it in the sand and pretend they never made such a giant, expensive flop of a game. This game is getting all the advertising it needs on gaming sites and KZbin as everyone rips it apart for the pile of dog poo that it is.

[@TheForever206]

Concord died during the State of Play reveal. 😂

[@vincenzomedicci6541]

Valve's card game Artifact literally died the same way - when it was revealed during TI championships the groan was heard around the world. And nevertheless, Gaben persisted. RIP Artifact, you weren't bad, just misunderstood.

[@ExileTwilight]

@@vincenzomedicci6541 The big difference is that Valve can afford to churn out as many flops as they want. For better or worse, they barely make games anymore however..

[@rattango9819]

@@vincenzomedicci6541 it had the same issue as concord as well. But not all of it. I'm just referring to having to buy the game when a lot of other card games were free to play due to the high learning curve. oh and people were looking for new games from valve and not the same slop, and a lot of leaks were out that year.

[@tobiasreinhold7642]

@TheForever206 I've seen a couple reactions to the State of Play reveal, and most of them fall in line with my own reaction: Curiosity and interest over the first minute, followed by questions of what this will actually be about, ending up with massive disappointment upon the reveal that it's another hero shooter. The first two minutes could've brilliantly set up a "Guardians of the Galaxy"-esque action-adventure, with beautiful graphics and quirky characters. I would've actually been interested in a game like that. But nope, instead we got Concord. @vincenzomedicci6541 I still find it tremendously funny that the biggest success Artifact ever saw, was people using the Artifact category on Twitch to stream movies and TV-shows.

[@megamandrn001]

Yup. Avengers died the second they showed the default character designs. First impressions matter.

[@mimik2098]

Concord has some of the most hideous character design I've seen in a game, it deserved to flop as hard as it did

[@magnemoe1]

This, the soldier guy looks normal, the alien catgirl and the black sniper lady looks pretty cute from the videos I seen.but the rest is ugly or fat. Obviously they don't have any indications of boobs as its bad And I,m the guy who then started playing WOW looks at the races. Gnome was the lead until I got female draenei: Cute, tail, horns and cloves, yes the tail was a bit short but it was the obvious one.

[@chilbiyito]

​​​@@magnemoe1what is bro yapping about

[@hoshi314]

Bellular said it himself, compare concord's character is blabd when compared to Overwatch. Want an example? Lennox vs Mcree/Cassidy, which one is more memorable? Lennox looked a lot more generic while Mcree is defined by design alone

[@highestqualitypigiron]

It's incredibly boring. Oh you have the option to make scifi characters? Characters that are aliens and what do you go with? A feminine humanoid that's green and has big ears? A masculine humanoid that's green and slightly spikey? A masculine big muscular humanoid that's purple? What the hell is this? you have the option to have aliens and they're all humanoids with human faces lol. Halo CE had more interesting alien designs in 2001!

[@sienafariz9536]

@@highestqualitypigiron Agree, another example You can see Mass Effect's Garrus, man He has a hideous face but people still love him.

[@WizardScience]

All of the characters look like background characters in a different universe. You'd see them in Mass Effect or Star Wars but only when there's a pan shot or a dialogue happening in the foreground.

[@OrianGrao]

This is something I thought too. People keep comparing it to Guardians of the Galaxy, but it is worse, it is Guardians of the Galaxy without Groot or Rocket! The two characters that are really visually interesting.

[@VitalVampyr]

One of them would give you a short joke quest to find some hot sauce.

[@aquamarinerose5405]

I'd disagree about them looking like background characters... Others already noted Guardians of the Galaxy, but it REALLY does look like you got Great Value Guardians of the Galaxy. Like they're trying so hard to get into the same appeal/niche without realizing what made those characters work to begin with.

[@poonpoon1604]

​@@aquamarinerose5405i think bellu example of them being more like what you get out of gitting random character generator until it somewhat goes together then just go with it without further customization

[@Byronic19134]

That sounds amazing.

[@templargfx]

you know why the peak player count dropped after 24 hours by half? Id say all the people that got free keys and review copies finished gathering footage for their reviews or recorded their 'lets play' and bowed out. The actual number of people who genuinely purchased the game to play it is lower than you'd think

[@jack90054]

Also, for the launch weekend, it seems like every single studio under Sony is posting about Concord. A large portion of those 700 players at launch are likely just the Devs, their colleagues, and their friends/family. Considering that reportedly over 150 people worked on Concord, their acquaintances alone can easily account for like 300 people.

[@CheddarGetter]

Don't forget about the 2 hour refund window.😊

[@Arkaner3]

This is what echo chambers do to people. But smelling your own farts for 8 years has to be a new record.

[@trashjash]

Disney Lucasfilm has them beat, they've been huffing their own colon fumes since TFA. At least these people didn't destroy an established and beloved franchise though, and just made their own "original" slop.

[@MeatyZeeg]

I like how we watched the same video and here you are spouting garbage that Bellular calls out in the video.

[@justtmw]

@@MeatyZeeg "how dare you not agree with everything the youtuber says"

[@yellowcard8100]

@@MeatyZeeg What do you mean? If anything he agreed with the comment above.

[@Arkaner3]

@@MeatyZeeg That's because I don't let anybody do the thinking for me. You can parrot his opinion and I'll form my own. The garbage here is your comment.

[@AlessandroRodriguez]

The good thing about concord is, not matter your ability you can be in the top 50 players right now.

[@ghostdamost]

It seems like there are quite a few players on ps5. Queue times for a game are like 30 seconds

[@garykelley9027]

Savage! 🤣

[@sem2119]

The truth is, the game was rigged from the start.

[@ZurigaSungama]

I got spuuuuuurs that jingle-jangle-jingle

[@0uttaS1TE]

​@@ZurigaSungamaJingle-Jangle!

[@GleppaPigg]

If Sony is Benny, and the consumer the courier, that would mean we have chosen the timeline where we crucify him😂

[@Tommy9834]

Yes, but it was the developers who were the ones who rigged it against themselves.

[@0uttaS1TE]

@@Tommy9834 Nah, this was Jim Ryan's baby. I'm not blaming the devs for a corpo's fuck up

[@robovinefilms1811]

SEGA avoided this by canceling their own hero shooter Hyenas before release. The writing was on the wall just with the trailer reactions.

[@lemond2007]

Very wise move by Sega

[@marshallmonzingo9095]

Their one mistake was not getting rid of the CA execs that oversold how development was going and pushed to continue the project way longer than it should have gone.

[@dodapants]

Sony spent $50 Million more on this game than Sega did on Hyenas and somehow thought the result would be different.

[@defaulted9485]

@@dodapants Sunk Cost Fallacy, these people with money are too busy projecting dream scenarios instead of cutting losses

[@Monique-iz8lp]

The best part is that most of these would've been reviewers and sponsors

[@MrDrekki]

worse sony asked all their devs from their other studio to play the game on their off hours, i wish i was joking... but it's all there on twitter to see. Shameless and shameful at the same time.

[@llamatronian101]

"I played Concord so you didn't have to" is pretty much the obituary of the game.

[@joeybobbson2622]

Rock bottom has a basement

[@renmcmanus]

OH! Minecraft taught me about that. Its called the void.

[@saki453]

And that basement has a sinkhole forming under it.

[@JulliusTheGreat]

⁠@@saki453 and now we know that the rot in the sinkhole is also being referred to as concord

[@Tamachii12]

And they managed to dig a hole on said basement

[@rgabi91]

I would not play this even if it was free.

[@EastyyBlogspot]

Tbh i doubt going F2p will move the needle at all

[@game-sheriff]

More people will at least try the game

[@dud5606]

@@game-sheriff If the open beta numbers are in any way indicative of the player interest it will probably get 2k boost in numbers at best.

[@akumafuhen]

I feel they have no choice at this point...I'll not play it cause of fatigue. Oddly enough I've put 200hrs into TFD and still addicted to the point of dropping money for some skins about 40$ lol. And if s1 is good ill probably pay for the battlepass. Like for me TFD is doing something different enough that I'm enjoying it (never played warframe btw) even when comparing it to destiny 2 I couldn't get even 100hrs out that game and I've tried over and over. Maybe it's that I sick of fps games? Idk but Concord seems like a copy and paste without something new. I thought sony was good at story games why not have a story pve mode? Like bo hero shooter has done tha yet sooooo do that lol.

[@Desu-Desu-Chan-San]

it will get a bump, for sure. Lots of morons out there willing to Stan for trash, but there will never be a massive player count.

[@darkspeedsterz]

@@game-sheriff idk, there was a free open beta at some point, and that didnt do much

[@triplebog]

I think you brushed up against the problem with the characters. I don't think the issue is just ludo narrative dissonance. I think it's more that in games like Saints Row 4 and this, there is this trap where kind of all of the characters fall into the same "quirky psycho" archetype. And at that point it doesn't really matter how diverse the character is on paper because they will completely blend together If every character feels like someone that lives in downtown LA in 2024, and is maybe wearing a costume from another period, then the game ultimately isn't that diverse. I think initially Overwatch avoided this, but IMO ultimately it fell into this trap as the game progressed and they released more characters and I think the character designs became less interesting as a result

[@MonsieurDeVeteran]

Last 3 or 4 characters from OW 2 are people you'd find in LA 110%, very true. The kick? They are still releasing these chars, BUT they are only making legendary skins to sell for $$$ for old chars :))))) I wonder why? Maybe because those sell? :))))) Also obviously Bellular brushed up against the problem with the chars, like what? You want him to lose his special access to industry stuff? To be called a special word from some 80 years ago on Twitter? Common :D :))))

[@the_dark_soul_of_man]

I also loved how that one dev called the playerbase talentless fr**ks, then hid replies and said "pay me 8 dollars to unhide your reply/comment". Guess they gotta make money from this game somehow XD

[@canolathra6865]

I sure do love me some iconic characters like ... old lady ... ugly nerd ... rejected Mad Max extra ... the Android mascot ... Who thought this was actually going to work?

[@ThePassablePlayer]

There's literally no way to sell this game when all its characters look generic/bland/flat out ugly. A hero shooter lives or dies by its roster, and this one had death written all over it.

[@saltiney8578]

Yeah people keep trying to avoid the "culture war" issue by saying oh the gameplay just isnt good, but like lets be real, take League of Legends for example, If you took all the cute girl characters and changed them into fat/ugly black chicks, then changed the "cool" characters into bland uninteresting designs the game would immediately lose a lot of its players probably a huge amount.

[@CheddarGetter]

​@@saltiney8578 exactly. This is why people still play Paladins to this day. Cool, sexy, and fantastical characters. Backed by competent mechanics and a cool twist with the custom builds. A lot of unique kits too.

[@SomeBsMovie]

Concord will probably die before the Secret Level episode for the game comes out.

[@ItaChu787pr]

ouch lol

[@__-fi6xg]

nobody gives a damn

[@matejdilber3818]

Last time i was this early, concord still had players

[@EastyyBlogspot]

Nahh you lie....it never had players :D

[@dudebruh8534]

... So never?

[@RikkiSan1]

NO it didn't...

[@thefiresworddragon927]

So you were there five years ago?

[@Grivehn]

Id say it had beta testers at least, but big corpos dont even do that anymore. Just give early access and beta, and broken launches, and players will do bug testing for you.

[@TrampyPulsar]

Lets not beat around the bush. This is what someone who grew up in a gated community suburb thinks is 'punk'

[@laylascrimgeour-brown1603]

This really just put it all together. A lot of these games try to do like a hardcore rebellious punk feeling to them but because they're made by people who've never actually talked to a punk they're completely clueless and fall back on stereotypes

[@wolfetteplays8894]

@@laylascrimgeour-brown1603so true

[@CheddarGetter]

Paladins

[@Tchnfrq]

the ratio of failed hero shooters to non failed hero shooters made this thing a risky investment from the get go, if that cookie cutter hero shooter cost that much sony needs to fire everyone involved in the decision. if they need to recoup that money they can release every ps exclusive on pc i will gladly pay for their great singleplayer games again. switching to pc was the best decision ever but nostalgia is one hell of a drug.

[@jackmacgillicutty8045]

There's something wrong with developing games. Every game seems like it takes 7-8 years to produce. It's a weird thing to miss, but I remember a time where WAY more games got cancelled because studios tried stuff. Seems like studios turn like a battleship now as a result. There's got to be some unnecessary personnel or other inefficiencies. IDK what it is.

[@liothesilverwing3016]

@@jackmacgillicutty8045 Unnecessary executives. Hordes of them.

[@EmergencyChannel]

@jackmacgillicutty8045 Game studios are extremely inefficient, most are located in high cost of living areas like California so they have to pay extremely high wages to get talent. One employee alone can cost $300k or more per year.

[@thefiresworddragon927]

It's called emulator…

[@kyneticist]

I wouldn't restrict it to hero shooters. PvP games generally have a very well established history of being extremely risky endeavours. If the devs & executives are bent out of shape about what's happening, they clearly did not research the genre. Having said that, the degree of quality and effort in their game is almost certainly far greater than 95% of software in other fields.

[@thejarredhog3936]

Don't forget the $40 price tag on a game competing with free-to-play games.

[@Wraithfighter]

This is the #1 reason for the terrible response to me. Everything about the character designs, the trailers, the tone, don’t get me wrong, he’s correct on all that, but if the game was Free to Play, at least people would be giving it a solid chance. “Well, the marketing was crap, but hey, lets see how it actually plays, maybe it’ll surprise me, won’t cost me anything” is all the mentality that it’d take to get a peak CCU in the 5-6 digit range on Steam. Still good odds that it fails, given the problems, but no one’s going to be willing to give a $40 multiplayer-only game a chance when it’s competing against high-quality F2P games, not unless its already the biggest thing ever. Just complete ignorance of where the market is, just shocking that they fumbled it that hard.

[@kingcurmudgeon8685]

It’s at 97 players right now.

[@trucid2]

Imagine playing this game and not being able to get a match... because there are no players.

[@hayato1886]

B-but the console player count hasn't been revealed yet! This game is such a joke lmao

[@Kingofthe5000]

@trucid2 Frightfully few people are foolish enough to make the mistake of playing the game to be disappointed at the lack of matchmaking. Edit: KZbin doing weird S

[@nerdock4747]

That many?!

[@Surikoazimaet]

198 now. The game is booming, from a hour ago..

[@AkaRystik]

The character design is just so boring. Again, the measuring stick of "can you see people cosplaying as this character" applied here tells you all you need to know. Nobody is going to any conventions dressed as these people, because they look boring. Everyone looks like extras from a low budget 70s sci fi movie, the writing is painful so its impossible to like anyone, and the gameplay is just so mediocre that it cannot stand out enough to get attention.

[@markguyton2868]

I would say personally I like the robot, but then again its hard to mess up when designing a robot and they should have added some more personality to the design. Everything else looks between generic and ugly.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

Also "will there be Rule 34 content of these characters" is another measuring stick

[@TankHunter678]

@@markguyton2868 Its a discount Urbanmech from Mechwarrior, and the Urbanmech has still more charm to it.

[@markguyton2868]

@@TankHunter678 Looked it up, you're right.

[@NoanEtal-fq2vv]

Concord looks like a bunch of cosplayers showing up to con as their OCs

[@JailBo-id7ko]

People do that?

[@holden5478]

@@JailBo-id7ko nope, but if they did this is what it would look like.

[@StuCheeks]

7:30 "Quirky, modern, hip, psychopath murderer problem." I didn't realize at the time that this would become a trend, but I remember getting this impression from Watch Dogs 2 back when that game released. The hipster main characters wouldn't bat an eye at their regular crimes, including murder, but then they would think they're the good guys. Not the kind of characters to root for or relate to.

[@hellokatyfac3]

I read this comment a day ago and originally just brushed it off, but the more I just look around (or if I spend 5 miutes on twitter) the more I realize that this **IS** what the modern audience relates to now. I increasingly find myself surrounded by people left, right and center who are laughing and casually talking about murder, arson, and terrorism with a modicum of seriousness who nonetheless believe what they would (theoretically) do is absolutely, 100% justified and okay because the thing they dislike is worse, bad, or deserves it. They believe unequivocally that they are the good guys, doing good, and therefore everything they do is morally okay and justifiable.

[@OhNoTheFace]

I mean they were still a marked improvement from the first game's main characters, but yes

[@_fruitnveg]

@@StuCheeks couldn't muster the motivation to play more than an hour of WD2 for exactly that reason

[@Turamwdd]

@@hellokatyfac3 Yesterday, I watched a streamer forced to play Dustborn because of stream donations. In the first 4 hours of the game, you commit horrific actions but they are all painted as good because they are done by the "heroes."

[@kw4yz]

I'll say the nasty out loud - attractiveness. When your characters are not pleasing to the eyes, and they look like checkboxes off a list, it's not gonna work.

[@markguyton2868]

Some designers forget people have to look at what they have made on a screen for normally half an hour or more.

[@josephsonderling2384]

And attractiveness doesn't even need to mean 'conventionally sexually attractive human', it just means something you wanna watch running around. TF2 Pyro, or Overwatch Junkrat are weird tweaky little bloobers, but I would watch those guys run around for hours.

[@_Ekaros]

@@josephsonderling2384 Just hitting that traditional cartoon look is good enough just like TF2 did. Just like many of those characters are not exactly attractive, they are at least pleasant to see and unique.

[@qrzone8167]

​@@josephsonderling2384Agreed. I dont need to look at attractiveness although its nice. Attractiveness is part of the larger picture which is simply something that is interesting to look at.

[@polca4love]

​@@_Ekaros Are you saying the Heavy is not pretty? Friendly reminder that you cannot outsmart bullets...

[@triplebog]

The irony about your main "You can't approach the market just by adding another entry into a genre" point. Is that I think this is especially true in the multiplayer-service driven landscape that is the games industry today. In 2011 you absolutely could release a fairly bog standard but well made shooter into the market to find some success. Because games weren't expected to last forever and generate millions and billions of microtransactions.

[@steak5599]

You actually can. Chinese Game industry are kinda like that, they make A LOT of clones of Popular game. The difference is, the Chinese Game Companies knows SPEED is the key to make money with a strategy like that. You MUST slam the game together as quickly as possible. You can't stumble around 8 years to make an inferior Overwatch and expect people to pay for it. If you are cloning a game and expect to make money off it, the game needs to come out before whatever you are copying run out of steam or come out with an Expansion that adds a lot of contents to the game. If Concord came out like 2 years after OverWatch, they probably would have a lot more players.

[@prkr_ae]

the characters all look so weird in this game. none of the design is exciting

[@M_k-zi3tn]

Yeah the art direction in this game doesn't elicit excitement at all

[@LoneWolf-rc4go]

You know that it was made by a bunch of people going out of their way to make sure that nothing traditionally considered 'sexy' was going to be included in the game.

[@solblackguy]

Someone else said that unlike other heroes shooters where you can look at a character for 10 seconds and already have an idea how they play, you can't do that with Concord.

[@pingtrip77]

@@LoneWolf-rc4goMy thoughts exactly. This is what I call ‘Ideological’ DEI practices. These ugly chatacter designs are being shoved down our throats in order to check DEI boxes. Don’t let anyone tell u it’s not ideological!

[@Pi-is-Bi]

​@@solblackguy basically lack of design languages. Once again due to prioritizing agenda instead of actual gameplay

[@antonievandermeer34]

When I’m working on a game as a Game Designer, there’s often a moment during production when I suddenly have an “aha” moment. I get a clear sense of what the soul of the game is feeling of a world being created and what the game needs to be special. It feels like no one working on Concord had that realization about what the soul of the game is and what would make the game special.

[@0x0404]

The unique silhouette is a very important part. Extremely important

[@DeadPixel1105]

True. That's one of the things that made monsters from games like Doom and Quake so iconic and memorable. Even if the game resolution is super low and the enemy is far away, so all you can see is a blurry blob of pixels, you can immediately tell what particular enemy you're looking at.

[@chuckles471]

Nah, game was dead before people even had a chance to see silhouettes. It was dead at the state of play.

[@NukeshotMedia]

You got more views in 6 minutes (761) than Concord had as its all-time peak on Steam. Wow

[@stage6fan475]

Interesting! Thanks!

[@Shlompskii]

Didn't cost me $40 to watch this video 😂

[@NukeshotMedia]

@@Shlompskii Fair point lol

[@SilverColts]

@@NukeshotMedia and I bet more people knew about concord

[@uberfeel]

Sony funded this wet garbage over Day's Gone sequel, let that sink in.

[@peepopoo4387]

Yep, and people pretending to be against this tripe will buy the next God of War: Subvert Your Ancestors edition.

[@vercoda9997]

I'd pay money Not to ever have to play Anything with sociopathic Deek from that game - the second-most deplorable character I've seen in 40 years of gaming. Psychopathic sour horrible protagonist aside, however, the rest of Days Gone was fine.

[@vincenzomedicci6541]

Over a BLOODBORNE PC PORT, let that sink in.

[@Kristyybug]

Days gone is really not as good as people act like it was. I would rather they stop acting like brats and do bloodborne

[@seaweeb2258]

​@@vercoda9997​ Huh? Do people really dislike him that much when there are obviously much worse characters in the world of fictional stories in video games? I call bull on that one. In terms of storytelling and environmental factors, he really isn't that bad. I haven't fully played the game, but he is similar to Joel early game in TLOU(at least currently in the bit that I have played). Hell, Abby in the 2nd one is more deplorable than deek(Didn't play the 2nd one, but we all know Abby went golfing), and I don't find him deplorable to begin with. Sour? yes. But a terrible character? I can't agree with that one cheif. I will say that he does need a prolouge to flesh out some background of his history/past. Joel got one, Deek kinda needed one too. That would have been nice to have, but alas we didn't. The 2nd game could have did that, but we got Concord instead. Ohwell😂

[@feeblezak]

Sony should shut down the servers, refund every copy and fire the inept studio lead. Totally unmitigated disaster.

[@barbarbar3084]

And then fire themselves for buying that studio😂

[@karmaascendant3936]

@@barbarbar3084Jim Ryan unfortunately was allowed to leave unscathed

[@vytah]

The refunds wouldn't even cost that much.

[@AzurePursuer]

When you make a game for no one, you get no one. EDIT: hahaha. Looks like I triggered someone in my comment. Poor guy.

[@william3791]

same story with when you made a game for everyone, you'll get no one. better play it safe and aim for certain consumer taste than for 'everyone' and improve from there

[@AzurePursuer]

@@william3791 That's the thing they did make it for a consumer group. A Consumer Group that doesn't exist. "The Modern Audience"

[@magnemoe1]

@@AzurePursuer Well its exist, as in some hundred players.

[@IslamistSocialist371]

@@william3791 ehh fortnite exist

[@OmegaF77]

@@magnemoe1 What are those hundred players composed of? Probably the devs, their friends / butt-buddies, journalists, and shills.

[@Dark3y3]

At first I was optimistic about Concord at the beginning of that announcement trailer, cause I thought "Oh is this a Sci Fi heist game?" then it was a dull hero shooter that would have been cool 8 years ago. Really wish it was a sci fi heist game.

[@cloudnine5651]

we dont need a sci fi payday. payday 3 flopped

[@ISAAC607]

​@@cloudnine5651cause it's ass, space heist game would go hard

[@cloudnine5651]

@@ISAAC607 what about space would change anything?

[@fubarexress6359]

This is good for gaming. We need 8+ figure failures so this stops. IT WILL STOP, when more of these MASSIVE 100+ mil projects lose EVERYTHING. Investors will simply stop investing with these big studios, and they'll put their $$ to smaller studios that are actually doing QUALITY projects.

[@_DanerJimenez_]

Sure, they'll put money in smaller studios and fuck everything up with investor stupidity. Yeah, not a good idea.

[@polca4love]

I'd rather have independent studios, to be honest.

[@arcanealchemist3190]

animator here, just wanted to talk for a minute about the character design. they should have cut heros! they didnt need this many! they have some really neat ideas and good designs, but then theyve thrown those designs in with characters who are just "Some Guy", and that is never gonna work! why would you ever play as "Some Guy" if alien catgirl or sentient roomba are options! theyre good ideas that didnt get to cook because they wasted so much effort on characters who just arent that compelling. youre also absolutely right that they didnt push their designs enough in some cases. there's that character with the helmet who flies and smashes into the ground, why doesnt she have rocket boots, or wings, or SOMETHING, anything to make her more flashy? you mentioned this, but silhouette is a huge part of language in animation and especially in gaming. if you want a character to be distinct and readable, they need to have a unique silhouette from everyone else. its something Overwatch does well TO THIS DAY! despite Soldier 76 and Sojourn being practically the same in theory (normal human holding assault rifle), 76 has a totally different posture than Sojourn, sojourn slides where 76 would sprint, the fire rate on their rifles is different, they spent a lot of time when making sojourn just giving her an identity from an animation standpoint. and she is probably the weakest character design on the roster currently! but concord is full of characters who are at least that weak in design and should have just been scrapped. i dont think their "photo real" style is really what killed their ability to make good designs. because they HAVE good designs. i think they pushed for too many heroes on the roster, and that compounded with a bunch of other complications has lead to their current issue. they kept too many "safe" designs rather than distilling their roster down to the unique, and engaging characters they had.

[@PhantomHarlock78]

I feel sorry for the coders. Only.

[@jasongrundy1717]

Why? They got paid. Investors lost their shirts.

[@PhantomHarlock78]

​@@jasongrundy1717Because is possible they lose their jobs. And the part where they worked is very fine, while game director and a lot of artists not only make thd game feel generic, but also make every possible move to antagonize consumers on social media.

[@alanthe2]

@@jasongrundy1717oh no! Not the investors!

[@jnb_110]

@@jasongrundy1717 “GAWK GAWK GAWK”

[@empiricalsmut9419]

When you design a character in a futuristic scifi setting, if you want that character to be recognizable among a host of other characters, you have to go a little stereotypical. What I mean, is look at McCree/Cassidy in Overwatch. He's a cowboy gunslinger. Even though the game is set in an alternate world with wacky creatures and unbelievable scifi stuff, you have to root the character in something recognizable -- that is, the cowboy "look". So Cassidy wears a cowboy hat. He has a little cape. He uses a six shooter revolver which, for all intents and purposes, is a really impractical gun even by today's standards -- but it doesn't matter, because he has to fit the aesthetic. And it works! The gunslinger guy in Concord, Lennox, however -- what about him screams gunslinger? He has a revolver which he shoots by fanning the hammer -- but other than that, what about him indicates his role? He has two belt holsters, and a bright yellow North Face-looking vest thing. I don't look at him and think, "ahh yes, he's a gunslinger." Especially for a hero shooter, recognizability is vital. You have a bunch of characters jumping around on screen, and you need to know what abilities to expect at a glance. If I see a dark, eery figure jump into view, I know it's Reaper. A big chunky mech -- DVA.

[@stanley13579]

"You can't go lower than rock-bottom, Concord." ...."Watch me."

[@GRoyalPrime]

I've seen someone react to the Concord trailer at the initial reveal ... they thought it was a Star Wars game ... their smile dropped a bit as they realized it was a hero shooter ... it disappeared completely when it was revealed it was NOT a Star Wars game.

[@marcusclark1339]

13:17 Overwatch is "diverse" but not by ethnicity, race, sexuality, identity, etc - that's not diversity that's tokenism OW worked cause they made actual unique characters cause diversity is CHARACTERIZATION

[@MonsieurDeVeteran]

And to what Bellular said when he made that comparision, I'd suggest to him to boot up OW 2 again, and look at the past 3 chars they released... they are turning more and more to what Concord is with each char they release... in 2-3 years max time, OW2 will be Concord in the style of its characters.

[@Castitalus]

@@MonsieurDeVeteran And blizz retroactively added in "diverse sexual orientation" after the game launched. I'd bet concord just tells you who likes to sleep with what.

[@laylascrimgeour-brown1603]

​@MonsieurDeVeteran are you seriously going to ignore all the venture rule 34. Juno as well. Like come on dude.

[@RQUKOfficial]

Man, Lawbreaker's failure is such a shame. The game was bloody good, it just had lousy timing with its launch.

[@TheUgliestBarnacle]

Well, at least they got the entirety of the “modern” audience that they wanted. All 700 of the “modern” audience who ever existed would definitely say they’re satisfied with whatever Concord tried to be.

[@teagame1011]

As it turns out, the "modern audience" is about 200 people.

[@combatking0]

"Concord" means to come to an agreement. And the vast majority of people agree that this game isn't worth playing...

[@Lukasz-mi1ii]

Re: Overwatch being very diverse but still having good-looking characters, Overwatch came out years ago. The uglification of characters as part of the ESG checklist is very much a post-2020 development. If Overwatch were released today, especially in the wake of...everything that's happened at Blizzard, I think we'd see designs closer to what Concord is rocking.

[@steak5599]

Under Microsoft, you are probably correct. If Activision Blizzard is still under Bobby Kotick, I don't think he would let Concord fly. They guy is a devil, but he knows how to make money, and he knows how to win.

[@Castitalus]

If overwatch released today, the only straight character in it would be Roadhog.

[@teagame1011]

Yeah comparing games to Overwatch at it's peak and not Overwatch post-"ensh*tification" kind of misses the point.

[@OhNoTheFace]

@@steak5599 By killing a game forcing OWL?

[@Rando3210]

im astonished the hero designs even got past being a concept because if you show of people these characters 99% of them are going to think they are ugly and/or generic. For a HERO shooter that is a massive marketing problem.

[@De_Wit]

Isn't it nice to stand here together watching this dumpsterfire burn itself out?

[@loneskankster2242]

This is what happens when you use Market Research instead of creativity. This is what happens when you sit down to make a game, and go "lets make some money!" Nepo hires are ruining gaming

[@Slitheringpeanut]

If they used 'market research' the game would look closer to OG Overwatch with hot Korean style women and visual design. They did not.

[@ruy7164]

I'm sorry dude, but they didn't even do their market research. Had they done so they would be at least somewhat popular to a significant segment of the population.

[@HansCent]

wait... what?

[@PrincessStabbityPLS]

Seeing the market's (lack of) reaction, I doubt that any research was done... If they indeed invested anything into it, I hope they at least get a refund.

[@loneskankster2242]

@@PrincessStabbityPLS Market Research is the reason why we have bland designs and boring stories It's a safe and sanitised copy paste of original works

[@karere1s]

13:51 no sane person has an issue with a wide and varied roster... The issue is when a studio claims it designed its characters for the "modern audience" even though said "modern audience" isn't actually shelling out money on games

[@cesarbernardi1646]

12:00 - this game reminds me of those corporate powerpoint presentations - the ones where everyone is either green or blue or purple (so as not to offend anyone), with vaguely stretchy limbs (so as not to offend anyone) and weird body proportions (so as not to offend anyone). In short, in trying to be more "humane", by using nondescript generic designs to "represent everyone", they make a design that is no longer human and represents no one.

[@jeanbethencourt1506]

Team-based ESG Action!

[@lokitakahashi3042]

TLDR the characters are ugly and boring and they tried to pander to the mythical modern audience that never shows up . its almost like human never change and just want what they have always wanted. bayonetta with more costumes to use while you shoot each other.

[@cormoran2303]

It's day 5. Todays peak player count was just 204 players.

[@clearspira]

The so-called modern audience that companies today are sacrificing everything for does not exist. Their voices are loud, nothing more, nothing less.

[@Lehanna]

I keep telling people to stop listening to social media. The people there are playing THAT as a game, basically, and have next to no interest in actually spending money on anything.

[@sethketa]

Ah yes. The modern audience excuse. It isn't like the video outright said it was just trend chasing. But no, it is the modern audience! This trend has totally never happened before! Ridiculous

[@jasongrundy1717]

@@sethketa They gave their characters pronouns. 3% of the world doesn't think that's ridiculous, and that 3% doesn't play video games.

[@CoCo.-_-]

​@@jasongrundy1717maybe 3% in the US at most, outside it that stuff confuses 99.9% of the world with its infinite gender crap

[@darugdawg2453]

he said george soros LMAO. doesnt know anything. larry fink is the one who pushed dei in companies

[@ConnorNichols-iv2hd]

Back in the day Jim Sterling would have made a video roasting this game for out of touch developers chasing a trend five years out of date. Now James Stephani Sterling is going to make a video telling us how bad we are for not playing it.

[@Sobepome]

buddy the internet is melting your brain.

[@LemonGingerHoney]

Really? :( I remember watching some of his content, it had a lot of satire in it and sarcasm. What has changed him?

[@MediocreNed]

@@LemonGingerHoney The short version is that he sided with the corrupt game journalists during gamergate.

[@noxheart896]

I've honestly not heard of or about them in the longest time, and fell off well before they even came out. That being said, I'm not going to look them up, not risking opening that pandora's box on my search history.

[@zero1343]

What a weird trajectory he took, i remember him celebrating losing subscribers because he was dipping under some of the milestone numbers. Content started to get more and more offputting as well.

[@highestqualitypigiron]

Western game studios make games that appeal to the "modern audience", who are people that don't actually play games 😂

[@georgeandrews1394]

Pretty sure the problem is the price tag and that either the character designers suck at their job or the execs demanded more 'realism' at the last minute (or both). I don't think using 'they/them' instead of 'he/him' in the character bios cost them any additional time they could have spent improving things.

[@byte-bg4ob]

​@@georgeandrews1394 The price tag is not gonna change anything for this game. The beta was free and the peak was 2k.

[@yellowcard8100]

@@georgeandrews1394 No but it already made a bunch of people who dislike not even bother checking the game out on principle. You also diss on "realism" and despite me liking stylized graphics, the casual audience much prefers realism. Especially when the target audience is teens-young adults, a lot of them are playing Call of Duty (especially on PS5). You listen to a lobby in COD and think "are these the type of people to consider playing Concord?" the answer is no.

[@churroman29]

What gets me is these people might play games, but are they playing competitive hero shooters in large numbers? I'd think the 'modern audience' would be more interested in more casual indie games. Baffling to try and will your audience into existence.

[@georgeandrews1394]

@@yellowcard8100 'Realism' (in quotes because it's only visual realism and only in appearances because video game physics) is a thing that video game companies (thankfully less so now) try to put on a game in a bid to make it more marketable, rather than because it helps the game. 'Realism' does help a game like COD or Battlefield; it fits there with the more serious tone, both in general and mechanically. 'Realism' doesn't help when you're trying go for hero shooter whismy. You have to make sure your graphics choices and theme and tone and character design all fit together. Also doesn't help that the 'realism' in Concord is kinda half-assed, which is why I'm guessing it came in later in development. Also, look at the Overwatch art style or the TF2 art style. They definitely skew less towards 'realism' than COD does.

[@drganknstein]

All the characters look stupid.

[@Aestholus]

Following in the footsteps of the plane with the same name it crashed too.

[@KitsuneKiera]

The plane was at least a successful piece of engineering until that crash which was directly caused by it running over a piece of debris that fell off of a DC-10.

[@rg975]

They’re charging $40 for a hero shooter in 2024, while THE hero shooter, Overwatch, is free to play. Like what did they expect??

[@Felsmukk]

The updated release of Doom 1 + Doom 2 (from the 90s) has more players.

[@dumaskhan]

For all intents and purposes, that game had NO players. End of story.

[@KibethSE]

A game made for the "modern audience", antagonistic devs, activism being a priority over quality, boring game design, nothing big to pull people from the hero shooters they're already playing, awful character design (subjective sure, but still). I am so shocked at its failure.

[@pafoa6terencereybernardoch63]

The character designs alone make this game very risky. Imagine having a face to be associated with your game and its DAW. That's like selling victorias secret using a 400 pound... Oh wait... They lost sales.

[@NVFerost]

Jim Ryan really was the worst CEO Playstation ever had, not to downplay the rest of the C Suite's problems, but legitimately the only good thing Ryan did was greenlight Spider Man 2, a game anyone with a couple neurons to rub together would have greenlit. "But what about all of those early new/returning IPs from the first 2 years of his tenure?" I hear you ask. Well, those were put in motion by his predecessors. No, a NON-EXAUSTIVE list of what Ryan did was: - Let those promising IPs languish while overloading IPs that had made a lot of money once so they were on his cynical "favorite games" list like Horizon and Last of Us with unnecessary side projects and far too early remakes (apparently Horizon 1 was in the running for one at some point even) - Fired anyone attached to his predecessors, anyone who told him or the investors no, or anyone competent enough at whatever their job was to threaten his tenure as CEO. - Obliterated the good will of the company's Eastern fanbase and developers, as well as indies both eastern and western. - brought Sony's already Iron-fisted censorship practices to new heights - Acquired Bungie at their weakest with a contract that indirectly incentivized the leadership to do the bare minimum in stability and go all in on forcing as much money output as possible, thus letting the company die, and spending way too much money in the process, because he couldn't even do the most basic side of executive negotiations, his primary job, well. - Greenlit dozens of Ill-fated television series and several nonsense peripherals (PSVR2 exempted, as that'sapparently quite good) - bought into the idea they could get more money after covid than during covid when everyone was indoors. Thus kept the unsustainable supergames and never lowering the console price practices. - Oh, and sided with the most ignorant investors possible, greenlighting 20+ poorly defined live service games (in an attempt to find the infinite money fountain in a crowded corner of the industry that had already started to prove that even the ones who had seemed to have found it (i.e. Fortnite) weren't actually enjoying an infinite money fountain) most of which were from studios ill-suited to the task of making a live service game, thus dooming them to extended dev cycles and eventual closer when they fail, all the while sending teams from the failing Destiny at Bungie to go around and tell them how to run their live service games. A decision which we won't stop feeling the fallout of, and thus won't be able to see the new CEOs in a fair light under, until at least another two years have passed. All this while every leak about the confirmed switch 2 is shaping up such that Nintendo is closing the tech gap to at least "PS4 Pro but with a faster processor" levels.

[@Hibernape]

20:22 Bruh... the misdirection.💀Intentional or not, good job Editor.

[@brandonwhitby3360]

Literally Sony 6 days later… 🗣️ We are shutting down concord and taking servers offline

[@__TClol__]

Can't help but think of Michael Rooker's Yondu every time I see Lennox.

[@theforkedman3030]

They are in need of a serious design change. Two of those characters he showed looked like they were using unpainted football gear and shin guards as armor.

[@tehehe5929]

Who tf wants to play as an old woman? Even old women don't. I agree character design killed this game.

[@teagame1011]

Honestly, that's one of the least offensive ones IMO - other than the literal robot...

[@tehehe5929]

@@teagame1011 Old woman character is not offensive - it's freaking waste of space.

[@OneRandomVictory]

The same people that played Ana in Overwatch.

[@game-sheriff]

There hasn't been a single minute that Sony knew what they were doing in the video game industry. they got lucky twice.

[@lemond2007]

Even Sony was taken aback by how well the PS4/5 have sold. It doesn't make any logical sense.

[@Kronical69420]

Almost everyone can look at a game with multiple characters and instantly know "Thats me. Thats who Im playing" and most of the time its going to be a character that looks nothing like them. The whole point is escapism. If your game feels like reality and looks like reality, people are going to just stay in reality instead of playing your game. No one plays GTA V for the Yoga. And if youre doing it for tax breaks, youve already flush sincerity down the toilet. People can see insincerity as it comes out in quality. Someone chose their way over the right way. Its all over this game. It reeks of it.

[@renmcmanus]

"risk averse" NO! Hot women in hot outfits is risk averse. This game bet absolutely everything on a absolute minority population. It was so risky that one could coin the word Riskophilic. Litaraly slurping up risk as if it were the last liquid on a desert planet.

[@saki453]

This game was made for modern audiences, all 100 of them.

[@ralom2616]

It wasn't risky at all. It was cowardly, not that you know the difference.

[@Coconut-219]

Corporations: * refuse to do anything fun because of "brand risk" * Also Corporations: * makes guaranteed-to-fail decisions and disregards all obvious warning signs *

[@Skybreaker1337]

Sex sells is an old atage that still holds up and always will. Ugly characters won't sell, sexy characters will, no matter their orientation, background or race. There is one thing that triggers people however, and that is character pronouns. Simply by including that one thing it will alienate a huge part of the playerbase.

[@cookiecreep9204]

Maybe if they listened to interviews of actual talented designers, instead of calling themselves talented while presenting none of it and just shoving in the awful "representation" garbage, they could have made a semi-decent game.

[@Jim-o4t]

Live service isn't gaming... it's Netflix for 1 show, where you pay for 1 episode at a time... it's an awful model for the consumer.

[@EXiLExJD]

The character designs are just so GORMLESS 😂

[@wackywarrior001]

I thinking making such uncool ugly characters was very risky , they tried to sell us different

[@philallen7626]

It looks so generic, it's like generative AI is making games already.

[@wandererlidia]

The true core of a hero shooter is selling us the escapism and feeling of "cool" to be the characters. Overwatch did that, those of us who loved it in 2016 all wanted to be a flying rocket launching lady or a ninja robot. Concord just doesnt really sell the characters. I'd rather go back for a few hours and take another shot at being Genji.

[@Runic-Raven]

I actually wanted to give this game a try. But when i saw one of the devs insulting the audience i was compelled to not get it.

[@imthebadguys]

Bro you could've reached top 1000 worldwide

[@Backtotheviews]

Nintendo commercial rooftoppers would be hell of shooter.

[@cobusvanderlinde6871]

You seem to be dodging the question: "Why are the character designs so bad?" It does not seem to be especially difficult to create compelling character designs, seeing how the character designs from every other major studio seem to have historically been routinely serviceable at worst. Yet here we are with Concord, where seemingly competent people created something off-putting, and not limited to one or two designs, but spread generally around the entire cast. So the question is: What possessed these character designers to produce this outcome? Is it possible, at all, that some goal outside of "create compelling character designs" derailed Concord's character design? Is it possible that good character design was sacrificed for some other purpose?

[@mas8705]

I remember in one Overwatch Panel, they said something along the lines of how if you were to completely black out a character and make them like a shadow, you could still know who they were because of their design. Looking at the Concord cast, I feel like outside of the big body characters, the vast majority of them would kind of blend in together a bit where you likely would get them mixed up.

[@Xmasparol]

Concord could work in our favor, as it might push Sony to revive Bloodborne to recoup its lost profits.

[@chris11195]

If you work in a game company that is prioritises DEI, it’s not really possible to criticise character designs.

[@goodall18]

Your gameplay could be gold, but if it's wrapped in a turd, not that many people are going to dig in and find it.

[@chuckmarius323]

The difference between having a guardians of the galaxy knock-off and a starship troopers knock-off is that with the first one, I want to play as groot, not wannabe legally-distinct groot... and with the second one, I want to play as a regular trooper fighting hordes of bugs with my brothers in arms, I don't care about the movie's main character, I can't even remember his name. Helldivers delivers on it's brand of fantasy, Concord doesn't - again, I wanna play groot, not the chinese knock-off groot.

[@GamerModz123]

Im honestly sick of everyone giving devs a free pass. Ultimately, they made the bloody game. They clearly weren't trying hard, or the game would be good.

[@megamandrn001]

I think it's worse. I think these devs were trying their hardest and... they're just not very good at what they do.

[@teagame1011]

I was open to give them the benefit of the doubt, until they called the customer "talentless hacks"

[@domidoodoo]

Emari looks like Baymax’s first ever armor design

[@CaptainShiny5000]

I actually think it's ideology stuff that is ruining the game - the radical part of the trans community will strongly object to attractive female characters and will make a fuzz about it on twitter. And at the same time radical feminists will scream about objectification. So, if you subscribe to the ideology as the devs clearly have, you can't put sexy characters into the game.

[@CaptainShiny5000]

And lets not forget the fat acceptance movement who can't have fit, attractive characters in the game - especially female ones.

[@Coconut-219]

Also in most cases those people are also the ones *employed at the company* - because their nepotism and/or outright-discriminatory hiring practices. "The cringe is coming from inside the building"

[@hocuspocusfocus6229]

20:46 I really hope Deadlock keeps growing and doesn't end up like Battleborne. The biggest issue that game faced was coming out at the same time as Overwatch, so I'm glad that Deadlock only has Concord to compete against.

[@celesteenglish8916]

Was just about to bring up Battleborne! It was a fun game that was unfortunately not just sharing a release window, but also a lot of stylistic beats with Overwatch. The real shame was that they weren't even really the same genre beyond "stylised first person shooters"; Battleborne was a first person MOBA the way Deadlock looks to be. Hell, Battleborne *released* with a PvE story mode, something Overwatch hasn't delivered on after 8 years!

[@renekernbichler6969]

We also shouldnt forget that this worse version of overwatch has a 40 Bucks Pricetag in F2P dominated Genre

[@flyingcoconut2284]

Meanwhile deadlock, an unreleased game, reached 60k peak