• Chloyster [she/her]M
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    308 months ago

    I feel like short of making it free to play and having a complete art style rework this game doesn’t have great hopes of ever being relevant. I mean from what I’ve gathered the gameplay itself is decent to good. But yeah they just misfired so hard with this.

    Despite it all, I feel bad for the majority of devs who spent so much of their life working on this and who are likely going to be out of a job. Of course I don’t know anything about the inner workings, but I’d be willing to bet it’s not most of their fault’s that sony had been pushing so hard for live service stuff under their former leadership

    • mosiacmango
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      8 months ago

      I think that’s common in gaming development. You work on a project until it’s done, then pivot to another or get let go.

      The game bombing likely doesn’t help but I expect most devs involved expected this. Apparently development ran 3-4 years, which is a good time to leave a job in tech generally, if not earlier if you want to maximize income.

    • Feydaikin
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      8 months ago

      Don’t feel bad for them. Firewalk Studios may only have Concord to it’s name, but the Devs are all from Bungie and Activision. That should already ring some alarm bells.

      They knew exactly what they were doing. They are the ones that sold the idea of Concord to Sony. For once I doubt Sony had to push for any of the bad decisions.

      They didn’t waste $100 mill+ and 8 years development time on a random passion project. This was designed for a single reason, to make money in ridiculous amounts. To squeeze every penny out of kids and their parents.

      I can’t feel bad for anyone that worked on something like that when it fails.

  • @thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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    258 months ago

    I never saw a launched game unlaunch this quick. We talked about failures that got shutdown 1 year after launch. But now the record is what, 2 weeks? Question is, will they go back to drawing board and make changes to the game for a relaunch, such as a free to play model? Nothing is stated here, so probably not.

    I would consider playing this game, if it was playable on Linux (and without a PSN account requirement). But clearly Sony does not care about me.

  • @mtlvmpr@sopuli.xyz
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    168 months ago

    This would be a perfect spot to advertise that EU petition. There must’ve been at least 1 person who liked the game and now can’t play anymore.

    • @thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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      158 months ago

      They get a refund and it has been only 2 weeks out. The situation is vastly different from the EU petition that is going on.

        • @DarthYoshiBoy@beehaw.org
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          38 months ago

          It makes zero sense trying to save it here and now, but that’s how C-Suite idiots think, so I won’t be surprised. The show launches in just over 90 days, chances are pretty good that episode is already in the can and it’s far too late to steer resources into another franchise for a different episode to fill the spot. Ad sales against that content have already closed big contracts, marketing has already laid campaigns that mention Concord all over the place, and for the content industry 3 months is too late to try to steer the ship away from a disaster.

          Animation (outside of South Park) often takes 7-10 months on the low end to get a single episode from start to finish. Like I said, they’re doing a New World episode and that shit is dead as doornails. I doubt they’ll allow an launched/un-launched game off the hook. Hell, it’s probably now their plan to convert the game to F2P in time to simu-relaunch with the animated series episode so that they can get Amazon promotion synergies.

          • @DdCno1@beehaw.org
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            28 months ago

            On one hand, this does sound plausible, but on the other hand, Concord is such a disaster that said C-Suit idiots might legitimately fear that the mere existence of its episode could overshadow the entire rest of the show. It might be cheaper and more sensible to just write one episode off and, if there is any hint of an overarching narrative, fix this with a few edits to other episodes and maybe some quickly recorded voice over to bridge any possible gaps.

            • @DarthYoshiBoy@beehaw.org
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              18 months ago

              C-Suit idiots might legitimately fear that the mere existence of its episode could overshadow the entire rest of the show.

              I’ve worked for those idiots. In the streaming video industry. They do not think this or fear this and this is one of those rare cases where they’re not being idiots. People will hate watch the Concord episode of Secret Level. People will be curious about the episode because of the trainwreck that the game is. The social media buzz around Concord being gawdawful will put butts in seats. These guys are not wrong that there is no bad publicity, and they don’t need people to love the Concord episode of Secret Level for the series as a whole to hit their “hours streamed” benchmarks, sell a fuckton of ads, and have them call the whole thing a success so they can do it all again for Secret Level season 2 where they never speak of Concord again.

              What’s more, they don’t even care if the Concord episode is good, they care that you watched another 30-40 minutes of content and pumped all their metrics. They know that the average viewer of content on Prime Video doesn’t know what a ‘Sifu’ is, or an ‘Unreal Tournament’, or an ‘Armored Core’… They know that the majority of the viewers for Secret Level are not going to know that ‘Concord’ is dead, nor will they care if they ever find out, so it won’t matter at all for their single episode in an anthology. Hell, for that matter as much as it sucks, Unreal Tournament has been dead for years and you can’t even buy most of the legacy versions of that game anymore thanks to Epic, so I really doubt that Amazon Prime Video cares much at all about the games represented in their anthology being alive. They just need things to fit the framing of the show so that viewers at home will go, “Oh, it’s that thing from the makers of ‘Love Death + Robots’ about video games, think I’ll have a look.” So long as everything under the label looks sufficiently video gamey, the average viewer will enjoy the show and move on whether or not they could ever actually play those games.

  • UngodlyAudrey🏳️‍⚧️
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    148 months ago

    Wow, this is absolutely wild. From launch to delisting in two weeks. Yeah, there’s a good chance that this is temporary while they pivot to a free-to-play model, but holy crap. Guess the PS5 player count must not be substantially higher than the abysmal Steam player count.

  • @t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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    138 months ago

    Stop making live service games and “shared world” faux-mmos. If it’s not single player, P2P multiplayer, or providing the server executable for me to host, I’m not buying it. There are already enough good MMOs anyways.

    • @realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club
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      38 months ago

      Some of the best FPS games are live service games but it’s because they’re great games at their core. Plenty of companies are focusing on making live service games instead of games so good that they become live services.

      • @t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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        48 months ago

        I loved the first Division game. It had a great community, great gunplay, and prior to the crafting nerf(s) a really good loot/crafting feedback loop. But it could have just as easily been made as a local co-op or self-hosted game. I have yet to encounter a game that can only exist as a live service game, unlike e.g. Eve Online which can only exist as an MMO.

      • @azerial@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        58 months ago

        I worked in Star Wars: The Old Republic for ten years. It’s still running and the story is really nice. EA sold it to Broadsword.

          • @azerial@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 months ago

            I indeed did. I started working on it as QA and left the project as a software engineer. It was a really fun experience.

            edit: I have a lightsaber replica to show for it. Lol

            • @AFallingAnvil@lemmy.ca
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              8 months ago

              That’s awesome! Thanks for making an MMO I personally have 500 hours in on steam. It’s actually the MMO that made me open to playing MMOs, I hated the genre before because all I knew was WoW and Korean stuff that’s all walls of bland text and dull repetitive tasks that don’t respect your time.

              The stories of SWTOR and full voice acting were something else entirely. I really enjoyed it and have some very fond memories of my first time playing it as a teen years and years ago, it basically absorbed my holiday vacation that year as I found a guild, made friends, got into some RP, and really just found some cool experiences. In a market starving for anything halfway decent that’s star wars I’m glad we have it.

              I request lightsaber pictures!

              • GammaOP
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                48 months ago

                I also request lightsaber pictures!

              • @azerial@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                28 months ago

                I am definitely going to share this story with the team. It really touched my heart and I’m sure it will theirs.

                I remember when the title went on steam, it was a really big deal.

                As for the light saber, lemme look. The box is currently in storage, in it’s original box, neatly packed. I cherish those years.

                • @AFallingAnvil@lemmy.ca
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                  8 months ago

                  I actually found it pretty soon after it went free to play, I thought I’d check it out and then BAM I’ve completed all class stories, maxed levels, got into housing decoration, and even have an unhealthy number of alts I’ll definitely get around to playing through again someday.

                  I remember being so happy it was on steam largely for the auto updates. Seems it’s been a very healthy success since then.

        • @InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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          18 months ago

          It’s a great mmo because it doesn’t have the grind and time Commitments.

          It’s not a 2nd job, it’s just something to do for fun with a good story and atmosphere. It’s what an mmo should be.

  • GammaOP
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    8 months ago

    It fully released August 23rd. Beta started in July

    While we determine the best path ahead, Concord sales will cease immediately and we will begin to offer a full refund for all gamers who have purchased the game for PS5 or PC. If you purchased the game for PlayStation 5 from the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Direct, a refund will be issued back to your original payment method.

    Customers who purchased from other digital storefronts will also be refunded.

  • sleepybisexual
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    68 months ago

    Can someone preserve this piece of shit? The internet has enough lost media to scramble after

    • GammaOP
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      8 months ago

      It missed several boats and came out with a sticker price when most of the other games in the same market are free to play

      It also released 2 weeks ago, so I can see why they’d be disappointed! It’s apparently a decently fun game and getting support pulled so quickly would be sad