What's crazy to me is that none of this is rocket science, and I don't understand how some of these studios are acting surprised/shocked about it all.
A lot of studios create projects that essentially just try to get a slice of a pie what's popular and make money. No passion whatsoever. We've seen it happen over the decades with hot genres suddenly getting attention, etc. Only so many last and it was because they genuinely felt like they had some passion behind them. They were trying to make fun and good games, they weren't just trying to make money. The ones that hoped for money and success before anything else just shriveled up and faded away.
Concord may have started as a passion project, but it quickly turned into a series of bad decisions. I feel like that happened as soon as everyone found out it was just another hero shooter. Originally people liked the look and sound of everything, because hardly anything was shown. But then they saw the characters, they saw the gameplay, and then they saw the price tag. I know people said the gameplay/shooting felt pretty good, but the reality is that they were a speck in a pond of other titles that do the same thing, better, and for FREE. Absolutely nothing will look or feel appealing if something is released and you immediately know the competition looks better, feels better, and IS better for a lot of reasons.
I think the most baffling thing about Concord is the (what felt like) overwhelming amount of confidence about the game and IP. That never should've been there. It's like they put the cart before the horse. Instead of creating a project that they were genuinely in love with and passionate about, they focused more on popularity and success and it was neither. It blew up in their face, and it needed to.
I think the best thing about it is that it hopefully shook studios up enough to know right from wrong. I mean, them canceling this is a great idea. Sniper Elite is a niche series that has fans, it doesn't need a BR game at all. No fan of the series asked for that, so why even bother?