Former Concord developer speaks on the failure of Concord, asks people to give Marathon a chance

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member


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A former Concord developer (confirmed by mods) came foward and asked users to give Marathon a chance:

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Hey all, former Firewalk Studios dev here. I have been a long time lurker for many years, and rarely post to reddit/any social in regards to what is going on with my life as a developer/artist. After reading the comments about Marathon being Concord 2.0 on reddit, youtube, and twitch, I just wanted to share a little insight into what a forty year old man is feeling after dedicating a large portion of his life to making videogames.

For the past 17 years, I have been a part of some great projects, and worked with some of the most talented people who made me the dev I am today.

Many players know about Concord, and what happened with that project. Concord failed to inspire players, and the messages was heard loud and clear. It was gut wrenching to see our project fail, and be the laughing stock of many online. I have learned that failure, is what drives me to succeed. No one feels as bad as the people who put their time on the line, hoping it will entertain the masses of gamers across the globe. I am not asking for pity, or even sympathy because, after all this is the name of the game, you win or lose. The margin for success is very thin. I took a chance, and lost.

Some of you probably smell blood in the water, and probably want to roast me for no longer lurking, and exposing myself. I hope you don't, and see that people create these projects, and work very hard to be the next big thing. Seeing the faces of the developers on the Bungie stream, gave me hope, and excitement for what is to come for Marathon.

I commend them for taking a chance, trying something foreign to them, that isn't proven, nor guaranteed to succeed.

It takes a lot of courage.

TLDR: I worked on Concord, and did my best. We came up short, please don't punish others for our mistakes. We are all human beings who are trying to create something special, and Marathon is no different. Be kind, and be cool, as videogames are meant to be fun.​
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It's part of life.

Marathon will be judged on it's own merits.
It's just a very vocal minority that keep comparing Marathon to Concord, without realizing most people are just laughing at them.
 
I like what I've seen from Marathon and like to play it.

But it's simple: if it's not good enough to appeal to a big portion of players then it will fail. And that has nothing to do with giving it a chance or not, if the game is awesome it will naturally float to the surface.
 
TLDR: I worked on Concord, and did my best. We came up short, please don't punish others for our mistakes. We are all human beings who are trying to create something special, and Marathon is no different. Be kind, and be cool, as videogames are meant to be fun.
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It's not about punishing others - it's about once bit, twice shy. It's called poisoning the well. You can't have the media gaslighting players, publishers ignoring players, and Devs being outright and openly hostile to players without players taking a step back. And since players are the ones who pay for the entire industry, that has serious repercussions.
 
Idk why people are comparing concord and marathon at all to begin with considering they're both completely different in terms of what they were. Concord was a hero shooter and failed while marathon is an extraction shooter with a massive budget which is insanely rare nowadays with how few of them there actually are. The gameplay and overall design is also completely different as well. I feel like the people crapping on marathon were the same people who never had an interest in it anyway.
 
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Bungie should just make an open beta. A closed alpha just for NA is disappointing. I'm intrigued enough with what I've seen, despite hating extraction shooters.
 
Sebastian1295 said:
Idk why people are comparing concord and marathon at all to begin with considering they're both completely different in terms of what they were. Concord was a hero shooter and failed while marathon is an extraction shooter with a massive budget which is insanely rare nowadays with how few of them there actually are. The gameplay and overall design is also completely different as well. I feel like the people crapping on marathon were the same people who never had an interest in it anyway.
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Most people complaining are singleplayer/PvE focused, so they will dislike a PvP-focused game by default.
 
Concord was a game made for the ps3 era, it failed because of that. Too little and too late. Bad art. Zero progression, you could have your fill in a weekend

Marathon isn't concord. It has much stronger art, better gameplay mechanics, and a much deeper progression system with what looks to be some extremely intense end game pvpve raids.

It's doing a lot of cool things and is then first big AAA budget extraction shooter reaching the console market.

I personally don't see any chance of it outright flopping. The extent to which it will see success isn't known. But from what I've seen I personally expect it to be a big hit
 
Killjoy-NL said:
Most people complaining are singleplayer/PvE focused, so they will dislike a PvP-focused game by default.
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Honestly nowadays anything that is multi-player focused or a live service game gets crapped it feels like. Even if this game launches in an excellent state with great gameplay and good maps, we'll still have people hoping for it to fail and they'll be happy if it does.
 
Devils advocate:
If videogames are mean't to be fun, why was Concord purposefully made to not be anything like that, given its release model?

perry cox whatever GIF
 
I'll also add that i love when people's argument for wanting this game to fail is because they wished that bungie made marathon a singleplayer game instead. Spoilers but no one played marathon back in the day folks and no one nowadays would give a shit about a singleplayer game that's based on a series that originally started on the macintosh and sold like crap. This is a reboot because it needed one.
 
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Sebastian1295 said:
I'll also add that i love when people's argument for wanting this game to fail is because they wished that bungie made marathon a singleplayer game instead. Spoilers but no one played marathon back in the day folks and no one nowadays would give a shit about a singleplayer game that's based on a series that originally started on the macintosh and sold like crap. This is a reboot because it needed one.
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Yeah but why even use the name then? It's a generic sounding series that has almost no cachet with the current gaming audience.
 
Grizzled Ghost said:
Yeah but why even use the name then? It's a generic sounding series that has almost no cachet with the current gaming audience.
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I think the one of the main reasons they're using the name is because they can use the art and overall look of the marathon series in this reboot by choosing to use said I.P and they thought that it would make this game stand out from other multi-player focused games out there.
 
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TLDR: I worked on Concord, and did my best. We came up short, please don't punish others for our mistakes.
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What an odd conclusion to come to.

It's not like the sentiment on these kind of games, or the publisher's GAAS push, was received positively before Concord.
 
bitbydeath said:
Transformers Megatron GIF


How bout they start making non-FPS single player games.
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Because...?
HRK69 said:
Ah, here we go. Another emotional linkedin post disguised as a Reddit comment. "Seventeen years in the industry" and somehow still cooked up Concord
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A poor product is often the result of poor direction. Really doubt this was the comment of a lead developer on the game.
I see someone admitting that the project they worked on failed to connect with players and people somehow try to spin that into something negative. I don't get it.
 
Sebastian1295 said:
I think the one of the main reasons they're using the name is because they can use the art and overall look of the marathon series in this reboot by choosing to use said I.P and they thought that it would make this game stand out from other multi-player focused games out there.
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The art looks nothing like OG Marathon. Plus if they own the IP they could use whatever they want. The Marathon logo is all over Halo.

The story may eventually tie in though, when they get around to writing it.

Personally I think marketing a multi-player only game with the name of a previously single-player series set bad expectations, though tbf they did make it clear from the start it was a MP game.
 
Seeing as you're a former Concord dev.
Why didn't you the listen to the gamers who were telling you that the game was bad, why force woke shit while seeing how gamers react to that.
It's a bit hard to listen to a former Concord dev while this same studio gave a middle finger to all the gamers and stuck their hand in the sand for critisism
 
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nial said:
What is exactly a niche market?
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Extraction shooters are a subset, of a subset of shooter games that cater to the hardcore. The punishing gameplay loop makes it unlikely it will ever really find significant mainstream success. I would think the periodic resets would be a deal breaker for even many of Bungies biggest fans, as Destiny players are notorious loot hoarders.

It's the kind of game where a few successful smaller dev teams can live high off the hog with a relatively small, loyal audience, but not one where a company like Sony can justify investing hundreds of millions.

At least I don't think so. Perhaps Marathon will surprise me and become a smash hit.
 
VG of that size are an industry and being an industry in something that is entertainment means there's always a high risk of failures (if cinema teach anything.....) and that you must do your homework very well. Bungie are pro and my expectation is that they're releasing a very well crafted product that is in line with a big majority of people tastes. If that is not the case they'll fail and they will learn from it the hard way (and hopefully change leadership because as noted before big failures of that size means a very wrong direction....)
 
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nial said:
That doesn't answer my question?
Edit: Okay, you probably misunderstood me, but I'm wondering what market you're referring to with being 'niche''.
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The FPS genre is largely dead today outside of a few titles like COD. The MP market is also over saturated.

There is money to be made in SP games.
 
I don't care what a fucking loser like you thinks. Only the opinions of winners matter go back to your hole and QQ some moar.
 
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With the biggest share of y'all seeming to hope and relish on games failing and companies going under, he's got a bit of a point.

There's a difference between I'll chose to play this or that or salivating at the prospect of a game crashing because it doesn't fit your criteria.
 
Best thing a Concord dev can do to not damage Marathon in any way is to shut up and never even let gamers think these two games are somehow related.

Luckily Marathon at least looks beautiful from a visual standpoint, so it'll have it's chances to not being a complete flop.
 
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