It’s crazy that they released it. They had early access and preorders and those only attracted something like 1,000 players. This is a game that had a $100 million budget. So few players during the early stages should have told the studio to cancel it while it was still in production. Apparently they thought they’d release it and would just jump from 1,000 players to 100,000 overnight with no changes.
Comment on Concord Director Steps Down As Studio Behind Historic PlayStation Flop Waits For Sony's Decision
PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s actually pretty crazy just how hard that game flopped. I would have always thought that a company like Sony could’ve just brute-forced such a big project to achieve some success (or at least break even), but 25,000 units sold is almost unheard of for a game as expensive as Concord.
ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I mean the cost was sunk, might as well release it and cash in whatever revenue they could. unless it’s less than they could get with a total write-off Hollywood-style. never heard of that happening with a game though.
etchinghillside@reddthat.com 2 months ago
I mean - hearing it’s so bad only means that I have to play it now to see what the fuss is about.
Souchiro@lemmy.world 2 months ago
100 million budget?
I though it was 200 millions.
Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
$100 million is the reported budget for development. Generally speaking you double that to account for marketing and publishing costs.
TroublesomeTalker@feddit.uk 2 months ago
What mystifies me is usually when they do this sort of thing they throw it on Plus and get a mountain of players. Fall guys, and Destruction All Stars spring to mind as examples. I guess the effect isn’t so strong with the new tiered system, but it may have saved them some face.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 months ago
When the game had a free beta, there was hardly anyone playing it. At some point you’ve just got server costs and promises of live service content rollouts that can only cost you money.
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Its pretty tough when they release a game that took so long to develop, that was meant for an era of gaming when live service games were hot. Now that a lot of live service games are flopping due to over-saturation, I think even Sony saw it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to push the game further without either reworking it into something else, or just cutting their losses.
golli@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Importantly they tried to enter the market with a $40 purchase price, when the existing company is mostly free to play.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
A lot of games media has talked on it (to varying degrees). But Concord basically had a bad beta/demo and launched at a time when EVERYONE wanted live games to fail (see: Stop Killing Games Initiative). AND it managed to piss off the gamergaters in the process.
We’ve seen this to a lesser degree in the past with… basically every Battlefield since the WW1 one? Bad demo/beta (mostly because people still haven’t learned to not play Conquest and to instead play Rush) coupled with the CoD/BF fanboy war results in outlets and Gamers actively wanting the game to fail and shitting on it every chance they get. It is just that EA understand that BF is the kind of game that still sells enough to justify keeping Dice around.
Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
battlefields a bit different. battlefield basically nowadays is that the game always launch in a terrible state, and fixes itself a year down the line. battlefield players will play the game regardless and maintains ~6000 user playerbase active
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
I mean… where do you think the “this has a terrible launch” comes from?
If Influencers like a game, everyone looks past the massive performance and stability issues. If influencers don’t like a game, a single crash is enough to mark it as trash that should be ignored until a couple patches… which is a death sentence for a multiplayer game that requires a critical mass of players to be worth buying.
Katana314@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I totally get disinterest, but I get rubbed the wrong way when people “want games to fail”. I want the world to have more games that are good - and yes, occasionally those would come from publishers we traditionally grumble about.
I had no interest in Concord, but I’m not making video content laughing at its failure. I think that practice is a bit weird sometimes, and even victimizes some of the game devs that didn’t do anything wrong. I would guess at least 80% of Concord’a devs did their job well - just based around a bad concept.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 2 months ago
“Historic” is right.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 2 months ago
I don’t know how they expected to succeed without any marketing. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of this game, even on my PS5, until the day it released.
drcobaltjedi@programming.dev 2 months ago
I legit learned of it around when it released from gamingcirclejerk making fun of chuds for calling it woke or whatever. Next time I heard of it, it was the shut down announcement.
JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I first heard of it with the shutdown announcement
Granted, I don’t own a PS5
PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 2 months ago
People keep saying thia, but there’s really only 2 of any worth. Overwatch and Paladins.
Where is this ocean of games?
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 2 months ago
Smite. Apex Legends. Team Fortress 2. Valorant. Rainbow Six Siege.
And these are just the popular ones.
HeyJoe@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I think The Finals is one as well?
Empricorn@feddit.nl 2 months ago
They didn’t want to pay for marketing. But all this news coverage… Didn’t they already say they’d rerelease it after an overhaul? I guarantee a non-insignificant amount of people will buy it just to see what all the fuss was about…
Never_Daunted@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I saw this (www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBnStS9d2xg) nearly 5 minute cinematic trailer in June and was expecting some kind of action/adventure game for most of the way through. Then they said it was a hero shooter out of nowhere and I thought to myself “don’t we already have plenty of those?”