Concord |OT| 24 players - It's dead Jim.

[kitler53]

At least according to one reviewer, Sony didn't send out review copies pre release.

i think that's pretty standard for pvp-centric games.   can't really play the game honestly pre-release anyways.

watched the review for giggles.   i love how many are basically saying:
1. it's a good game
2. it's a dead game

...this is why making a pvp game is always such a big risk.

[Legend]

i think that's pretty standard for pvp-centric games.   can't really play the game honestly pre-release anyways.

watched the review for giggles.   i love how many are basically saying:
1. it's a good game
2. it's a dead game

...this is why making a pvp game is always such a big risk.

Yeah it is funny that positive reviews state something along the lines of "too bad it's a dead game."

My meta prediction was definitely too high. I didn't know if journalists would rally around the game and say it's got good bones or stuff like that, but that's not happening. Only review on meta at the moment calls it "excellent" yet still gives it a 7/10.


Currently the 225th best selling game on steam. Final release is in 15 minutes, will it crack into the top 100?

[the-pi-guy]

I don't think I would have predicted that Astro Bot would do better than Firewalk's game, a couple years ago.

Wonder if Sony's strategy will (continue to) change.

[nnodley]

drop live service entirely sony.  GET THEM ALL TO MAKE SINGLE PLAYER GAMES!

[Legend]

I don't think I would have predicted that Astro Bot would do better than Firewalk's game, a couple years ago.

Wonder if Sony's strategy will (continue to) change.

I don't see how Fairgame survives as is. They'd lose the least money by just cancelling it today, even if it does 10 times better than Concord.

Fixing it based off lessons learned from Concord and Helldivers might be possible but that could easily be sunk cost fallacy.

drop live service entirely sony.  GET THEM ALL TO MAKE SINGLE PLAYER GAMES!

Horizon could still be good, same with Marathon. I don't think the lesson is that live service is bad (although it's not what I want).

The lesson is that live service is not free money. You actually have to make great games that people want to play and even then that might not be enough.



Metacritic is currently 69. Only 577 current players on Steam.

[the-pi-guy]

I don't see how Fairgame survives as is. They'd lose the least money by just cancelling it today, even if it does 10 times better than Concord.

Fixing it based off lessons learned from Concord and Helldivers might be possible but that could easily be sunk cost fallacy.
Horizon could still be good, same with Marathon. I don't think the lesson is that live service is bad (although it's not what I want).

The lesson is that live service is not free money. You actually have to make great games that people want to play and even then that might not be enough.



Metacritic is currently 69. Only 577 current players on Steam.

Why are you assuming that Fairgames is in the same boat?  

[Legend]

Why are you assuming that Fairgames is in the same boat?  

No existing popularity to lean off of and it seems like it's chasing trends just like Concord.

But I'm not really putting it in the same boat. It could do 1,000% better than Concord and still be an utter flop. Concord is just doing so incredibly bad.

Up to 622 concurrent players, woohoo...

[kitler53]

The lesson is that live service is not free money. You actually have to make great games that people want to play and even then that might not be enough.

yeah, i don't think making a great game is even close to enough.   i kind of feel like live-service games as a concept is now "red ocean".    i just don't think there are a lot of gamers that are willing to play a live service type game that hasn't already found a live service game to play.  you need something soo amazing it gets people to literally quit a game the've invested perhaps thousands of hours and hundreds of dollars into playing.   

i think that's a really hard sell and if you are going to do it you need to be in a gameplay space that is completely devoid of any competition or get really lucking by having a product at the exact right time when an established game makes a royal fudge-up.

helldivers found success by being in a gameplay space devoid of any established games.   concord is going up against a genre with the highest concentration of established competitors.   i didn't really have much of a chance to succeed.

[Legend]

697 concurrent player peak on steam for launch day. That is so incredibly bad. Safe to say this is the worst launch of any Sony game ever.

For comparison, just so you get a sense of these numbers, Redfall had a peak over 6 thousand for its launch day.

[kitler53]

yes, it's bad

so the real question is does firewall get closed?  

[Legend]

I don't see how the studio survives. There is no redeeming element or excuse for the failure. The only path forward imo that doesn't close Firewalk is restructuring and turning them into a support studio.

Bigger question is did everyone else at Sony see this failure coming? Pre gameplay reveal before they had public data, were they expecting this to do great?

[the-pi-guy]

Bigger question is did everyone else at Sony see this failure coming? Pre gameplay reveal before they had public data, were they expecting this to do great?

I think there is no chance they expected it to do so poorly.
It sounds like the gameplay is generally good.

But it feels like a generic Guardians of the Galaxy ripoff.

I think it's coming out at a time when there's a lot of competition in the space, and people seem to be getting over the Marvel aesthetic. It probably would have done a lot better like 5 years ago.

Suicide Squad was called the biggest flop of the year, and Concord is doing substantially worse than it, like 20x worse.


I think Fairgames has a lot less competition. I think it's mostly Payday 3. It might do okay.

I don't see how the studio survives. There is no redeeming element or excuse for the failure. The only path forward imo that doesn't close Firewalk is restructuring and turning them into a support studio.

Would be nice if they could get turned around as a single player studio. But that's pretty unlikely.

[the-pi-guy]

[Legend]

I think there is no chance they expected it to do so poorly.
It sounds like the gameplay is generally good.

But it feels like a generic Guardians of the Galaxy ripoff.

I think it's coming out at a time when there's a lot of competition in the space, and people seem to be getting over the Marvel aesthetic. It probably would have done a lot better like 5 years ago.

Suicide Squad was called the biggest flop of the year, and Concord is doing substantially worse than it, like 20x worse.


I think Fairgames has a lot less competition. I think it's mostly Payday 3. It might do okay.

It has a 66 on metacritic so they should have at least been able to predict that.


My intuition was right with Concord so I'll assume the same will be true with fairgame. Not the biggest flop in history, but still a failure. It just doesn't look good.

[Legend]

Not too many people posting on the Concord subreddit but it seems the game is dangerously close to not having enough people to play multiplayer. When Americans were asleep and steam was down to ~150 players, a guy on reddit was having to wait 8+ minutes between matches. In a few days it won't even reach 150 steam players at peak times.

What does Sony do? Rapidly release it on PS+, try to infuse more players? Rapidly implement bots, which could take too long to implement? Turn off the servers, unlaunch the game, and hope they can do something better in a few months? Just embrace the game is dead?

It's a tough cookie.