Pour One Out For Concord

[@sirprintalot]

had to do a spit-take at 5:22 when it looked like Jeff joined the Concord roster

[@Ddarke11]

The funniest thing is he'd fit right in, just needs some puffy padding shirt with a hefty bag.

[@markwildes553]

dress him up in that bucket hat from the crazy frog set he did

[@moregan101]

This is what’ll it’ll take to bring player numbers up.

[@Klemkee]

They use weekly cutscenes as a selling point and the cutscene is two people talking in a hanger. And I love how you barely have enough ammo to kill 1 person if you dump a full mag into them. Awesome

[@knightdehumidifier]

It's a shame really, state capital of New Hampshire, relatively quaint New England city with a local charm to it. Beautiful to visit in the autumn too. Damn shame.

[@Vlokiv]

Cahnkud

[@spoogtastic]

As a life long NH resident this popped me. Good stuff.

[@bamascorp]

Grand Opening Grand Closing

[@Livingeidolon]

Bland opening, bland closing more like

[@ThisNameIsNotTaken99]

Enough about your terrible launch, let's talk about your terrible shutdown.

[@EmrutoSynths]

Lawbreakers walked so Concord could run (into the ground) ⚔

[@Ivanselectsongs]

remember BATTLEBORN? yeah, me neither

[@SlyRy]

The Jeff Gerstmann Museum 🙌

[@imposible2beat]

Jeff only liking Teo in this game is Hilarious. Never change man, you are an icon.

[@KIager]

Last podcast was funny as a Concord enjoyer. He said he only liked one character, and I went "Teo!" and he said: "I think his name is Teo!"

[@bdre5555]

Thanks for doing this stream! We all knew that you were the man for this job!

[@zoekm]

Love that Jeff enjoys most the character that has generally been called 'the CoD character'.

[@KIager]

Timmy Titanfall.

[@iwake8326]

THE SWEATSTRUM.. good lord.

[@ac8598]

The astronomical success Helldiver had earlier this year had to be balanced out by a failure of another. That's the only theory I can come up right now!

[@Stonehorn]

Or it’s just a mid game with awful characters that nobody wanted or cared about

[@ac8598]

@@Stonehorn Or maybe that was a comment said in jest....

[@poposterous236]

@@ac8598 pretty stupid comment, maybe this one is said in jest too? maybe I don't have to consider every possible angle because it looks like he just said smthn stupid, that's the only theory I can come up with right now!

[@ac8598]

@@poposterous236 You sure went out of your way to make your feeling known on such important matter. You sure showed me!

[@chriswinchester679]

These character designs looks like what little kids would try to throw together for a Halloween costume. Like that COD-ass guy is just wearing his older brother's football pads, his mom's old workout head-band, and some old headphones he found in a closet somewhere.

[@raikoh05]

This game does the halo thing where you have to finish with a melee because the magazine is not big enough

[@amann-o8h]

It reminds me Bleeding Edge vibes and that one came out 4 years ago.

[@SIXminWHISTLE]

Week 3 flashing on the screen when the game logs in is very funny now.

[@Chriscras2]

Wow this game looks great! I can't wait to download it and try it out this weekend! 🤑

[@pppppffffffmmmmmmmnn]

Some weird-ass character design choices. I almost like some of them because of how bizarre they are, but others not so much

[@vac59]

That new cutscene was weak, like it has all the thrills of getting coffee in the break room at work.

[@3Dant]

The lore stuff feels like some people wanted to make a cool universe for a singleplayer game but the money men only wanted to greenlight a multiplayer shooter. Kinda reminds me of Destiny 1 where there was all this lore that you could only read in a companion app, but the in-game story was over real fast.

[@Milesplowher]

After watching the pod I had to check this out myself because you were the 5th KZbinr to talk about how slow this was, and man, you weren’t kidding. This shits awful. Makes Killzone 1 look like Quake.

[@Velirno]

I guess this still counts as a "shipped" product for developers' resumes?

[@manoiumusicgames5763]

I think Concord will be remembered for its blandness as a landmark of this console generation.

[@MrSmash85]

It will be remembered as the biggest flop in gaming history, especially from a first party

[@MobiusFun64]

I don't think it will be remembered.

[@dangrel]

Gamers are definitely snarky enough to not let this massive a failure be forgotten

[@CHEDDAakaSWAY]

@@MobiusFun64 🤣

[@manoiumusicgames5763]

It's the Dinowarz: Destruction of Spondylous of our generation. 30 years from now, someone will do a ranking of PS5 games and ask the question: "Is Ratchet and Klank the Noodle of Vermillion better or worse than Concord"? And it will rank around 193 out of 458 games

[@CaptainKenway]

And that someone will be Jeff Gerstmann.

[@Bodom1978]

All the time and money and they come up with one of the most visually unappealing games ever.

[@DookieKingBlu]

Everything about the aesthetic feels like there were no creative conflicts.

[@thejimd]

20:19 It hurts too much knowing that we'll never get another vignette 😥

[@nunogloop3386]

A poor man's Lawbreakers. Long Live Lawbreakers!

[@suplextrain]

I'm guessing this is a joke, because that game also instantly died and had no players.

[@OldMan_PJ]

They spent almost twice as much making Concord than Lionsgate spent making the Borderlands movie.

[@MrSmash85]

We don't know the actual cost of Concord, it is all speculation

[@Dogalogue6152]

it was good to hear jeff address performance issues while streaming.. i see poor frame rates on so many of his PC gaming streams and it's a bummer to watch.

[@dukiwave]

That cutscene gives me anxiety. Nothing is happening, they're not talking about anything, the voice acting is kinda emotionless, it's just so uncanny.

[@noahsmith2141]

The empty platitudes are really embarrassing. The first cutscene where someone asks how old the ship is and she says "old enough to still know legends matter" has been echoing since I played a review build two weeks ago. How can this be real

[@MsMvsc]

The dialogue is so bland

[@poposterous236]

It's so mid its almost perfect

[@ScubaSnacks]

It’s like they just grabbed their random Californian friends instead of getting a VA and giving them any direction

[@moeezS]

@@noahsmith2141 Did you end up doing a review of this? For which outlet? Would be interested to read your take if you have.

[@michaelbarrett9061]

RELEASE THE CONCORD RELOADED DEDICATED SERVERS

[@YerNewUncle]

Somehow even the gunfire in this game sounds like focus testing.

[@kayfimt7769]

I think it genuinely is going to be remembered, at least by gaming historians, as arguably the worst game launch of all time. It’s a historic disaster. It’s arguably even worse than the 1983 ET debacle, that at least sold a few million copies. I agree that Concord wasn’t really that bad, but mediocrity plus paid-entry in a F2P genre (particularly without any head-turning innovations) doomed it.

[@shadowskill111]

We will see it again when that gaming tv show "Secret level" comes out in a couple months. One of the episodes is based on Concord for some reason.

[@noobsaibot2255]

I dont understand how a weekly 2 minute cutscene was a standout "feature" what were they smoking/injecting/snorting?

[@Fredchuckdave]

Who would've thought Jeff would pick Assault Rifle grenade man?

[@unknownuser3000]

Omg that cutscene im dying perfect concord level of quality

[@ItMeDwaeji]

Crime Boss Rockay City is still live and has had more players than Concord. Odd times

[@xer0signal]

Tells you all you need to know about how fucked this industry is. Actually good games get handwaved immediately for bullshit.

[@Grasslmeier]

Jim Ryan! People should have seen the writing on the wall with that guy. He's like Sonys Don Mattrick!

[@chalkitdowm]

Takes a shot every time Jeff says "Conquered". *Is dead*

[@HessianSackini]

Whatever you feel about the failure of this game, don't feel guilt. Sometimes that can get conflated with other thoughts when there's so much "we're all one big gaming family" talk that swirls around this industry, but remember that as a customer you have no responsibility or obligation to make any game a success. That job is entirely on the creators, publishers and marketing.

[@ThePhantomnaut]

I definitely see this lasting a bit in 2019 when the genre was still at a high and people were still down for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its humor. 2024, we are just tired of the hero genre and MCU’s design (outside of Deadpool relatively). That trailer’s presentation really felt like a death nail for something that wasn’t out yet.

[@TheFizzjunior]

You are 100% right. The only thing I feel is I wish they spent that time making a game people actually wanted to play. It does feel bad when the actual devs get canned. Especially ones making good products. Clearly, no one cared about this from a consumer standpoint. That's why it's going away. Plenty of much better multi-player games have vanished, too. It's weird that it was this short-lived, but hey, it is what it is.

[@MrTomemac]

Haven’t felt anything towards any company or corporation all my life. Why do ppl need to be told this? It’s weird to read. That’s said, this flopping this hard is hilarious. So I guess the gaming industry just found a new way to amuse millions and it cost those millions nothing. It’s low-key genius.

[@HessianSackini]

@@MrTomemac There's been a growing trend of blaming the audience/fans/customers for the failure of games/shows/films as of late, not just on social media but from opinion pieces on big publications too. That's why I bring this up, its shouldn't have to be said, but here we are in 2024.

[@ffmpregffmpreg]

Yeah, I don't feel bad for the industry in the slightest. If anything, I feel bad for the devs a bit because the game's failure speaks more to the awful executive decision of producing this unremarkable game in the first place. Having said that, if you told me you were a dev with some knowledge & foresight, and refused to help burn all the money Concord cost and left the team as soon as you saw the iceberg, I'd have more respect for you.

[@SooperSpy]

I'm one of the few who really enjoyed Concord. Is it revolutionary in any way? No. But it has some strong core mechanics and whatever you think about the character designs, a lot of their kits are fun to play with. Anyways, I bought it physically and will be holding onto it, if only because it'll be a weird rarity to own.

[@ndesaranwrap]

Too Human

[@dukiwave]

The Gamer Centipede

[@ndesaranwrap]

@@nufrequency84 Nah

[@Brinewind]

The Sweatstrum is the new paradigm, Jeff. Climb aboard.

[@bdre5555]

Astro Bot sighting

[@Atropos148]

i am so sad this is no longer playable, i liked that CGI reveal trailer, and i paused and read thru the whole lore page at 48:46, i guess i want a lore heavy multiplayer scifi game (that is not Destiny)? :)

[@Phens]

Being told how to play a game is off-putting. Games that tell you how you like to play we're going to have a hard time reaching a player base

[@Renoistic]

I had a relatively good time with the open beta, but nowadays I will never buy an online-only game for money. Didn't buy Helldivers 2 either. The crew/variant system was extremely overwrought though, and creating a new cutscene for each week is just a terrible idea from the start because how do you even make them interesting when you apparently don't want to actually tell a real story? At least some of the Overwatch shorts have some real effort put into them. Also, I had to search the store to even find the beta and then the final game. It's really as if Sony don't know how to market their games and put them in front of people. Even Astro Bot was kind of hard to find.

[@NoName-x5o]

The real question is, if Jim Ryan was in charge when the decision to show the first trailer was made. Could very well be the case that the dev team wanted years more time and the new exec team had to put their door down and demand that they push this shit out so they can just stop hemorrhaging cash on the project.

[@BrettLevin4096]

Low key Atari 50 vibes from some of the graphic design on this

[@ThisNameIsNotTaken99]

46:49 Say what you will about Concord, but officially ranking modes by sweatiness in incredible.

[@ThePhantomnaut]

Can’t believe the city is disappearing.

[@jonathanmather6897]

This game is unfairly hated and simultaneously a wet fart. Weird phenomenon, that. Have had entirely more fun on this the past few weeks than any recent CoD entry, and yet, the lack of any kind of hook, the poor character design, and the $40 price tag in a cutthroat market have made this game the laughing stock of the industry. Game design is rough.

[@Ddarke11]

Conquered?

[@wobaguk]

This going to make the 'Secret Level' episode dedicated to Concord rather awkward. I was assuming it was all Amazon money behind the show, but how did Sony pitch Blur on making an episode about a game that hadnt come out yet? Are rights holders for games putting money into the show to make it happen? Its hard not to see each episode as an extended commercial.

[@Proman2]

Seems like half of the Secret Level episdoes are effectively marketing pieces. They'll have episodes about such exciting video game as: Honor of Kings, a Chinese mobile-only MOBA, and Crossfire, a Korean Counter-Strike clone

[@sleepwalkusa135]

yeah it's all stupid marketing shit

[@EmergencyChannel]

Sure the characters are ugly and uninspired, but the gameplay also looks slow and boring. This might have been a hit before 2020 but it just looks and feels outdated now.

[@SHADOSTRYKR]

This will be relaunched as F2P by June 2025. Where I will still be disinterested because of the Time to Kill

[@temmaxtemma9570]

How mad can Sony be to not spend another cent for this game

[@raikoh05]

Is the crash coming?

[@BaldingSasquatch]

13:57 good lord that is rough

[@CassidyListon]

Nothing bugs the shit out of me more than when the AV is out of sync. Yeesh, that cutscene...

[@BoxHeadMidus]

Sweatstrum is great and I'll bare knuckle brawl anyone who says otherwise. Man, we used to be a country who appreciated the simple dumb things in life like sweatstrum.

[@crescentfreshsongs]

Truly, this is Concord's bad fur day.

[@shydre]

"Concord's Bad Sales Day" is E'eryday!

[@jtbedazzle]

Sony clearly doesn't understand the concept of, or know how to handle multiplayer games... and haven't since the ps3.

[@leedolian4482]

Im not being pretentious but when I see all of these dramatic tweets about how the failure of this game is not good for the industry..... I fail to see eye to eye. This game sucks and it isn't anyone's fault they didn't want to play it.

[@JeffGerstmannShow]

I view it as more of a business failure, really. It isn't anyone's fault for not wanting to play this game. But how did it stay in development for however many years, burning however many millions of dollars only to get unlaunched two weeks after its debut? It's bad that this happened, but I don't think I'd ever blame actual players for that. It's the world's most competitive genre and this game is middle-of-the-road, at best. Most people never even heard of it and if they ever do, they'll hear about it after it's long gone.

[@leedolian4482]

@@JeffGerstmannShow Oh It wasn't directed at your take. More so some tweet compilation article I read. I listened to you theorize what could have happened with this game's failure and it was really interesting. I too am taken back. I am an SEO/Content marketer and I really think minimal consumer research was done on the game. I have had a lot of content campaigns get turned away no matter how much data I show the client or my boss. But this is neglect I have never experienced before. The beta numbers should have been a red flag. Btw in one episode you talked about how content is search engine optimized which is not a format that benefits the user. Being that I do this every day I can agree with you 100%. I would LOVE to work (for free) on any content you need help doing. It would be awesome to work on any game content with someone who knows what they are doing with the benefit of the gamer top of mind.

[@ndesaranwrap]

Game just reminds me of TF2, OW, and Destiny 32:42

[@ndesaranwrap]

45:47 Friend had a disc version of Rocket League, and had skins I had never seen before buying digital.

[@jjforcebreaker]

It's hard to say where to even begin- terrible mismanagement (a game of this type should've come out YEARS ago), inexperienced studio not being able to handle a project like that (it's shallow, bland, no hooks, generic, formulaic and super safe), abysmal internal testing, reviewing and greenlighting projects at SIE... Not a single person with any power on the Sony side, who stood up and said 'wait, what? What are we doing?! How much time it took to finish this thing, why does it even exist?'. They just pushed it out hoping it would stick, and sacked it the moment it became clear that it wouldn't.

[@pkpckls]

What was abysmal about the internal testing?

[@spoogtastic]

Concord is just such a milk toast "hero" shooter. Nothing about any of the characters is appealing to see their cool moves or anything. How the executives thought this was a good idea blows my mind.

[@EvanKnightIsGood]

milquetoast

[@langa77777]

Game doesn’t deserve a conversation. It’s just boring. Go away concord.

[@MPLoura]

The "sweatstrum". Yep.

[@digitaldemigod]

I hope Concord will be a lesson to game devs/publishers to stop chasing Fortnite and Overwatch and whatever else that I can’t remember because I don’t care. They claim to not want to make single player games because they spend alllll this money making a game and then people finish it and “now what?” So instead, they keep wasting millions on 5v5 games. Great.

[@PaulH206]

Theres just too many multiplayer games on the market for them all to survive. Stop spending so much on trying to be The One. Spend less, be more experimental, stand out, and hope to build on success. Sorry, Concord.

[@GreggyAck]

It's sad that people worked hard on something to be shut down so soon, I wish them the best, but I'm glad to see the audience say "we don't really want another one of these".

[@aegisfate117]

Yeah, instead gaming audiences are spending billions of dollars on waifus and husbandos from genshin impact. That's so much better than spending money on a team-based shooter from a first party... 🫣

[@at0m113]

its worse that its not terrible really. it would be less painful with a specific flaw

[@MajinBooRadley]

Are we at some turning point with live service games? Suicide Squad, Foamstars, Skull and Bones, XDefiant, Concord, all came out this year by major studios and all struggled or are struggling to find an audience. I can't imagine this is going to inspire other studios to think "well we could definitely do one of these better than those guys could." I wonder if we'll look back at Concord as the moment when the bubble burst?

[@cheeble.]

but…..what if WE made the next fortnite?

[@RiskyFriskyHandle]

Jim Ryan left because he spent too much time on the SWEATSTRUM! 😰 Too many complaints about him sweating all over the place. Just drenching himself and everyone around him. When he left, he was famously quoted as saying, as he walked through the sliding exit doors, “Stay Sweaty Sweating Y’all”. Ok I’m done 😅

[@HomebaseTheBaseOfHome]

The character designs are bad. Gonna have to disagree with you on that.

[@adamcammack3534]

Oh Jeff you really don't have too...

[@JoesGunplaGarage]

Could they write this off as a business loss? I'm not privy to all this, but I know the movie industry does that occasionally to recoup costs. I feel the immediate erasure of this game has something to do with the ability to write this off.

[@DrBockNstein]

I would have preferred a new SOCOM with that 300 million bucks they spent but that is probably a monkeys paw since it would have been some rainbow six siege level nonsense with the same progressive corporate Memphis character designs that concord had. You figure devs would stop with all the ULTRA PROG when it basically tells the consumer "Hey, don't play this because it's corporate middleman executive tier trash".

[@tommylakindasorta3068]

Maybe it's not the best idea to name your products after other failed products. What's next, Sony? A looter shooter called Betamax? A battle royale called Crystal Pepsi?

[@Shebuka]

RIP. This game is just a mess. The characters? Bland as oatmeal. The game modes? About as exciting as watching paint dry. Progression's alright, but then you see that $40 price tag... and it's like, seriously? And don't even get me started on logging in to the screen at 20:30 and my will to play evaporates completely. It's like the game’s actively trying to chase me away.

[@ffmpregffmpreg]

Out of spite, I would like to see Sony and the rest of the gaming companies burn through all their capital trying to make the next spreadsheet-driven Genshin Overwatch Fortnite whatever; if news about Fairgame$ are any indication Sony hasn't given up hope.

[@summerofblake6461]

STOP! STOP! IT'S ALREADY DEAD!

[@billhell7143]

Peak out of touch I swear I thought it was going to be a pve style shooter from the cinematic announcement trailer. Rest in peace Concord you could have been something more with your bad designs you just didn't need to be a hero shooter.

[@misterburns103]

They need a Cerny method for marketing

[@Larzra]

So much production value, but I don't understand why the characters are locked in a freeze frame pose after a loss. I'm nitpicking here, but it looks cheap.

[@dangrel]

Banalwatch

[@TheFizzjunior]

This game just has a very hard time appealing to anyone playing games. Clearly, the vast majority of people just do not care for this.

[@Eribuster]

Hole party! WOO!

[@fossilfern]

I just didn’t get the appeal of the cutscenes. With many MP games having these seasonal story cutscenes every month I always skip them. I just want to play the game I don’t give a shit about some cutscene.

[@aftertheshowmoviepodcast]

Ancients of MU MU

[@g10118]

weekly cutscene nft

[@vac59]

They short kinged Teo

[@brandonwoodward9515]

3:37 I thought it was something on my end. Lol. I went back 30 seconds to see if that would fix it. Was this a problem on PC or is it trying to stream or record it thats the issue? Didn't have this issue in the PS5

[@brandonwoodward9515]

19:55 Oh...so it is a problem on PC or at least while streaming on PC. Interesting

[@ishitrealbad3039]

except for the ugly characters, the game visually looks good. i just don't see why i would play this over halo, cod or overwatch. it feels like the game is missing something

[@Macho_Fantastico]

Being forgettable is worse than just being plain bad in my opinion. This seems very forgettable. Plus not starting free 2 play is just baffling to me. You can really tell it's designed by former Destiny people. Destiny's multiplayer is serviceable, but that game as the benefit of competitive multiplayer being an extra feature, not the whole game.

[@big_bunyon]

HOLE PARTY

[@luxerhusku2609]

I'm saddened that this game didn't do well. Everyone is cheering for joy, but games shouldn't die out like this as I feel players deserve to at least experience these games to see what they're like, good or bad. If this is going to be the future of games nowadays after what happened to Rumbleverse and now this game, I'm not looking forward to seeing more online pvp games die out and be completely removed. Give the game bots with an offline patch or whatever.

[@BunnLilah]

I really dislike when people cheer for things to fail, especially when there's no malice involved on the creator's part. It's sad, real people dedicated their lives to something and put their blood, sweat, and tears into it. Even if it sucks, it still took a lot of work and lots of people tried. Nobody wants to make something bad. We should have more empathy when this happens.

[@knightdehumidifier]

I got people in my life who are all "lol Concord lol Anthem lol Babylon's Fall" and guilt tweet sales figs and playercounts as if they relish in watching a developer's work get abandoned and turn into lost media.

[@ryu-ken]

Nah. Sucky games that people don't want to buy shouldnt succeed

[@Bodom1978]

These are products from large corporations, why not laugh when they fail 🤷‍♂️

[@IvoRobotnik123]

GaaS is a blight on this industry, and the sooner we move on, the better. That's at least why I'm cheering.