CONCORD THREAD

[J1M]

Have you considered that the execs knew this would flop but were happy to keep their inflated compensation for 6 years while waiting for it to hit the market? Perhaps even intentionally delaying the launch? That admitting they wasted 200m would have caused them to miss out on 4 years of rent seeking?

People respond to incentives and the incentives for individuals rarely align with a larger organization's best interests.

Then they would have drastically reduced the marketing budget and cut other costs. Sure, once they have started to accept pre-orders they must have known but this was only a few months (?) before launch.

The marketing budget would have been approved far in advance. In corporate there is often great inertia. Remember that they aren't spending their own money. It is less risky to say "the user research supported our decisions" than to explain why the thing is a bad idea and why they didn't say anything earlier if that is true.

[rusty_shackleford]

if the company I'm working for is barreling towards failure and I don't own the company, all I do is start looking for places elsewhere to work before it fails

[KnightoftheWind]

All the time and money wasted on this game would've at least been somewhat forgivable, if it even came close to matching the quality of Killzone: Shadow Fall. A PS4 launch title that released back in 2013. This game looks so good, you could pass it off as a title that released 'this year'. PlayStation developers used to be in a league of their own, pushing consoles so far as to make even PC gamers jealous. Whether you enjoyed their games or not, their technical expertise was world class. If Shadow Fall was made today, it would probably require an RTX 4070 at minimum. Yet it was made on very anemic hardware, even by 2013 standards.

[rusty_shackleford]

. This game looks so good, you could pass it off as a title that released 'this year'.

There's a lot of games in the ~2012-2016 release window that still look better than most games released now. Especially now that things like all the graphics options in them can be turned to the max.

[anonusername]

if the company I'm working for is barreling towards failure and I don't own the company, all I do is start looking for places elsewhere to work before it fails

You're only saying that because you're a talentless freak. People with *true* design talent can only get hired by DEI initiatives.

[wndrbr]

It's laughably easy to spend shitloads of money and have nothing to show for it afterwards if a company has reached the right critical mass of retardation. I've seen it happen at companies I've worked for

gerey worked on Concord.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

Was the $400 million with or without the marketing? Because if it's not, then it's likely the project cost the $600 million and up.

Reports that’s this was for development alone which is insane.

When you've invested a cool $2 billion into a project, laced it with divisive politics and plan to release it during one of the most bitterly contested election seasons, or during a presidential term that will be rife with partisan mudslinging and vicious culture war exchanges, on top of having an exclusivity deal with Sony, whose console has been floundering, with a PS5Pro that has been poorly received and is not projected to sell much (and is rumored to not even be able to run GTA VI at 60fps anyway), I'd be worried too.

Rockstar needs GTA VI to be the single most successful media product in the history of the human race, yet the company that made all the previous games is not the same as the one today.

I’m calling it now GTA 6 Is going to under preform despite selling 40 million units.

[Jordy]

Concord
-High operating costs
-Dwindling demand
-Plane crash

Aptly named game.

Edit: Forgot to add the most important one:
-Withdrawn from service

[Rand]

Concord credits.
Yes, it's over an hour long.



Can you see where the $400 million was wasted?
Many of the names listed do not make code or art.
They "manage" those that do, or manage the managers.
Some answer the phones or run the office network. Seriously.

Note the buttons at the bottom they expect players would like to press while this obituary is running.
Also the text. Lol. You're very welcome for my attention to your fetid bucket of turds.

[Kronus]

Concord credits.



Yes, it's over an hour long.
Can you see where the $400 million was wasted?
Many of the names listed do not make code or art.
They "manage" those that do, or manage the managers.
Some answer the phones or run the office network. Seriously.

Also note the buttons at the bottom they expect players would like to press while this obituary is running.

I never thought video game devs/publishers would resemble either public companies/bureaucracy or syndicates at all.

[UltraFan123]

Also note the buttons at the bottom they expect players would like to press while this obituary is running.

Buttons that somebody had to put in time and effort to code in. Instead of putting the effort into something worthwhile, they instead added a way to be cheered for making this garbage game genuinely expecting everyone to be grateful to them. lol

[Magick]

Also note the buttons at the bottom they expect players would like to press while this obituary is running.

Buttons that somebody had to put in time and effort to code in. Instead of putting the effort into something worthwhile, they instead added a way to be cheered for making this garbage game genuinely expecting everyone to be grateful to them. lol

Because they were unironically imagining "and everyone clapped", lol.

[1998]

How much dialogue was in that **** anyway? Its like Vavra said years ago about that NuDoom *** who was so proud about his only contribution that was designing some minigun.

Also explains how these **** games have such long dev cycles. If every written line has to go from associate assistant junior dialogue designer to associate junior dialogue designer and 10 months, 20 layers later it's finally approved.

[gerey]

Apparently cca. 2000 people worked on Concord.

I genuinely can't figure out what all those people were doing all those years, unless the leaks are true and they spent the better part of 6 years faffing about, until Sony had to hire a shitload of outside contractors 18 months before the game was shipped out to meet the deadline.

It's a trend I've been seeing with many devs in the industry, absolutely gargantuan team sizes that ought to speed development up, yet the projects seem to always take longer and longer, nowadays inching closer to a decade, and yet the "finished" product is anything but, has less content than similar games from years past, needs substantial patches to approach anything remotely akin to playable and looks graphically inferior to games from a decade ago.

[1998]

I genuinely can't figure out what all those people were doing all those years, unless the leaks are true and they spent the better part of 6 years faffing about, until Sony had to hire a shitload of outside contractors 18 months before the game was shipped out to meet the deadline.

70% meetings, 29% twitter, 1% actual work

[rusty_shackleford]

Apparently cca. 2000 people worked on Concord.

I genuinely can't figure out what all those people were doing all those years, unless the leaks are true and they spent the better part of 6 years faffing about, until Sony had to hire a shitload of outside contractors 18 months before the game was shipped out to meet the deadline.

It's a trend I've been seeing with many devs in the industry, absolutely gargantuan team sizes that ought to speed development up, yet the projects seem to always take longer and longer, nowadays inching closer to a decade, and yet the "finished" product is anything but, has less content than similar games from years past, needs substantial patches to approach anything remotely akin to playable and looks graphically inferior to games from a decade ago.

[wndrbr]

Apparently cca. 2000 people worked on Concord.

only around 200 of them were from Firewalk, the rest of those are either other sony members who did various minor contributions, or ex-devs who left and got replaced by someone else.

[rusty_shackleford]

Studios are obsessed with crediting everyone now so it's nearly impossible to figure out who was a major contributor and who was responsible for buying lunch.

[Rand]

Wanna know what the "celebrate" and "cheer" buttons do?



It's bleak, mad laughter and nonsense.

[rusty_shackleford]

Wanna know what the "celebrate" and "cheer" buttons do?



It's bleak, mad laughter and nonsense.

already tired of seeing the term "toxic positivity"
it's gay race communism

[Marcus]

This image is outdated. Chad Stevens and others of his kind no longer get employed. It's been like this for at least the past 8 years.

[UltraFan123]

This image is outdated. Chad Stevens and others of his kind no longer get employed. It's been like this for at least the past 8 years.

From what I can tell as someone who doesn't lives in the US, I think it's safe to say that the actual hard and necessary work is instead outsourced to other countries where the companies can get away with paying peanuts to programmers overseas while the only "jobs" they keep in the US are the useless adult daycare ones where cuddled women and ***** freaks get paid for doing nothing.

[UltraFan123]

Now if this is true, then I legit have no words.

Concord is having backend updates in the Steam page, and those are relatively massive updates rather than minor ones.

Methinks that Sony is ultra-hyper-giga desperate to not look like buffons when that animated Concord episode comes out, so they are using some twisted form of cyber necromancy to revive this dead horse and try to "own the chuds" instead of just admitting defeat.

[Jordy]

Now if this is true, then I legit have no words.

Concord is having backend updates in the Steam page, and those are relatively massive updates rather than minor ones.

Methinks that Sony is ultra-hyper-giga desperate to not look like buffons when that animated Concord episode comes out, so they are using some twisted form of cyber necromancy to revive this dead horse and try to "own the chuds" instead of just admitting defeat.

All signs seem to be pointing to a re-release. Who knows if they've changed anything.

[UltraFan123]

Now if this is true, then I legit have no words.

Concord is having backend updates in the Steam page, and those are relatively massive updates rather than minor ones.

Methinks that Sony is ultra-hyper-giga desperate to not look like buffons when that animated Concord episode comes out, so they are using some twisted form of cyber necromancy to revive this dead horse and try to "own the chuds" instead of just admitting defeat.

All signs seem to be pointing to a re-release. Who knows if they've changed anything.

If Sony somehow pulls out a Sonic the Hedgehog move and brings this game back with female characters that actually look attractive and the pronouns are gone, then maybe they would have a chance if the game is free.

However, considering how the aforementioned animation of Concord is most likely already completed, then changing the character designs may be out of question. Unless they spent extra money to change the animation as well.

[Breathe]

Now if this is true, then I legit have no words.

Concord is having backend updates in the Steam page, and those are relatively massive updates rather than minor ones.

Methinks that Sony is ultra-hyper-giga desperate to not look like buffons when that animated Concord episode comes out, so they are using some twisted form of cyber necromancy to revive this dead horse and try to "own the chuds" instead of just admitting defeat.

All signs seem to be pointing to a re-release. Who knows if they've changed anything.

If Sony somehow pulls out a Sonic the Hedgehog move and brings this game back with female characters that actually look attractive and the pronouns are gone, then maybe they would have a chance if the game is free.

However, considering how the aforementioned animation of Concord is most likely already completed, then changing the character designs may be out of question. Unless they spent extra money to change the animation as well.

Doing that would be the only thing that would garner any interest. Even so, it wouldn't be very popular. IMO it's a mistake to spend anymore on it. Let it be forgotten.

[Norfleet]

Why is Chad the only character that actually has a photo? None of the others could have even a stock photo located?

[UltraFan123]

Why is Chad the only character that actually has a photo? None of the others could have even a stock photo located?

I think this implies that Chad is the only one in that roster that is a "real" person. lol

[Yankee Zulu]

The studio is closing down.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/29/242 ... lk-studios

Sony is closing Firewalk Studios, the studio behind its PlayStation Concord game that it took offline last month after a disastrous launch. In a message to PlayStation staff, Hermen Hulst, CEO of the PlayStation studio business group, says Firewalk Studios will close alongside Neon Koi, a mobile game studio.

[KnightoftheWind]

I get more excitement from ****** devs closing down than I do actual video game announcements. There's just something innately satisfying about it, like the sight of a clean room, or an empty garbage can.