Support NeoGAF

[SmoothBrain]

They really wanted this to be a franchise, but man... the game had less people during the open beta than during the paid one. There is no comeback from this, 100% loss. F2P won't move the needle and Deadlock is the final nail on the coffin.

 

[adamsapple]

With the way James has been fighting so hard to die on this (ultimately meaningless) hill, his username should probably be changed to another three named gentleman: George Armstrong Custer.

 

[xiskza]

Hiring all those DEI devs with blue hair and pronoun issues really paid off Sony... those people live in a bubble and love to insert themselves into the games they make.

It's absurd they bought Firewalk and not Arrowhead

 

[VulcanRaven]

Naughty Dog is probably happy that they didn't make The Last of Us multiplayer now. It would have been risky. It would have had a lot better chances to do well though because of the IP.

 

[YukiOnna]

Comments turned off.

Lol acting like Insomniac now, I see. When did Sony turn into a company that is afraid/angry of user reaction being negative rather than properly meeting expectations of their core players and launching games they want than this message farce

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Again, you're under the assumption it cost $100m to make, when it is almost certain that it cost more. Most people are looking at this holistically. Big new IP, massive marketing push, studio acquisition, ends up on the market for 11 days before the servers are shut down and refunds are granted. It is a fuck-up on a magnitude never seen before. It's a stylish flop.

Massive marketing push? Where? And no, controllers don’t count

The studio acquisition cost isn’t factored in to the dev cost unless they get shut down. Either way the cost couldn’t have been much - the studio had no IP or any games to their name at all

Yeah it’s a big flop, no denying it, but no reason to not continue seeking GaaS winners like HD2.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Did Firewalk even post this message on the Concord Twitter/X account? I dont have an X account, but that profile is public, but I still dont see it.

 

[CokeZero]

This is just amazing.

 

[ManaByte]

Did Firewalk even post this message on the Concord Twitter/X account? I dont have an X account, but that profile is public, but I still dont see it.

The Concord account has been dormant since launch.

 

[mindfreak191]

Comments turned off.

"We want to thank our fans"....what fans?

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I've been seeing something weird happen today with all sorts of people saying they "feel bad for the devs". Why? If you didn't buy the game, if you don't have close friends or family who work at Firewalk, why feel bad for them? Failure is normal. People fail at things all the time. It's only when you refuse to learn from a failure to be better when that failure becomes an anchor holding you back.

I'm obviously not calling for Firewalk to be shut down; again they could probably do a solid job in the AA space with one of SIE's legacy IPs, or as a support studio. And apparently they have some tech that will be useful for SIE in the longer-term anyhow. But I'm not gonna say I "feel bad" for what's happened here. They made a game that had little appeal to the market. The market responded. The result was a resounding failure. It happens sometimes.

Even if the studio were to unfortunately be shut down...well studios behind much better and better-selling games have been shut down over BS reasons time and again. Those displaced either find jobs at other studios or transition to a different industry. Since I didn't buy Concord, I can't really say I "feel bad" for the devs because if I did I would've bought the game, but I'd of only bought it if it appealed to me, which it didn't. Either that or, again, I had close family & friends working at the studio, which also isn't the case.

It's just such a paper-thin sentiment for pleasantries, feels like. Well, enough musing.

 

[Draugoth]

Dude, sony planned weekly fucking cartoons for this game and full on universe building lore.

This wasn't just some come and go game. They made a controller for it. They wanted this to be a huge franchise game.

This is a massive fucking flop. The biggest I've ever witnessed. Worse than suicide squad by a mile.

People at the top of a company live a completely different life than normal working class people do, it probably never crossed their minds this would bomb, just like it never crossed Warner Bros. Minds that Suicide Squad would bomb.

Also any journalist like Jason Scheier who doesnt believe culture war didnt play a part on this is delusional.

 

[Kacho]

Has there ever been a game with $100mil+ production cost that shut down 2 weeks after launch? This seems quite historic.

Nope. This is unprecedented.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Hey, maybe if Sony wants to bump up users, just keep posting the game will shut down and players refunded.

Today, the game hit the highest steamdb CCU in 3 days at 132. It happened hours ago after the announcement. So it's daily peak is actually trending up for the first time ever.

If more people know about the shut down, more people will get in their last gasp playthroughs. LOL. Maybe on Sept 6 it might exceed 697.

 

[YukiOnna]

People at the top of a company live a completely different life than normal working class people do, it probably never crossed their minds this would bomb, just like it never crossed Warner Bros. Minds that Suicide Squad would bomb.

Also any journalist like Jason Scheier who doesnt believe culture war didnt play a part on this is delusional.

I think Schreier is still salty about being called out for skill issue over Xenoblade

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Nope. This is unprecedented.

Not quite. Plenty of games never even see the market with much bigger losses already baked in

Only thing unprecedented is the speed at which Sony acted, but kinda their fault for not making it F2P like rival competing games in this space

They thought it was like HD2 and clearly that was a poor comparison

 

[StreetsofBeige]

"We want to thank our fans"....what fans?

Think that's a typo. Probably meant "employees".

 

[balls of snow]

Outlaws broke Greg’s mind



Jesus dude

He should be like that first 43 seconds all the time

This and Jeff G podcast. My morning gonna be fun today.

 

[Mr. PlayStation]

People at the top of a company live a completely different life than normal working class people do, it probably never crossed their minds this would bomb, just like it never crossed Warner Bros. Minds that Suicide Squad would bomb.

Also any journalist like Jason Scheier who doesnt believe culture war didnt play a part on this is delusional.

What is this culture war?

 

[near]

Massive marketing push? Where? And no, controllers don’t count

The studio acquisition cost isn’t factored in to the dev cost unless they get shut down. Either way the cost couldn’t have been much - the studio had no IP or any games to their name at all

Yeah it’s a big flop, no denying it, but no reason to not continue seeking GaaS winners like HD2.

The IP existed before Sony decided to enter a publishing agreement, and that was before they decided to buy the studio. The IP was most likely owned by ProbablyMonsters. Either way, it is an assumption on my part that it cost more than $100m, and it is on your part that it cost less. What we do know is that it is a flop, and a hilarious one at that. No point defending this catastrophe.

 

[RoboFu]

I think this is an appropriate song for this.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

The IP existed before Sony decided to enter a publishing agreement, and that was before they decided to buy the studio. The IP was most likely owned by ProbablyMonsters. Either way, it is an assumption on my part that it cost more than $100m, and it is on your part that it cost less. What we do know is that it is a flop, and a hilarious one at that. No point defending this catastrophe.

No, Sony always owned the IP once they published the game

There’s literally no tangible or intangible value to the studio acquisition, it was likely not an expensive purchase relative to other studio acquisitions with IP or pedigree history

 

[Draugoth]

What is this culture war?

The so called fight on 'Woke' media like Concord, Snow White etc

 

[Yoboman]

Look up gays against groomers or gays against lgbtq.

There are also transgenders against groomers ans lgbtq.

So yes all these 5 minute fame activists are not accepted in the community problem is they are pushed by the goverm
But rules are rules and all this falls into the politics category so i dont want to go there and oh boy do i have a lot to say.

I want the world to go back to normal man. I am tired with this pussified generation. I cant even hire young people as they all want to be treated special and want 30 per hour to begin with zero experience. So my whole industry is full of middle aged men or men in their 60's as there is no one else left.

I would imagine the gaming industry will hit that wall soon where talent is getting old and dies off while the replacement is this pussy generation that cant make a decent game .

Yeah I don't care about equal wack jobs on the other side. These woke mobs can be lame, morally superior and talentless at making interesting media without being pedophiles and groomers

Honestly the whole woke movement is dying of its own volition from its lameness. Describing every purple head as a groomer is not necessary

 

[StueyDuck]

Jaffe really has become a bit of a turtle as of late. The best part is saying that the game didn't fail because it's woke, then goes on to describe word for word exactly what wokeness is when he talks about the characters and why they are bad.

it's weird that people are so brainwashed that woke just means a skin color. It's always been about forced DEI and people creating the entertainment looking down and hating their audience, that is what woke is. it's got nothing to do with race gender etc.

 

[near]

No, Sony always owned the IP once they published the game

Where are you getting this information from?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Incredible. Any day now, this game will have more players than Concord.

 

[jshackles]

Even if the studio were to unfortunately be shut down...well studios behind much better and better-selling games have been shut down over BS reasons time and again.

Tango Gameworks had two multi-million sellers back to back (Tokyo Ghostwire and Hi-Fi Rush) and STILL got shut down. You're right, it happens even when there isn't a good reason behind it.

 

[JCK75]

It'll come back as a free to play game.. and still fail

 

[V1LÆM]

Deleted

 

[MethodRed]

Imagine if they invested all that money on a Socom remake

 

[GHG]

Heads should and will roll over this at Sony.

Everyone involved in the decision to purchase this turd of a studio and allow them to release this game as it was should be fired with immediate effect.

They have so many current and legacy IP that could comfortably be utilised to create GAAS games (if they must, I'm still of the option that they should have no business even creating GAAS games) but they decided to purchased Firewalk and then release this? GTFO.

 

[V1LÆM]

Deleted

 

[adamsapple]

Imagine if they invested all that money on a Socom remake

In this day, they would have probably relaunched SOCOM as an MP only live service focused game.

 

[Kerotan]

A win for Sony single player fans.

A win for based gamers.

Having said that I think the majority are not woke or anti woke. However like around 2010 when people were getting bored of your generic white super soldier which was done to death people are now getting very bored of your diversity casts. It's too samey. You need a good balance between both.

Now is the time for the blue haired freaks to take a back seat or even yet get fired. They should have no influence on a games creative side.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Imagine saying "no" to Days Gone 2 but seeing Concord and thinking "that's a hit"... fire whoever made those decisions

Or Team Ico, was my favorite studio at Sony and part of what made it really special compared to Nintendo and Xbox during PS2 era. Ico & Shadow of the colossus, GOATs.

 

[Ridicululzz]

Good to see Sony acting quick, and hopefully this teaches them a lesson about putting out garbage like this.

 

[GHG]

Comments turned off.

Farcical.

Turn the fucking comments on and make everyone read every single one you cowards.

 

[Spooky Scary Skeleton]

The game is no longer showing up on steam. It's dead jim

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Imagine if they invested all that money on a Socom remake

Evo studios made racing games that sold millions. They could had made a Forza Horizon kind of game. FH4 and FH5 still have lots of gamers playing despite being old games. And a game like this wouldnt cannibalize GT7 since thats a totally different game, just like Motorstorms and DC didnt affect GT either.

 

[DerivedDataCache]

How much money you think Sony got from BlackRock to put out this DEI game?
And how much did they pay for Firewalk?

Wonder what their burn rate is now. For staff and servers.
Highly doubt that even making it free to play is gonna save Concord.

They could keep the maps and the modes but if they change the characters they're basically throwing all those expensive cinematics in the trash.

 

[xiskza]

The cope on Retardera

B.O.O.M.​

I actually think Concord designs are fucking great. Would be a shame to see major redesign there.

And it makes me genuinely little icky to even type this out but, I think for games like this going all in husbando/wifu (barf) designs would have been received significantly better. At least for most of the roster....what a depressing ass thought

 

[Azelover]

It's amazing how quickly things can go wrong these days. You don't even have time to process it..

 

[Neon Xenon]

Yes, Jason, there's people who are blaming Concord belly flopping solely on "muh diversity" instead of being incredibly unappealing all around. Yes, this talking point comes up way too often. Yes, it's annoying to see it over and over again in place of actual thinking.

At the same time, if it's such a stupid talking point from "the most annoying people on the planet", then why are you even giving it any sort of credence in a tweet, Jason?

Also, let's not ignore the fact that most of the reason Jason is seeing this is because he's engaging with the black hole of stupid bullshit called Twitter.

 

[mayham2199]

No.

Getting your game cancelled and removed from the market is by far and away the biggest failure.

I agree that it looks worse to do this move than to just let the game run pointlessly for another year before canceling it. Luckily Sony cares a lot more about money than optics. This will be the topic of the week on the internet for like a week and we will all forget about it. Meanwhile Sony will save millions. No one bought the game so like 95% of the Sony's audience wont even know or care.

Some of these live service games go on so long only to be canceled after a year because they tried to make it work. Can't even imagine how much suicide squad is losing by their constant updates and trying to hope they can turn things around.

 

[Buggy Loop]

James Sawyer Ford not going down without a fight.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Jaffe really has become a bit of a turtle as of late. The best part is saying that the game didn't fail because it's woke, then goes on to describe word for word exactly what wokeness is when he talks about the characters and why they are bad.

it's weird that people are so brainwashed that woke just means a skin color. It's always been about forced DEI and people creating the entertainment looking down and hating their audience, that is what woke is. it's got nothing to do with race gender etc.

Jaffe actually makes a lot of good points here.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Farcical.

Turn the fucking comments on and make everyone read every single one you cowards.

Great corporate response.

Game gets recalled and shut down in 3 days, and no customer feedback allowed. Makes total sense. /S lol

 

[N30RYU]

Ironically Firewalk got a C&D letter from Sony itself.

 

[GHG]

Great corporate response.

Game gets recalled and shut down in 3 days, and no customer feedback allowed. Makes total sense. /S lol

All it proves is that they don't want to learn and aren't listening.

More bullshit like this to come I guess.