Yeah, I've been following Mark Kern's Twitter and the fallout from Concord has been really entertaining. Same for Dustborn or Dustbin or whatever that propaganda game is called. Same for that hilariously broken Star Wars game. Or as we call it, Goat Simulator 4. And the rot happening at Bungie as Destiny 2 slumps lower and lower. God is not mocked, and these companies mocking Him are finding that out the hard way.
Fairly good analysis of the simple core reasons why this game never stood a chance. It's a perfect storm of uninspiring swill - poorly realized art direction and character/world design, gameplay which is a mediocre rendition of bigger games that did the same better as much as a decade ago, and nothing in the way of new iterations or ideas. This isn't quite the sludge at the bottom of the barrel, Dustborn takes that prize, but it is the scum clinging to the sides. Concord stood no chance because much like the desperate kid who tries and fails to take someone else's joke and make it funnier, it uktimatelt has nothing of its own to present.
It is also the unfortunate result of inertia. They never put the breaks on it, and eventually you have to ship the product no matter how poorly conceived the business strategy was.
Turns out, not shipping it might have been better.
It might not have been possible because internal activists might have leaked to friendly press that Sony was cancelling the project because it was trying to be "inclusive" and created a bigger PR headache than simply launching it and shutting it down when the players didn't show up. Just my guess of course.
Between the Acolyte, Concord, Borderlands, and the Crow, 2024 has been the year of the flop. I'd like to say that it's indicative that the wheels are finally coming off the wagon, but it's looked like that before and, somehow, the wagon persists.
Also an interesting parallel - Concord was definitely looking to ape Overwatch, but I can see a direct through-line from Guardians of the Galaxy, as well (a quirky bunch of space outlaws doing odd jobs). Maybe I'm just seeing things but the green guy even looks like Michael Rooker as Yondu and from what I saw of the gameplay has the same Southern drawl.
In general people underestimate how long the zombie can continue shambling along. Companies like Disney can leverage a lot of debt and service it for a long time.
Last time I studied Disney's financials, the Parks segment is now generating most of the earnings. Of the remainder, ESPN is by far the most valuable piece. They're effectively a hospitality and sports broadcasting company that happens to produce movies and TV shows as advertisements for their theme parks, hotels, and cruise ships.
This model might have long-term problems, but it seems stable in the near-term. But the other traditional media companies don't have the ability to do what Disney does. There's a squeeze underway as streaming is not making up for the decline of linear TV (or the box office, or DVD sales), and every year the picture looks grimmer. The only company that has been able to profit off streaming is Netflix.
The AAA video game industry is at its lowest point in decades, yet the modding/decompilation scene for older games is managing things we would have never dreamed of even a decade ago.
The ugly aesthetics of the game has little to do with how woke they are. Overwatch was pretty woke, but somehow managed to make characters that didn't look bad.
On one level woke is the culprit, but the fundamental problem is going too far compromising art for the sake of ideology. This is a failure mode that basically all ideologies are capable of, right or left, but woke is significantly more prone to it than the less-totalizing and more intellectually open Hollywood liberalism of yesteryear.
I hate admitting this, Project Management certification and Agile have actually taught me something useful: how much sponsors matter (someone was going to force feed this game, and Dustborn for that matter, no matter what sort of information told them it was a bad idea and that the target audience doesn't exist).
Yeah, I've been following Mark Kern's Twitter and the fallout from Concord has been really entertaining. Same for Dustborn or Dustbin or whatever that propaganda game is called. Same for that hilariously broken Star Wars game. Or as we call it, Goat Simulator 4. And the rot happening at Bungie as Destiny 2 slumps lower and lower. God is not mocked, and these companies mocking Him are finding that out the hard way.
Fairly good analysis of the simple core reasons why this game never stood a chance. It's a perfect storm of uninspiring swill - poorly realized art direction and character/world design, gameplay which is a mediocre rendition of bigger games that did the same better as much as a decade ago, and nothing in the way of new iterations or ideas. This isn't quite the sludge at the bottom of the barrel, Dustborn takes that prize, but it is the scum clinging to the sides. Concord stood no chance because much like the desperate kid who tries and fails to take someone else's joke and make it funnier, it uktimatelt has nothing of its own to present.
It is also the unfortunate result of inertia. They never put the breaks on it, and eventually you have to ship the product no matter how poorly conceived the business strategy was.
Turns out, not shipping it might have been better.
It might not have been possible because internal activists might have leaked to friendly press that Sony was cancelling the project because it was trying to be "inclusive" and created a bigger PR headache than simply launching it and shutting it down when the players didn't show up. Just my guess of course.
Between the Acolyte, Concord, Borderlands, and the Crow, 2024 has been the year of the flop. I'd like to say that it's indicative that the wheels are finally coming off the wagon, but it's looked like that before and, somehow, the wagon persists.
Also an interesting parallel - Concord was definitely looking to ape Overwatch, but I can see a direct through-line from Guardians of the Galaxy, as well (a quirky bunch of space outlaws doing odd jobs). Maybe I'm just seeing things but the green guy even looks like Michael Rooker as Yondu and from what I saw of the gameplay has the same Southern drawl.
In general people underestimate how long the zombie can continue shambling along. Companies like Disney can leverage a lot of debt and service it for a long time.
Last time I studied Disney's financials, the Parks segment is now generating most of the earnings. Of the remainder, ESPN is by far the most valuable piece. They're effectively a hospitality and sports broadcasting company that happens to produce movies and TV shows as advertisements for their theme parks, hotels, and cruise ships.
This model might have long-term problems, but it seems stable in the near-term. But the other traditional media companies don't have the ability to do what Disney does. There's a squeeze underway as streaming is not making up for the decline of linear TV (or the box office, or DVD sales), and every year the picture looks grimmer. The only company that has been able to profit off streaming is Netflix.
The AAA video game industry is at its lowest point in decades, yet the modding/decompilation scene for older games is managing things we would have never dreamed of even a decade ago.
Nature finds a way!
The ugly aesthetics of the game has little to do with how woke they are. Overwatch was pretty woke, but somehow managed to make characters that didn't look bad.
I think it has a little (fat characters and all that).
On one level woke is the culprit, but the fundamental problem is going too far compromising art for the sake of ideology. This is a failure mode that basically all ideologies are capable of, right or left, but woke is significantly more prone to it than the less-totalizing and more intellectually open Hollywood liberalism of yesteryear.
Christian entertainment is terrible for that very reason.
Yes -- if by that you mean the contemporary Christian media industry. It's possible for Christians to avoid this error, and historically many did.
I hate admitting this, Project Management certification and Agile have actually taught me something useful: how much sponsors matter (someone was going to force feed this game, and Dustborn for that matter, no matter what sort of information told them it was a bad idea and that the target audience doesn't exist).
E.t actually sold 2.6 million copies. It had a succesful launch that christmas season even though later a lot of copies were returned.
That is literally leagues away from concord which sold like 25k. There is no precedent for how hard this flop was
Minor correction, World of Warcraft's all time subscription peak was 12 million, not 10.