Concord Toxic Positivity | Castle Super Beast 287 Clip

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@BestTeaMaker

[@ZephyrValIey]

I dont understand how people think they can just force a Star Wars tier media franchise to happen

[@JameboHayabusa]

Hubris.

[@Coconut-219]

They might not have been able to replicate Star Wars at it's peak. They've certainly managed to replicate Star Wars in the current year, if that counts for anything.

[@Phantosification]

Because they want Star Wars' money.

[@Garl_Vinland]

You have to really understand what made OG Star Wars such a success, and you need to stick by it. You can’t just say “Starwars… with ketchup” and expect the same number to come buy your product.” Especially this forced diversity, it didn’t help, because you’re alienating the prime audience that were drawn to OG Star Wars in the first place: white neckbeards

[@justinl8791]

Arrogance, hubris & strong drugs.

[@Oliander712]

Concord was as close as possible to literally taken out back and shot

[@teagame1011]

I mean... Hyenas. But yeah it's definitely one of the fastest failures of a game that actually made it all the way to launch.

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

just keep looking at the rabbits Lenny.

[@MegaJackolope]

It had rabies, it was a mercy

[@suburbhermit8792]

Possibly!!?!? Oh sweet summer child, concord is RIDDLED with bullet holes, and rightfully so.

[@themajesticmoose8147]

@teagame1011 I mean the day before was the only game that failed faster that I can remember, but do we count literal scams in this comparison?

[@charlesplante]

How the FUCK did they plan to compete with TF2 and Counter strike and COD and battlefield? This is like taking 8 years to develop a candy bar and your competitions all had Willy Wonka ass factories for years.

[@rensten4893]

Leadership. Failed leadership thought everything was good and had massive blind spots. Fill that in with incompetence and arrogance and you have the failed AAA gaming industry in a nutshell.

[@teagame1011]

"people who pointed out problems were shunned and pushed aside overall" oh boy, where have I ever heard that one before in the last decade of failed media projects...

[@powerfist1340]

...Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?

[@Gowkaiser96]

"So this entire island sometimes gets eaten from existence, making the plot unwinnable in this single autosave game-" "You just hate the devs and their entire family!" Early Access fanbase feedback except it is coming from inside the house?

[@powerfist1340]

@@Gowkaiser96 I - actually i don't know this one. Huh.

[@BazzBrother]

They literally talked about the Phantom Menace and how this used to be called "Yes men" when everyones afraid of the person in charge. but sure, the culture war needs rebranding now since its failing so utterly.

[@Gowkaiser96]

@@powerfist1340 Subnautica is an amazing game in SPITE of the devs, essentially. Buy it if you see it half of. But... Remember, if you discover the reason your C drive is suddenly in the red is duplicate 4(four) gig per single save copy/pasted entire save folder forgetting to erase themselves when you quit? Created when you first load your save in a session (also explaining why it was starting to freeze for 20 seconds on initial load of your save)? Why, they did it to save you ram, SSD wear is a myth, no fair pointing out the size they will optimize that by launch. We are very smart.

[@mattaardsma8245]

It is fascinating to me how Xbox and PlayStation are like two guys in a race where one trips and you think its over, but than the other guy trips even harder. It's only competitive because both are equally incompetent.

[@The5lacker]

And then you have Nintendo, inexplicably past the finish line, eating glue and having a *great* time.

[@Phantosification]

You just described the last 3 Presidential Elections.

[@TheZombieKing]

@@The5lacker Nintendo is Patrick's pet rock winning the snail race.

[@theotherjared9824]

Valve Moonwalks the entire race and somehow finishes first.

[@PregnantAdamSandler]

I forgot to connect my fucking headphones in and went "Wow they're taking a long time to realize their mics are muted"

[@binyot7791]

hilarious, thank you Pregnant Adam Sandler.

[@carnicus1]

But the audio issue was coming from inside the house!

[@jjrambles683]

Sometimes it be like that

[@vincenttorrijos9680]

You know what? Seeing the kind of talent that team had, I am not surprised. They had some pretty extensive resumes in this exact type of game, so vast overconfidence leading to toxic positivity isn't far fetched.

[@bentobias737]

Honestly, man, hearing “Former Destiny 2 staff” are working on a live service game? Especially a PVP game? Instant avoidance. Destiny’s crucible team is famously incompetent.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

I'm of the opinion that the 400 mil figure is most ikely rounded up from a figure above 350 but not quite 400 mil, if only because we don't know the exact extent of the planned content they had already made and loaded in the chamber. It wouldn't be THAT for removed from the initial estimates, especially with how hard they wanted to push this game Regardless if it went that high though, they had assuredly spent WAY more than what they should have on it, and I don't think people are gonna be prepared for how dire Sony's output will be after this. This happening in the middle of the gen likely means that the PS5 is gonna be the dryest 1st party output we'll ever see. Worried they don't have much outside of Tsushima We may get a "Bloodborne" and other remaster glass breaks outta this tho

[@BobbyHopp]

Even if the 400 Million estimate isnt correct the fact we have no official numbers to go on in the first place and likely will not for quite some time, and the fact weve seen multiple announcements including a state of play within a month shows how Sony is scrambling. While the absence of evidence is not always legitimate in this case it does seem to indicate that this was effectively and will potentially continue to be a money pit for sony and I live for it.

[@TyranusRex721]

I am going to be honest, I love seeing Sony fail. They have been so arrogant for so long and have gotten a free pass for all of it until now. After this, they are getting more scrutiny which is needed. Sony has absolutely in their early PS3 era villain arc and it is only going to get worse. Concord was a massive loss for them and all their recent price hikes and bizarre decisions seem like an attempt to make that money up in other places.

[@gigan3838]

Stuff like the Bungie acquisition is also proving to be a bad move, dumped a shitload of money into them just to discover Destiny was not making the numbers expected, and for like.. marathon which has a good chance to fail just like concord.

[@PlasmaPony]

I remember when this game was shaping up to be a dud I felt a little bad for them. New IP comes out and isn’t terrible just too mid to survive? Shame. But the more that came out the more my flabbers were ghasted. How did this take so many years and so much money? Sure it looked nice graphically if not stylistically and it was gonna have those CG cutscenes but mechanically it was just a decently playing standard shooter. It had no crazy new mechanics, no new game modes, no outlandish character abilities. Where did all that time and money go? Absolutely insane shit

[@Dasaltwarrior]

It's confusing, but the project not coming together until Sony made it come together makes perfect sense when you remember that Firewalk was founded by former Bungie members, and how no project Bungie has touched since Halo 1 could ever be described as "smooth going"

[@numbersevenforthewin]

This game also has the ugliest, worst looking robot design I've ever seen period. And that's not even getting into how shit the others looks.

[@clan741]

@@DasaltwarriorI am confident these aren’t the same former bungee employees that worked on Halo, those people scattered to the wind years and years ago. Also halo 1 did not have a smooth development lol, they changed genre’s like 3 times, had to scrap and rebuild the multiplayer from the ground up on the final month, and had to reuse level assets on the final half of the game as crunch kicked in hard.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@@clan741 I'm more so talking about general company culture. I'm just saying, I've never heard of a project from anyone thats worked at that studio going well. And I'm aware of Halo 1's development, I'm saying its been a mess starting with that Hell, Marathon and Myth could've been disasters behind the scenes too, I just don't know that part of their history

[@jimbob1862]

​@@Dasaltwarrior To be fair Halo 3 was said to be pretty smooth, but that's specifically because Bungie wanted to in no way repeat the hell cycle that was 2. Then Destiny came along and they started doing it all over again.

[@ravensflockmate]

pople say $400 million is a lot but consider that an advertised feature was WEEKLY high budget CGI cutscenes and i could absolutely see costs racking up because no way they didn't have a ton of those made in advance

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Skill Up said they had 6 months worth loaded in the chamber iirc

[@despawn7663]

Assuming average salary of 100k and when Sony bought it in 2023 ish. That team of 70+ people were not working on anything g else. Could totally see this as true

[@FiveTiger]

Meanwhile Valve drops an unfinished Deadlock out of the back of a truck and instantaneously eclipses Concord. Shit, we've already got small tournaments.

[@amysel]

I also feel like purchasing the studio was probably part of the 400

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@amysel Thats the thing, the 400 mil supposedly isn't including the acquisition costs, which is extra insane

[@theotherjared9824]

There was a lead who demanded everyone refer to them as "professor." None of this shocks me.

[@Deachuu603]

I completely forgot that was this game, the DOA projects kind of blend together at this point and I'm not following the controversies that closely...

[@justinl8791]

She was a f*cking psycho who should be locked up in a mental institution, let alone being allowed to keep a job.

[@GoldLight73]

Someone’s been playing too much of Three Houses...

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

self applied titles are some sociopath shit. you have to have some profound fundamental defect to not realize how repellant to people you are.

[@theotherjared9824]

@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski It went beyond titles. Professor was their pronoun. Not saying professor was transphobic in their eyes.

[@Coconut-219]

None of this is shocking, to people who were paying attention the last 8 years.

[@robovinefilms1811]

As a contrast, you can feel the energy of Larian from thousands of miles away toiling on another industry flipper.

[@ravensflockmate]

i don't care what else they make i want more bg3

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Nintendo be sitting menacingly in the corner, licking their lips at the prospects of the sheer amount of Sony's lunc they're getting ready to eat

[@slicknicdwyer]

@@ravensflockmate Well you're not getting it. Not from Larian, anyway.

[@arn1345]

THEY'RE COOKING SOME GOOD SHIT

[@just_matt214]

​​​@@ravensflockmateWell you're not gonna, pretty sure that's the one thing they keep saying about their next project - as working with Hasbro and WoTC was apparently a nightmare. I hope you enjoy whatever they make next tho.

[@juniorjunior5884]

"A new star wars? So, a billion dollar ip you say? Cliff, you aren't fooling me. Take that wig off."

[@jacobsedlack1173]

I knew a guy I'd say had a toxic positivity personality in uni. Kept calling me his "miserable Batman friend to his Joker" everywhere we went together just to make himself look peppier. Glad I eventually dropped him from my life.

[@TheGallantDrake]

Good call.

[@lilwyvern4]

He knew that Joker was a dangerous psychopath, right? Then again, with the way he keeps getting pushed into protagonist roles, I'm not sure anyone cares.

[@Cumbercuke]

Much like Batman, some would say you should have killed him for the sake of the city

[@GoldLight73]

I honestly love the term “private firefighter.” “Quickly, put out the fire by throwing money on top of it! ...WHY IS IT SPREADING FASTER!?”

[@firesupotree]

A big part of rumbleverse failing was the godawful netplay experience. the ugly characters weren't so bad but the cash shop prices were, which made the ugliness harder to forgive. Still, I miss suplexing people off skyscrapers

[@HessianSackini]

Wasn't it also an EGS exclusive? A real boneheaded move for a game that needs a large playerbase to actually function.

[@carbide4458]

Between the insane falling apart investment that was Bungie, combined with bad press over the PS5 Pro, topped off with the beginning autopsy of Concord... not your year Sony, not your year.

[@loco_logic]

Too true. Hell Divers 2 and Astro Bot are the only wins i can think of, everything else has been PR disaster.

[@kingvern100]

I seen a meme that basically boiled down to even r34 artists didn't want to do anything with the characters of concord and they would draw almost anything.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Kris Wolfheart of Gigaboots often says "if you can't see a teenager sending death threats over your character designs, then you need to redesign them"

[@Phantosification]

@@Dasaltwarrior I'm confused, why would the teen be sending a death threat to someone because a design was good?

[@nellancaster]

@@Phantosification I recall someone else using that quote to refer to MOBAs, not character designs; I suppose that's what guy's trying to say.

[@RatchetSly]

Because of that meme, I checked, and I can confirm that at time of writing, there is exactly one piece of R34. The artist who drew it commented they did it exactly BECAUSE nobody else had, not due to any love of the character in question.

[@lilwyvern4]

@@Phantosification I think the mindset is that someone always seems to come out of the woodwork to criticize a character with any design they feel is problematic. (For example, see any discourse on character designs for games like Stellar Blade or Horizon) If that doesn't happen, evidently a character is so forgettable that even people who go out of their way to be offended couldn't care less.

[@Jgt612]

My wife has a masters in psych and she doesn’t care for the term toxic positivity, she prefers to just call it denial. It is interesting how extreme it can be though, she described it to my autistic ass like a software issue, these people never installed a patch on their psyche that lets them objectively look at something related to themselves and say “oh shit am I wrong?” That’s not even getting into the fact that some of these characters design choices are literal author avatars, and with the summary rejection of the game and then by extension some of these people, almost like the Seymour Skinner meme, cannot comprehend that they have been rejected, so it must be everyone else that’s wrong. It’s fascinating to look at, a bit like that sub that had a great KD ratio vs insane billionaires

[@hassanico9999]

Denial or just plain old narcissism? Keep in mind that the reason this "toxic" part is brought up is because these people actively weaponized that denial to harm, reject or remove anyone that could have possibly criticized them or fixed their ideas.

[@NameIsDoc]

Well, I’m not an expert however I think denial is not the correct term. There is a sociological term known as V "Chilling effect" where people are so scared to speak negatively about something they Self censor out of fear of repercussion if they speak their mind. Majority of the devs and the artists were probably too scared to speak out against various individuals such as the infamous “professor“ this is what happens when people are too afraid to speak their mind and lately that has been a lot of professions everywhere

[@Churono]

It is a pretty specific form of denial that plays into things like being conflict-averse and avoiding self-reflection, so I think the term is pretty useful.

[@Garl_Vinland]

Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.

[@Gh0stWh33l]

Even if it's incorrect, the figure "$400 Million" is almost Emblematic, and the fact that they are refuting that so aggressively while also refusing to clarify shows that it is close enough that revealing the actual figure would engender the response "Close Enough." Sony did not just lose money on this, they did not just lose the most money they have ever lost on this, Sony lost the most money that has ever been lost on this!

[@Dasaltwarrior]

It's likely rounded up from the actual figure, but yeah, thats numbers so far past the point of making a difference, that the next level would basically just mean the end of Playstation as a brand

[@Hegataro]

They're either refusing to say how much it cost because they're embarrassed about it costing as much as it did, OR they're behind layers and layers of NDAs which only exist because HR were embarrassed about it costing as much as it did

[@vitaliybakal7356]

public traded company? not disclosing the cost of their project in mass media press releases? boys, we are onto some conspiracy here.

[@TastyChurro]

They could have used that money on actual games people wanted like Bloodborne 2

[@TyranusRex721]

The fact they have made a new, overly expensive console with absolutely minimum upgrades and the one thing people have been asking for for over 10 years and they still refuse to do anything with it. I just have no idea what they are thinking and it is obvious they themselves have no idea what they are doing.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

I'd even just settle for ports and upgrades to older Sony games. Like remastering inFAMOUS or Gravity Rush 2 gotta cost as much as a ham sandwich in comparison to whatever Concord did. Just make them look and run good on the 5

[@Vanity0666]

​@@TyranusRex721i am willing to bet that sony has asked fromsoft and fromsoft said "no we are working on other shit"

[@TyranusRex721]

@@Dasaltwarrior Sony would rather spend millions of dollars on a game that is 7 years old and complain about not having IP than even look at the mountain of IP from the PS1 and 2 days that are collecting dust. So many franchises that could be breathed new life, even as a simple up res, but Sony would rather let them die.

[@charlesplante]

Or ya know...Legend of Dragoon maybe?

[@JERB2012]

“Colin Moriarty is a hack” and then mentioning Gene Park in the same conversation is funny when Gene Park is heavily featured in Last Stand Media, Colin's company.

[@TheSaltyRice]

Yeah i hope Gene cleared that up who Colin is and people calling him hack are actually agenda driven pieces of shit.

[@hassanico9999]

It's funny cause Park is way more of a hack, but they're friends with that hack so he gets a pass.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

@@hassanico9999 "I'm gonna accuse a guy with zero evidence and say people are hypocrites for it."

[@hassanico9999]

@@UltimaKeyMaster The guy who's buddybuddy with racist/sexist journos is a grifter, yes.

[@demilung]

The culture of toxic positivity is the reason for me hating one of the few people I legitimately despise, which is my second ever direct superior. Legitimately, this crap can be so terrible that it's unironically "if she was on fire I would not piss on her". Toxic positivity comes out as you immediately becoming a target if you dare to doubt the optimism, like your doubt or criticism will manifest failure and it will be your fault. They legit look at any negative feedback as sabotage.

[@NEEDbacon]

"I feel like we need to be more in touch with Nature and so I've filled the building with BEES! Well actually couldn't get that many bees, so it's wasps."

[@Xeno426]

Folding Ideas talked about toxic positivity in his "Line Goes Up" video, regarding NFT communities.

[@TyranusRex721]

Concords disaster is going to be studied for years. How a company could be so blind to the very obvious problems the game would face and how it could have possibly taken so long to make and cost so much to develop. It is the biggest gaming flop in history and Sony, no matter how hard they try, will not be able to erase that. This game alone has made everyone question their future Gaas games and their possible quality. Concord is just utterly fascinating. For all its fuck ups this and last gen, even Microsoft did not fuck up that hard. That is how big of a fuck up Concord is. And it has made more people question and scrutinize Sony recently and all their bizarre decisions. Truly a fascinating piece of video game history this has become. As for the actual price. Colin is very much an asshole and I do not like him, but the dude is a massive Sony shill and for HIM of all people to come out with this information...I honestly just believe him. No way he would lie about something like this.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Yeah, like that figure is insane, and I get how people can get skeptical of it, but I don't see why Colin would lie about it. I def think the figure is embellished a bit, its likely a rounded up figure, but the difference is kinda moot after a certain point. Even the 260 mil figure we were initially hearing was insane

[@TyranusRex721]

@@Dasaltwarrior Like, I also understand why people are skeptical, but Sony is well known for their massive, bloated budgets and long dev times. We do know they put money forward to fund the game even before they bought the dev, so much of the budget was theirs. And I feel Sony was also desperate to get their own multiplayer games up and running since Microsoft now has CoD and that thing is going to print them money. Colin is many things, but for a massive Sony shill and defender to release this information. It has to be true or at least damn close to the truth.

[@Vanity0666]

What if we did the sunk cost fallacy but this time it was one billion dollars

[@TyranusRex721]

@@Vanity0666 The way Sony is spending money that might actually be a thing soon. They already spent over $3 billion on Bungie and they have not made a dime off them.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@@TyranusRex721 Fun fact, Firewalk was founded by ex-Bungie staff. I'm sure that no bearing in Bungie telling Sony to give the greenlight to Concord while killing most of the other 12 gaas games, including the Last of Us one

[@Mr.Faust3]

Code for "the executives didn't allow any criticism"

[@Benzodrewd]

$400M for Concord but not a fart in the wind for Bloodborne

[@marcuskane1040]

Like, I don't understand it. Soulslike genre and FROM are more popular than ever - best time for Sony to release at least a remastered version for PS5 and PC and grab easy money.

[@NEEDbacon]

No there was a fart in the wind for Bloodborne. They went out of their way to C&D Bloodborne Kart like they're going to do ANYTHING with that IP. Especially a Kart Racer. BTW, completely unrelated but there's a game called Nightmare Kart out for free on steam, is pretty cool. Nothing to do with Bloodborne.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

​@marcuskane1040 The problem is that Bloodborne was a Japan studios project, and they no longer exist. Even if there was someone there who could champion the project, I don't know if Herman Hulst would give them time of day since Bloodborne isn't a huge money maker, nor is it a Horizen project for him to nepo into existence

[@jdizzy192]

Nintendo once again doing next to nothing but somehow winning

[@NameIsDoc]

Nintendo for the most part churns out a quality project

[@MegaJackolope]

Blocking out all criticism from the planning stages could definitely make you so defensive to abject reality that you would call your audience "talentless freaks" before asking them to open their wallet.

[@rokblinov5641]

Don't forget that Fairgame$, Sony's next GAAS, is coming too.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Or the 12 others they had in dev before Bungie killed them Probably because they weren't made by former Bungie staff like Concord was

[@ice_queen9]

Fairgames$ looks even more boring :o . at least they got Helldivers 2 i guess

[@NEEDbacon]

@@ice_queen9 Which is impressive given Payday 3 pulled a Shockmaster face plant. Supposedly it's getting better though. And that's ignoring Crime Boss: Rockay City and Payday 2 exist. So they're hobbling to the finish line to a race everyone is already finished and having a nice cup of water. I'm surprised they don't kill Helldivers 2 out of spite for succeeding in spite of how much they didn't care about it. Still time for it.

[@Ultimaniacx4]

People who regularly watch Wha Happuned know the term. It's how Drake and the 99 Dragons came to be.

[@TealWolf26]

Isn't Colin Moriarty the Fallout 3 bar owner in Megaton?

[@michaelrector1496]

Sony Throwing At least 4 billion dollars at Live service games While refusing to even acknowledge bloodborne's Existence.

[@JMenitta]

Funniest part about the 400 million number is it's said to be ludicrous and absurd It's actually 150 million YEAH THATS STILL A LOT OF FUCKING MONEY

[@Vanity0666]

Mark my words Concord will be released again in a number of months as a free to play title with hero purchase requirements like Quake Champions

[@NEEDbacon]

I heard rumors they were going to make it F2P while it was still alive. Honestly if they do ANYTHING with Concord, folks are just going to laugh harder at sony.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

​@@NEEDbacon The problem with making it F2P, means that they'd need to pour MORE money in to re-work it, while also keeping the promise of the bi-weekly story drops that were to be the games big hook. They could do skins to fund that content, but the game is so high fidelity, that the roi wouldn't be as high as something like Overwatch And thats IF the game somehow gained an audience. But atp, with them deleting the game from peoples libraries, I'd imagine Sony's trying to wipe the egg off of its face while its accounts start cooking the books to fill in the massive 400 mil hole that just opened up

[@PirateKingBoros]

Toxic positivity is not just a problem in gaming it’s rife in all forms of entertainment at this point for a plethora of reasons because constant standards aren’t being upheld where they should be for reasons people are validly scared to discuss.

[@AirLancer]

13:00 Rumbleverse... I mean, generally speaking, you don't want to be ugly in a game. Nobody wanted to play as a character that looked like they stepped out of that one Grubhub ad.

[@neonmanatee1952]

This reminds me of something Remembered being a part of a patron group for an artist. I was actually the highest level to pledge for them for a long time. of course they had a discord group and I would post some stuff that wasn’t always happy. Worked at a very intense job so I like to make up self deprecating jokes and memes about myself or life in general. It would be quickly banned because it wasn’t positive. They only wanted positive feedback and discussions. It was kind of boring. One day I left the group yet still kept pledging. I got a rate of messages saying that I was a miserable piece of shit. This person had a mental breakdown. Mostly I just told them that I left because it wasn’t my vibe. They completely banned me and blocked me after I witnessed a tragedy. It was because they didn’t want to feel miserable. The only thing I was just sharing my struggles with a friend. Guess that I was wrong that they were my friends at all. I don’t know if that’s toxic positivity or just positivity starved. I just know that they’re a bunch of assholes. Sorry, I just wanted to share that

[@vitaliybakal7356]

its ok, ive been in plenty of artist discords like this and met some fellow "industry" proffesionals like this, sadly it seems like the norm. Its not some rudeness insult gone political, but mere mention of things being really scuffed anywhere near them thatll get you the attitude check in dm. Ive seen dudes go real aggro on me for saying market has collapsed and you cant get a job like them anymore by "working hard". One started digging and finding portrait set with "nft" crossed in red circle in centre and deciding that im... an nft artist and blocking me. Also ive once misunderstood a post on forum and blurted something angry and than backpedaled and apologized, and some dude dmed me being like "you need to get this stuff checked, im telling this as someone who has gone to theraphy over commiting domestic violence". I dont know what cure there is other than develop irl friends who wont jump to the most extreme interpretation of stranger after a ligma joke.

[@NameIsDoc]

@@vitaliybakal7356 yeah fair portion of the artistic industry who are not in stuff like industrial work cannot take any criticism at all. I worked as an art professor for a short period of time and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had too“ break the shell” as it were. Kind of like those idiots who run onto America’s got talent or American Idol having never been told that they are a horrible singer. I’ve gotten a bunch of artists who couldn’t draw a circle with a compass who thought that they were the next best thing. Some took my advice and became better realizing that what I was saying to them and trying to teach them made them stronger. Others complained or just left the class.

[@iamnuff1992]

You should have stopped giving them money the first time they banned you. Unacceptable behaviour.

[@vitaliybakal7356]

@@iamnuff1992 ??? money? to artist discord mods and twitter users?

[@theotherjared9824]

That's the owner being immature and unable to accept reality. Actively stamping out anything not considered positive will leave them unprepared when something serious happens to them, and they would only double down on that behavior and become more authoritarian. You getting out was a massive bullet dodged.

[@popepisspot1675]

I find it really funny how these companies think they can just spawn a profitable IP at will without realising that it's up to the consumers to decide that. When George Lucas made the 1st star wars movie he didn't expect one of the biggest franchises ever , it was a story he wanted to tell and people at the cinema were blown away by what they were presented with.

[@charlesplante]

The staff on the last 6 Resident Evil movies (who survived) must have felt the same way. My heart goes out to all those assualted by the "yes man".

[@Renoistic]

They all made bank though

[@NeutralGuyDoubleZero]

Same kind of mindset that NFT and crypto groups get into. Any kind of questioning or criticism is immediatly and violently shut down as dangerous to the groups efforts. You're either part of the hive mind or not.

[@DIOBrando-ij2bp]

Concord’s Steam numbers were so low that on an average day there’s more people playing Resident Evil 6, a 2012 game that came out 12 years ago, than there were people playing Concord at its peak on Steam. Given how quickly Sony scrapped Concord, I’m honestly a little surprised Sony even released it after seeing the open beta numbers. Even free people didn’t want to play. Which is why it’s crazy that people think it may come back as a free-to-play game. Then again after hearing about how crazy people at Sony were internally over Concord, and how they seemed to this is saw going to be their Star Wars, I kind of wonder if they might actually try to bring it back...I guess that depends on how many people that thought it was the future of SIE are still at Sony.

[@kingofbel6499]

Whoever had the genius idea to invest that much money on a new IP, which is a complete unknown, is the one the most at fault. Nobody can do that, not even Nintendo. Though Nintendo does have the best chance since they never invest near as that much money in their new IPs, and they are popular enough that Nintendo fans will buy anything. Now Sony? They are crazy to do that. Especially when you look at those extremely boring characters from the game. Anyone could have told them that those characters are not in the same tier as Overwatch characters were.

[@Thtambitiousguy]

Would love some CSB X LSM collabs (beyond just gene) in the future lol

[@pepperidgefarm1003]

8:57 Do we know what game "that one" is? I feel like its obvious and I should know, but I don't.

[@TRMarcinek]

I think Woolie worked on some game and is possibly still under NDA, so he can't actually talk about it. It's one of those situations where you can talk about something without actually directly addressing what that thing is.

[@FiveTiger]

If I had to guess it might be a Squeenix game, considering he worked QA for them at one point and talks frequently about how badly the producers botch those games, but the boat reference is drawing a blank for me.

[@rembrandtbrown6450]

@@FiveTiger The boat is just referencing "ship it" like a boat is a ship, its what things get shipped on, its just a quirky way of saying ship it when they send an image of a boat.

[@werewolf873]

And the most hilarious part? Not a single lesson will be learned from this flop. The next new sony IP will without a doubt have the exact same problems and flop in the exact same way.

[@shadeyshroomy4006]

Concord simultaneously had too much time and not enough. Also i don't hate Concord's models it just feels like none of them have personality. Like every other like hero shooter their heroes have big personalities they just don't really do or say anything.

[@patrickr.1433]

these two dont know who colin moriarty is? surprising considering theyve been around so long, ign, fallout 3 etc

[@thesacredbeast2000]

This is why collaborative art projects should have anonymous suggestion boxes.

[@spookyelectrik]

the defense was George Lucas could do no wrong before episode 1, how many fails does it take in the game industry?

[@blackdragoncyrus]

Like.

[@JoseRS1186]

9:00 So what game is Woolie -not- talking about

[@onimaxblade8988]

I don’t think this is the last we’ve seen of Concord, just to be clear.

[@The5lacker]

Oh absolutely. Morbius released in theaters a second time, the mere fact that people are still talking is going to lead some dumb motherfucker to interpret “noise” as “interest.”

[@marcuskane1040]

I can see Sony trying to do something with it at the end of the year where Concord will be a part of those Animated shorts project.

[@GreyGiger]

So essentially, as usual, management is to blame. I feel like if unions were already more prevalent in the games industry, these sort of projects would be avoided much more often.

[@NameIsDoc]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s often the unions that are pushing this kind of environment onto studios. Where you cannot speak out for fear of offending some coworker somewhere in someway

[@GreyGiger]

@@NameIsDoc Most studios don't have a union. Some developers recently got one and it was a huge deal. Why do you think devs getting laid off left and right is so common? They have no bargaining power against publishers. You seem confused.

[@NameIsDoc]

@@GreyGiger you seem confused as unions will do nothing to prevent layoffs. Look at the film industry. People know that a movie is a project and often sign deals of single projects. The video game industry is built in a similar way. Majority of people are hired on for a single project and it is evident in their employment contract. A union would not be able to solve this. We also have the issue of the entire economy is not doing well and the video game economy is significantly shrinking from the lockdown bubble. All the unions would really be able to do is probably get you to be able to work from home try to prevent crunches, but that’s more of a publisher and management issue not a developer issue. Especially since you don’t have an industry wide guild and even then the industry why guilds are fucking over there lower workers just as hard as any corporation just the VAs 90% of the work goes to the top, one percent of the voice actors

[@GreyGiger]

@@NameIsDoc I'll admit you're correct about them not being able to prevent layoffs in totality, however there is such a thing as a collective agreement which can absolutely prevent it. Even if a layoff were to happen under those circumstances, there would be more safety nets like severance packages and easy access to other jobs. Even if it's not normal now, it doesn't mean it can't become so in the future. As far as the economy being so awful that publishers need to resort to layoffs, I feel like this has more to do with inflated budgets and diminishing returns on how much they're making back relative to the budget.

[@NameIsDoc]

@@GreyGiger those benefits were already offered if you were a good employee. Unions are literally selling you nothing. And worse they will create these toxic atmospheres for the industry as a whole. Further causing echo chambers that ruined Concord and ubisoft. They are not really going to help the industry they are going to make things worse. Do you know an example of the bloat the bloat you are talking about? How about the excessive amount of unnecessary positions in the industry like the advisory boards. You know people who would be required in unions. The actual development part of the industry hasn't grown. Infact it's shrinking. The bloat is the middle management.

[@Lonequacker]

Toxic positivity is probably what led to Spider Man 2 being not fun at all since so many of the side missions felt like just letting everyone in the office pitch in ideas but not even thinking about if it'd be enjoyable to play. It also seems to happen outside game development since one of my favorite games media groups Easy Allies got killed by toxic positivity and not being able to criticize anything and things not getting done due to those people getting shunned by the community until most left.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

I'm only passingly familiar them, what went down with Easy Allies?

[@TheRogueWolf]

I'm reminded of how _Anthem's_ development had a lockdown on comparing it to other games, and then it just ended up turning into a weak derivative of other games. At some point you need to be open to negative input or you'll never know what you're doing wrong.

[@AJGexe]

I'm interested to see how long we care to talk about something as boring as Concord. Not that interested, but...

[@nono9543]

Concord reminds me of a group project I had in a game design class. Some of my peers were into it. I didn't. To me it was something I just needed to get done but to others it was the first time they had achieved something creative and they wanted to keep it going, the thing it was never meant to be anything else than an aimless project.

[@waynemorgan6153]

"Toxic positivity" is just a nice way of saying that it was an echo chamber that stifled criticism and dissent. People were dissuaded from giving feedback out of fear. Fear for their livelihoods and fear of being labelled a bigot. It's only in this kind of environment can these repugnant character designs ever make it market.

[@NameIsDoc]

Exactly

[@joekewl7539]

The longer people deny that wokeness is an anti-merit mindset that creates Concords and ruins existing franchises, the more things will crash and be ruined.

[@mohastgridlock]

The art atyle was intriguing to me... Becuase it was alien. Otherwise, yeah...

[@micheljavert5923]

Let us not forget: Between Concorde and the Pro announcement, this is what it looks like when Sony is considered the de facto market leader/dominator.

[@alastor8091]

Toxic positivity has been a problem for a long time now. People hate any kind of negative emotion and would rather bury their heads in the sand than think about things that matter. Take the HAES movement as an egregious example. You can't criticize anything, you can't advicate for self improvement because that's an indirect criticism that says you have something to work on/aren't perfect the way you are. How many times have you seen arguments be brushed off as just being a hater or people calling you "sad" for having negative opinions?

[@TheLoneGamr]

Colin Moriarty is not a hack. People who say that are probably the same people that though Easy Allies was going in the right direction before everything collapsed. Gene Park is a part of his podcasts and he is a good journalist.

[@Mr.Faust3]

Concord executives: I Don't understand why Don't they like it we spent 400 billion dollars on this

[@DIOBrando-ij2bp]

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite is such a bizarre situation when it comes to how it looks, because the game is largely just reused models from Marvel vs Capcom 3. Every returning MvC3 character on the Capcom side, (and maybe even X, since Zero had a X alt in that game) as well as Thor, Dormammu, Ghost Rider, and Nova are just retextured models from Marvel vs Capcom 3. Hulk and Spider-Man may also largely be their MvC3 models retextured and with new heads. Which means Capcom spent money to make the game look worse. They took the Marvel vs Capcom 3 models, and instead of keeping them looking exactly the same, or doing cel shading (Marvel vs Capcom 3 is not a cel shaded game) to make it look different than the previous game, they retextured everything to make it more realistic looking. They also switched engines, making it in Unreal Engine 4 instead of their own MT Framework engine, which means they also had to pay Epic to use Unreal instead of using their own internal game engine. It’s even weird because Monster Hunter World, which still looks great, came out the following year Infinite did and was an MT Framework game. So while the engine was on the way out for big releases, Capcom was still using MT Framework for World while Infinite was being developed.

[@doremiancleff1508]

I think big reason why people so harsh on design of concord, is because it SEEMS like they've been trying hard, but in the end it's just nothing. Not even a bone to chew on for the freakiest of freaks. There are designs that are ugly, but with a purpose, so when you see them you are like "Yeah, i kinda get where they were going for. I don't like it, but i get it". And Cocord look like it's been concocted to have as little going on as possible.

[@iamnuff1992]

The funniest thing about concord is that even if it didn't come out and immediately die... it'd still have been nothing more than a sub-par, years-too-late, clone of Overwatch. They spent 400 million dollars and eight years to be Battleborn. And they failed at even that.

[@demonsecho272]

I wonder if its $400 million if you start to include all the extra costs. Like aquiring the studio, paying salaries, secret levels episode, weekly animated shorts, custom controllers, and any other marketing stuff.

[@majdjinn5042]

...you have to remember sony dumped money in and also bought the studio. Counting advertisement and all the stuff it suppose to interaect with. ....400 million might either be true or insanely small

[@Cloperella]

Think how many games, movies and other forms of media could have been saved from failure if employees were allowed to say "yeah, I'm not so sure about this" without fear of losing their jobs.

[@MaBa2_0]

I think it would have lasted longer if the movement speed wasn’t slow as hell. It felt like playing overwatch underwater with worse characters. This game could have been fixed but it would have taken time. 🤷🏻

[@DarkPlague20]

they keep saying toxic positivity, but it sounds more like they mean toxic optimism where everything is great and shut up about it just do it

[@pleasantchimera3285]

people thought rumbleverse was ugly??? literally the first time i heard someone say that and i followed that game

[@Bamfum]

Only just noticing how much Pat's Xbox is doing a balancing act with the controller on top and the console half off the table

[@sarmavlada]

400... now that's a lot of Yeezys!

[@williamsova9313]

Isn't toxic positivity just being delusional?

[@jaihynds1095]

400m would only be believable if this game had any marketing

[@Mate397]

What animated shorts?

[@adjuchasbrokk8033]

"Toxic Positivity" is a very cuddly term, but lets get down to brass tacks on this.. critical review was forbidden so that feelings wouldn't get hurt.

[@TheGallantDrake]

Well, it's actually a legit term used by psychologists for the kind of mentality where you don't allow yourself to feed bad feelings. It's a really pitiful kind of mindset but it's endemic among self-help addicts.

[@adjuchasbrokk8033]

@@TheGallantDrake I don't trust "soft science", all too often they produce very convenient outcomes.

[@NameIsDoc]

@@TheGallantDrake all that does is create a “chilling effect“ on other people as they would be too scared to tell you anything that isn’t positive. A lot of people cannot handle simple criticism . If you’re going to be a designer, you have to have no ego.

[@JameboHayabusa]

Ia this going to be the E.T. of our generation? I hope so tbh

[@JCdental]

the refund really threw me for a curve

[@DeepestDankest]

A rare example of a dev team getting exactly what they deserve.

[@IndoorSitup]

Yeah, I get the very distinct feeling that they're not the only Western dev studio who have a culture of "toxic positivity".

[@Renoistic]

😂 if you think only western studios have issues like this. Get your head out of your butt.

[@m3hh3m]

Pure speculation but what game do yall think woolie is talking about that he worked on? PURE SPECULATION, i dont want anyone in trouble but i think its

[@JasonRoofie]

Mahvel VS Cap com 3

[@TheSaltyRice]

Colin Moriarty is the last person who is a hack. He is a cool dude you can trust and keeps it real. Just ask Gene Park who is featured on both of your podcasts.

[@kiwi_arms]

genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm (i don't know who colin moriarity is)

[@TheSaltyRice]

@@kiwi_arms its not sarcasm.

[@Phantosification]

I don't think Rumbleverse looked any worse than Fortnite, and people eat that shit up.

[@Renoistic]

I can't believe I'm saying this because I can't stand the Fortnite art style, but Rumbleverse was much much worse.

[@jamesm.8577]

The near universal audience pessimism and calls of "DOA" after the first big trailer dropped backs up the claims of "toxic positivity". Like, everyone not involved in the project could see where it was headed. I just find it so morbidly fascinating how anyone could look at Concord and genuinely believe that it was gonna set the world on fire. That being said, I hope the artists and devs aren't blacklisted and are able to move on to better things.

[@Coconut-219]

maybe not "The Professor" and the person who called the customerbase "talentless freaks"... the programmers, animators, and level designers though; they can probably find good work elsewhere still.

[@karidyas00]

Everyone in industry knows the score, and are able to separate an individual's work from a collective failure. There's been some great early concepts released, like from Adrian Bush. They wouldn't be punished for doing their jobs. If anything, they may have been blacklisted if they *did* speak out and made a fuss, as a corporate risk. Hopefully those that fostered this ultimately ruinous culture, either from the top or middle, have been humbled enough by the experience to not make the same mistake again.

[@Renoistic]

But you will always have people calling games boring and DoA no matter what you do. You have to be selective about what criticism you actually take to heart.

[@InsomniacTC]

Oh I have heard of toxic positivity. Yall hear about a small company called Ubisoft? Yea they might die

[@RatchetSly]

Turns put, doing the same Sx Abuser Shuffle that the Catholic Church did really demoralizes the teams under unwanted, bad-touchy new leadership.

[@Renoistic]

I wish my job was so easy I could just make shit up and refer to "my sources". That said, toxic positivity has sunk lots of IT projects and I'm sure games are no different. But on the other hand, I doubt this story would be a thing or the game actually found an audience. I mean, it wasn't a bad game, not at all. It just had character designs that didn't match the gameplay archetypes in any way. And some of them didn't even look finished.

[@EbonMaster]

I really dont think Rumbleverse's problem was the art style, dude. Like you guys are the only ones I've heard call it straight up "ugly".

[@jfa99]

I found the characters pretty unappealing myself, mostly in terms of their proportions. Slim, bulky, all the characters kinda looked like they came from a budget CG kids film

[@Renoistic]

It made me almost physically ill, no joke. It's the opposite of artistic, painfully generic. And I can't stand that forced "everyone is happy while beating each other up" atmosphere. Like in Fortnite and all the other soulless online games.

[@EbonMaster]

@@Renoistic Okay but thats just it, its "the fortnite aesthetic". Its a commonly liked aesthetic lol. Like I feel like people are misunderstanding what I was saying. I'm not saying that literally nobody believes it was ugly, I'm saying that the sentiment is so uncommon that these guys are the first ones I've heard call it ugly. Its not a common sentiment and not the main reason Rumbleverse died. And a bit of a side note I guess but like, lets be real, if their personal visual tastes were indicative of things like that then Roblox, Minecraft, and TF2 to name a few would have also been massive flops and not three of the most played games of all time.

[@miguelnewmexico8641]

@@Renoistic i'd talk to a doctor because that's not normal.

[@dodiswatchbobobo]

4:34 Whoa, I was busy writing my comment but then I came back and holy cow Woolie is being such a journalist right here.

[@Coconut-219]

Journalist, or "Journalist"(derogatory)? -because it's hard to detect such sarcasm through just text without further context clues.

[@dodiswatchbobobo]

@@Coconut-219Do you not hear him? Verifying those sources? Using measured language? Correcting rumors? That’s your context. He has true journalistic integrity. He needs to learn to own it, he’d raise the average of the field significantly.

[@zigmus00A]

​@@dodiswatchboboboI'm almost certain they've had a conversation about that before, as Woolie could genuinely not wrap his head around the fact then shooting the shit every week counted as Journalism.

[@dodiswatchbobobo]

@@zigmus00A Yes I’m referencing that

[@dodiswatchbobobo]

My uncle, a staunch capitalist, upon getting the bulletpoints on Concord from me during a hike(Shut down after two weeks, made to be Sony’s Fortnite money-printer, under development for 6+ years) confidently said, “that game was made to fail. They did that on purpose.” I’m always amazed that, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, people just can’t shake the faith that piles and piles of money and business education and manpower actually lead to better, more rational executive decisions that invariably result in profit.

[@nackskott12]

The people who were in the trenches for 7 years to make this game probably wouldn't feel any better hearing "yeah, that game that you put thousands of hours of work into and you can't put on your resume now? Yeah, it was intentionally sabotaged." Like, projects like this have concequences for the people who work on them. Gaps in the resume aren't fun to have and saying "yeah I spent years on this notorious failure" is never recieved well in a job interview even if it obviously wasn't your fault. Trying to square the grindset attitude with the idea that capital owners will intentionally do things that affect the livelihoods of their employees is crazy.

[@Brave_SJ]

Concord fell to the most basic rule of capitalism, which is if you make a shitty thing that no one wants no one will buy it and you'll burn all the money you spent making it.

[@n.chabot1217]

What would Sony even have to gain from spending that much money on a project they knew would fail?

[@dodiswatchbobobo]

@@n.chabot1217 There are ways, but most of them require the game to continue existing as a semi-viable vehicle for other things. The remainder involve ruthlessly screwing over a lot of poor people/ completely lying to a lot of rich people before the game even launches.

[@justinl8791]

​@@n.chabot1217Since the company is currently run by Californian idiots, I think they copypasta-ed the Xbox route & just agreed to everything while being too lazy to check whether it would actually work & tries to bury their heads up their own @$$es when it doesn't. It's just a theory of mine but it lines up, comparing the actions of both companies & the types of chimps running them.

[@zigmus00A]

A Castle Super Beast x Last Stand Media crossover was not something I expected in a million years but here we are.

[@pejvak3]

Colin Moriarty has been in the gaming industry for over 20 years. He’s been a senior level journalist and has had access and connections with people in the highest levels of video game development studios and Sony itself. He has more credibility and knowledge of the inner workings of the video game industry than anybody watching this podcast combined. Obviously people who hate on them are just dummies that are too ignorant to do any due diligence beyond a Twitter headline that they read about him so they would rather just continue with a biased view of a person they’ve already pre-decided they don’t like.

[@pejvak3]

Was that the initial accusation? No, people were saying he’s a hack fraud questioning his credibility as a game‘s insider which is laughable. Then when people get exposed for being absolutely ignorant of that point then they fall back to the ridiculous strawman of well he’s an asshole. Which even that claim isn’t true but even if it was what relevance does the veracity of his character have with the legitimacy of him being a game ls insider? None whatsoever. That right there proves the fact that it’s people blindly hating just for the sake of knowing absolutely nothing about what they’re saying and just wanting to hate on someone based off their already preconceived biases that are ill-informed

[@ice_queen9]

i'd call it the games journalism industry, not the games industry. i'd never heard of this guy until a few days ago, because i've never listened to playstation news podcasts i guess :o

[@Jay-gi6oh]

These guys ever gonna talk about Dustborn?

[@jamesm.8577]

I doubt it. Dustborn's failure is not nearly as interesting or impactful.

[@The5lacker]

I mean, is there anything to say about it? It’s a small scale double-A game that just kinda flopped. The most notable thing about it is it was published (not developed) by Quantic Dream.

[@Tuchpi]

who?

[@just_matt214]

Nobody CARES about Dustborn man. I have not seen anyone playing it outside of outrage farmers, which to me says a lot about the game's business model and who it was made to make money from.

[@hassanico9999]

You'd think a horrific government funded propaganda game like that would get more coverage on how downright evil it is but no, nothing.

[@Biodeamon]

that cut at the end is brutal

[@clanofclams2720]

Colin is known for bad takes, but NOT for bad journalism