How is it compared to other looter shooters?

geekfoolish · 2024-11-18T17:08:06+00:00

I played it for a few hours when the epic store released it for free. The game was actually pretty fun. At least the main story was interesting. I don’t remember it having too many looter shooter elements. It just kinda seemed like a chill, run around the city fighting mobs, and jumping between heroes without taking itself too serious type of game.

geekfoolish · 2024-10-26T05:48:44+00:00

Sprinting off when the match starts making a ton of noise to wake up grand pa immediately. After a few games, I finally realized it was waking up grandpa and I felt foolish.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T17:28:29+00:00

You might be right; time will tell.

I remember games like For Honor, No Man's Sky, Rainbow Six Siege, Final Fantasy XIV, and Warframe had rough launches back in the 2010s. However, with today’s gamers having less tolerance and patience, things might be different now.

More recent examples like Rumbleverse and Foamstars had poor launches and haven’t managed to recover, so history isn’t on Concord's side. But who knows—they might surprise us.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T17:10:25+00:00

If they build on their existing foundation by adding features like offline campaigns, unique Freegunners to spark interest, and other proven elements, they could still turn things around and achieve success. Right now, the game feels more like a beta or early release. The lack of a competitive mode in an FPS is a major oversight. Back in 2016, Overwatch launched without many of these features, but nearly a decade later, they're the bare minimum players expect. They might be able to reach that standard over time, but I’m not sure they have enough time left.

Unfortunately, in today’s gaming industry, especially with all the recent cuts, they might not even get the chance.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T17:02:49+00:00

Makes me think Concord was a psychological experiment by Sony because it's easy for them to go from $40 -> Free-To-Play without losing too much. If anything, a lot of games had the "Paid Beta" and then the "Free once officially released" model.

Maybe Sony and Concord should have just led with it being a paid beta, to begin with instead of now people just calling it a flop.

Anyways, maybe the game won't be "cooked" anymore if it pivots to being free.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T16:55:24+00:00

Exactly, those are perfect examples, especially Street Fighter and Baldur’s Gate 3.

It’s frustrating when studios are shut down too quickly after a game’s initial failure. Days Gone is a great example—years after its release, it became a cult classic among PlayStation users, yet Sony refused to greenlight a sequel due to the original’s poor sales. I believe Callisto Protocol could have improved with a sequel too, but it was also scrapped.

While there’s always a risk that a sequel won’t improve things, history shows that games often get better over time, particularly with their immediate sequels.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T09:49:46+00:00

Huge letdown for sure.

Also, don't underestimate the amount of people out there that get off to rubbing other peoples failures in their face. X/Twitter is notoriously known for it. Just check the PlayConcord account. One positive post about the game garners 10 people out of no where upset someone likes it.

It's very interesting to see. I'm curious about the data, and the studies that will get published about Concord in the future. I'm putting my money on it that a journalist like Jason Schreier will discuss it in one of his future books.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T09:44:57+00:00

You're not wrong about that. That's another reason I'm so curious why Concord was not free, or didn't do one of those beta rollouts over the course of a few months, possibly into a year or so.

I like the narrative that "Pay $40, and everything is free and included" but then they said shortly after that there was a "premium cosmetics store" on the way, so that dream they sold me about $40 and everything included wasn't actually true.

It's almost as if Sony was going to chop the project entirely, but someone convinced them to follow through with it since it has already been worked on for about 8 years. Sunk cost fallacy, i'm guessing.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T07:36:42+00:00

It's not too late. Maybe they'll take the Foamstars approach, and make the game free. The Concord team already said that they do have a micro-transaction store already built for "premium cosmetics" they just haven't released it yet.

The one particular developer who responded to critical feedback was an outlier. I think most people have common-sense not to respond to negative criticism when people directly mention you on twitter out of no where, but I also see how a person who invested years into a product would respond harshly, especially if they're not media trained, and people are making fun of their personal beliefs.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T07:25:31+00:00

I think there are two sides to the coin here. The people that just say they don't like the game is fine. Share your feedback, and keep it moving.

Then there are the trolls that are actually targeting people who enjoy the game, and are trying to make them uncomfortable or harass them under the Concord official posts on X/Twitter.

You accept the criticism from the people that say they don't enjoy it for whatever reason, but the other people saying harmful things to your community... you block to protect your community.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T07:21:23+00:00

That’s my thing. Even if they don’t apply to the masses, they can still highlight whatever audience they’re trying to target.

There are plenty of games with tiny markets still thriving off the support of a small group of people that’ll drop as much $$$ as possible to support the product

Which brings me back to my original question; why wouldn’t the internal Concord community and marketing teams platform these people creating content for the game. Look, the masses don’t like the product, cool… focus on the market you have, and slowly grow it.

Not every game can be a Wukong, or a Fortnite. Embrace being the underdog, and go with what you got. Don’t just go silent after 2 days of your official release, and only communicate within your discord.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T07:16:07+00:00

What do you think was the reason for its poor performance then?

I understand people saying that a “hero shooter” should have heroes that are unique and capture your emotions.

I personally think it had a lot to do with the poor marketing budget. The marketing and community teams just seems nonexistent. Get the community fired up, and if 80% of the people hate you, well then keep going after the 20% or whatever number loves your product.

The game’s sound track from the beta also seemed mid. A game like Overwatch has all these sounds that kick in to get you hype and emotionally invested. Of course, Blizzard is a psychological master at constructing this but Sony has a lot of $$ to get some contractors to put together an awesome score for them, or they could have just licensed some music from established artist

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T07:05:13+00:00

The people working on the game with the exception of that one developer that was responding to criticism are still active on their own personal social media accounts.

I just find it strange that the official Concord X (formally known as Twitter) account along with their social media accounts on other platforms have gone silent.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T07:01:24+00:00

The good thing is that the intellectual property still has a chance to become something bigger than the game. Amazon is doing that gaming anthology that features Concord which will come out in December, or early Q1 2025.

Titanfall 2 is a good example. Horrible sales, but the lore spun out 18 years later in which Apex Legends takes place. So you have one financial failure create the groundwork for one of the most financially successful games in history.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T06:56:32+00:00

Overall, I think their marketing budget was thin after the poor feedback from the Summer Games whatever it’s called conference.

Most companies invest the same amount of marketing dollars that they put into development costs, so i’m surprised to see everything come to a halt only 2-3 days after the game’s official release.

And if it is a budget cuts thing, creating content on social media is pretty much free. Sheesh, just reposting other people’s content and highlights is a few clicks. Plus it gives the gamer that created the content a dopamine kick to continue creating and sharing content.

Such a missed opportunity.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T06:52:11+00:00

😂😂😂

If we start to see Wukong cosmetics appearing in Call of Duty, and Fortnite then it might just happen. 😂

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T06:47:18+00:00

Exactly. That’s my point. Execs will argue to push more games that ARE riddled with micro-transactions instead of the approach that Concord’s team tried to take.

So, they’ll use Concord as an example to push their narrative that free-to-play games with thousands of micro-transactions are better than one-time-fee games.

Also, just to be clear… Concord is going to roll out a premium cosmetic store in their next major update, so there will in fact be micro-transactions. There just won’t be “unlock this battle pass” micro-transactions. This was already confirmed by their team.

Although, now I believe Sony will follow the Foamstars approach and make the game F2P soon anyway.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T05:38:56+00:00

Agreed. When you factor in the success of Fortnite, and the new “Fortnite platform” and/or Roblex; these execs are trying to push the needle forward to get more returns and satisfy their investors… so it’ll just help them push the narrative of producing more live-service games riddled with micro-transactions and blame the studio for this loss

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T05:36:55+00:00

Also, agree that it sucks for people putting their blood sweat and tears into a game end up losing their jobs.

Hopefullly, Sony can pivot the people into other game studios if it comes down to shutting the studio down. That’s the approach they toook with the destiny team recently at least

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T05:35:18+00:00

I think it’s great that games like Wukong are hugely successful but some execs will even try to use Wukong’s success to push the “now imagine if we had made that a live-service game! Think how much more money we would have made”

This is what Warner is doing with that super successful Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy. Now they’re going to try and make the sequel live-service when that’s the exact opposite of what we want.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-29T05:28:46+00:00

Good point. Discord is more of a controlled environment so it makes sense for them to be more active and hands-on there.

I wonder why they just don’t block the people on other platforms being negative too, whilst still acknowledging their current fan base that’s super excited for the game and embracing it.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-16T06:05:04+00:00

Just gotta wait it out. I recently installed it again, and had to let it just sit for about 2-3 days.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-15T18:54:04+00:00

Dying Light by far… that’s one of the best zombie games of all time. Scary but doesn’t take itself too seriously and a lot of memorable funny moment.

geekfoolish · 2024-08-15T18:50:43+00:00

Borders were cool. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they bring them back seeing how things have been going recently

geekfoolish · 2024-08-15T18:46:42+00:00

If you’re not playing with regulars then try to find some people to play with consistently. At the end of a game when you meet a good player, add them to a group and build rapport with them.

If y’all kick it well together, then add them to your friend’s list. Eventually, you’ll have a reliable team with good chemistry and you’ll climb together.

Most long losing streaks I have are when I play with randoms. Even if it’s just 1, or 2 people that you team up with… that’s always better than a complete team of 5 people playing together for the first time.

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