What happened to Concord? Why did a big Sony first-party game get sent out to die immediately? Is it actually selling badly, or are we just reading the numbers wrong? As usual when questions of this nature crop up, I asked a bunch of professional industry analysts to explain it to me.
Not really surprising given how it looked (like a generic ripoff), how it’s priced (should be free), and how it was marketed (every conversation I enter starts with a chain of comments saying it’s the first they’ve heard of it).
What is surprising to me is how much a Sony first party game missed the mark. I can’t think of any other recent examples.
First I even heard about this game was a comic talking about it’s unattractive characters. I looked it up out of curiosity to see if this was an exaggeration like it has been with some characters like Aloy, and…ehhh…mostly true.
One of the big draws of these types of games is cool character designs people want to play. This game definitely doesn’t have that for me. Overwatch quickly pulled me in with cool character designs, this one…does not.
I’ve been seeing ads for it for a long time, but the ads don’t even make it clear they’re for this game until 20+ seconds in, at which point I’ve stopped watching.
It’s very likely you too have seen plenty of marketing for this game but ignored it like I did.
Honestly, deadlock doing the whole Fight Club marketing strategy really paid off for them. I heard so much about “the game you weren’t allowed to talk about” on various streams.
Hero shooters rely on appealing memorable designs, compare the characters in this game with any of it’s competitors (TF2, Overwatch, Marvel Rivals) and it’s obvious why it failed. That combined with questionable allocation of dev time (why put so much work into the planet info and story cutscenes?), poor map design, and a $40 asking price ensured it would flop.
I feel like there’s just too much competition. They would’ve needed some hefty marketing budget to get across why people should play this instead of Overwatch et al.
Yeah, I bet that nobody buying a game that they know nothing about is caused by it’s diverse cast. It has nothing to do with it being an Overwatch rip-off with terrible marketing.
Thanks for clarifying, looks like they are coming up with acronyms in their echo chamber.
DEI has at least some roots in holding a positive connotation, a lot of companies that value an image/brand of diversity will have a DEI department/team. It’s not just an acronym they made up, though it’s definitely been co-opted by reactionaries as a way to describe someone they feel only got the job/promotion/attention because of a compulsion to raise up minority voices (a “DEI” hire is their way of saying the person wasn’t qualified for the job, but got it because they were black/a woman".
My initial take on the rant was to simply ignore it, but now I’m wondering if there’s maybe something to the idea that specifically in the shooter genre, the market is different enough that I don’t really know the space. Like BG3 was about as DEI a game as you could get, and no one’s arguing that game’s success. But I do know a couple conservatives that were specifically kind of turned off by games like cyberpunk and BG3. Apparently they couldn’t handle tasteful sidedick. Maybe for a shooter to be successful it’s got to coddle what the gun enthusiast crowd is demanding? I don’t know. Despite their popularity, I just don’t play that many shooters.
I don’t think it’s that deep. Deadlock, the game they mention in their rant, also has a pretty diverse roster. I think Concord just looks very generic both in gameplay and in character designs.
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Never heard of it until now, but I figured the hero shooter genre had already died off.
Not really surprising given how it looked (like a generic ripoff), how it’s priced (should be free), and how it was marketed (every conversation I enter starts with a chain of comments saying it’s the first they’ve heard of it).
What is surprising to me is how much a Sony first party game missed the mark. I can’t think of any other recent examples.
I had never even heard of the game until a couple weeks ago when I saw some articles posted here on Lemmy about it.
First I even heard about this game was a comic talking about it’s unattractive characters. I looked it up out of curiosity to see if this was an exaggeration like it has been with some characters like Aloy, and…ehhh…mostly true.
One of the big draws of these types of games is cool character designs people want to play. This game definitely doesn’t have that for me. Overwatch quickly pulled me in with cool character designs, this one…does not.
So basically, it’s a poorly marketed $40 game facing a lot of free and popular competition.
Did they market it at all?
All I have seen is the post mortem articles. Deadlock has had more marketing.
They marketed it on their state of plays
I’ve been seeing ads for it for a long time, but the ads don’t even make it clear they’re for this game until 20+ seconds in, at which point I’ve stopped watching.
It’s very likely you too have seen plenty of marketing for this game but ignored it like I did.
Honestly, deadlock doing the whole Fight Club marketing strategy really paid off for them. I heard so much about “the game you weren’t allowed to talk about” on various streams.
Not sure they did… I’ve never even heard of it before until just now
This is literally the first I’m hearing of this game.
Same, never heard of it before this post.
Hero shooters rely on appealing memorable designs, compare the characters in this game with any of it’s competitors (TF2, Overwatch, Marvel Rivals) and it’s obvious why it failed. That combined with questionable allocation of dev time (why put so much work into the planet info and story cutscenes?), poor map design, and a $40 asking price ensured it would flop.
I feel like there’s just too much competition. They would’ve needed some hefty marketing budget to get across why people should play this instead of Overwatch et al.
Yeah, IGN will explain to you why the game is failing 🤣. They forgot one thing though, here’s a good comment:
What is DEI? Is this some forced diversity “woke” rant?
Basically. DEI (Diversity,
EthicsEquity, and Inclusion, IIRC?) is the new “woke”/SJW bogey.Having an woman (with exposed skin, no less!) is causing all entertainment to be ruined forever, etc etc, that kind of thing.
EDIT: Equity, not ethics, whoops! Thanks for the correction.
It’s equity, not ethics.
Yeah, I bet that nobody buying a game that they know nothing about is caused by it’s diverse cast. It has nothing to do with it being an Overwatch rip-off with terrible marketing.
Thanks for clarifying, looks like they are coming up with acronyms in their echo chamber.
DEI has at least some roots in holding a positive connotation, a lot of companies that value an image/brand of diversity will have a DEI department/team. It’s not just an acronym they made up, though it’s definitely been co-opted by reactionaries as a way to describe someone they feel only got the job/promotion/attention because of a compulsion to raise up minority voices (a “DEI” hire is their way of saying the person wasn’t qualified for the job, but got it because they were black/a woman".
My initial take on the rant was to simply ignore it, but now I’m wondering if there’s maybe something to the idea that specifically in the shooter genre, the market is different enough that I don’t really know the space. Like BG3 was about as DEI a game as you could get, and no one’s arguing that game’s success. But I do know a couple conservatives that were specifically kind of turned off by games like cyberpunk and BG3. Apparently they couldn’t handle tasteful sidedick. Maybe for a shooter to be successful it’s got to coddle what the gun enthusiast crowd is demanding? I don’t know. Despite their popularity, I just don’t play that many shooters.
I don’t think it’s that deep. Deadlock, the game they mention in their rant, also has a pretty diverse roster. I think Concord just looks very generic both in gameplay and in character designs.
They didn’t forget to include reasons that definitely did not cause it to fail, that the analysts they spoke to did not attribute to its failure.
Deadlock has a nonbinary character lol