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Sony Live Service Shooter Concord Debuts to a Tragic 697 Concurrent Players on Steam - IGN (www.ign.com)
submitted 3 months ago by Don_Dickle@lemmy.world to c/gaming@lemmy.ml
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[–] jet@hackertalks.com 50 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Wrong time, 5 years too late

Wrong price, $40 too much

High friction, PSN account required

Nothing new, no new mechanic or feature or playstyle....

From all accounts the game is fine, but nothing makes it stand out enough, against ANY OF THE FREE GAMES: overwatch, planetside, warframe, halo infiniate, tf2!, apex, finals, destiny2, pubg, valorant, cs (not really hero, but close enough), cod warzone, fortnight, and deadlock...

So you have 6 buddies want to play a game... which one are you going to pick?

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah everything about this is wrong.

They could have had this golden opportunity if this came out the very week OW1 went OW2 and pissed everybody off. Even with the pay-once price and all that.

But now, it's much much much too late.

(edit)
Also, people underestimate just how much art style makes or breaks these games. Concord has some neat hero designs, cool ability sets and smart ideas, but it looks so utterly generic. The heroes are somewhat okay even though they really need an art style that doesn't look like a leftover CoD asset, but wow the levels and gameplay and weapons and all all look like asset flips.

Artists, Sony. Hire some. Your AI cannot save you, as should be evident at this point. Stop paying the corporate accountant to design level art.

[–] SloganLessons@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

When I saw the thumbnails, I legit thought that this game was some kind of spin off from guardians of the galaxy

[–] TheFonz@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Holup. Planetside is still around???

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

https://steamdb.info/app/218230/charts/

https://activeplayer.io/planetside-2/

Yup, and 1,355 people are enjoying it right now!

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Wow is that like one server?

I loved PS1, played a bunch of PS2. Game is good but it really suffers when the population of a server is localized. Probably not as big a problem these days I guess

[–] golden_zealot@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago

Lawbreakers came out ~7 years ago and it was too late to get in on the genre then.

Relevant video:

https://piped.video/watch?v=wJ4v2LgVlEA

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee -4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Boo hoo! Let me play a sad song on the worlds smallest violin 🤏

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 6 points 3 months ago

I don't think anybody is upset about Concord failing. At all. I think there are people who are genuinely sad for all of the workers of Concord, in the games industry having a good game on your resume is important. There's probably more than a few completely new employees, first job out of school, spent 7 years, and now they have nothing to show for it. It's not great

So I think we can be empathetic to the people who wasted their lives on this poorly concepted project.

But I haven't seen a single Concord fan out there, I don't see anybody arguing that we should be playing it, nobody's defending it. Hell even Sony is just cutting their losses, they didn't do any real advertising, just slipped it out there

[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 27 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Good. Live Service needs to die almost as much as GATCHA and p2w.

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

All while anti-woke grifters be like "It must be because there's WOMZ in it!".

[–] BroBot9000@lemmy.world 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Games as a service is a scam designed to milk players for every cent.

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 4 points 3 months ago

Jet user mentioned some titles, certainly one of those must be decent right? :(

(I haven't played any).

[–] golden_zealot@lemmy.ml 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The character roster for this game looks so generic and boring.

https://dotesports.com/concord/news/all-concord-characters-every-freerunner-weapon-ability-and-crew-bonus

You have the choice of:

-Cylindrical yellow robot (arguably this is the most original and interesting design)

-Woman with puffy sleeves

-Woman with box on head

-Man with goggles and winter jacket

-Old Woman

-Woman with pauldrons

-Generic Woman

-Green woman with ears

-Man with hat

-Pink robot

-Mushroom

-Green man with shit on arms

-Woman with sphere on head

-Blue and Red man

-Generic Man

-Generic Woman 2

Like, I've hardly played overwatch but at least I can tell from afar what most of the characters do from looking at them. Clearly, in overwatch, Giant knight with hammer is a melee tank, clearly the ninja guy with the sword is mobile and and has some melee ability, clearly the lady with the sniper rifle is a sniper, clearly the angel is a healer, clearly, the lady with the jetpack can fly and is support, etc.

Applying this logic to concord, the BEST I can guess is that Woman with pauldrons is a tank, otherwise the design is so ass, I really can't even tell.

Get a design department and/or let them do their job Sony.

[–] TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 months ago

I agree. Someone said some time ago that players should be able to recognize characters by their silhouette alone. That's definitely not the case here.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago

You know how E3 and other game expos used to have these people dressed up as game characters that company stands would hire to promote their games? All these characters look like that.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

All the complaints are valid, but I don't see the relevance in talking steam stats on what is primarily a Playstation game.

Still, when the servers are inevitably shut down in 6 to 9 months, I'm sure both players will be very upset.

I saw it on the shelf at a store, Googled it and was like "Live service? NOPE!"

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 12 points 3 months ago

Steam stats are the only stats available, and they probably correlate pretty well with console stats.

Helldivers 2 is doing really well on Steam despite being a PlayStation game.

[–] drdiddlybadger@pawb.social 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The character designs really should be cel shaded holy shit.

[–] NOOBMASTER@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago

the characters look kinda bad to me, like they come from some indie porn game made of 3d rendered screenshots.

[–] BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I read somewhere that it was supposed to be highly stylized, kinda like tf2 and some suits were like: we need realistic mocap shit.

[–] drdiddlybadger@pawb.social 2 points 2 months ago

It reeks of executives in its current form definitely.

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

I played the beta and was kinda excited to see it released. It wasn't the best game in the world and felt very generic in some aspects. But less than 700 concurrent players is just ridiculous. That's less players than most of the half baked, asset swapped, copy cat games that release into early access on steam and get abandoned in less than a year. I know Concord isn't the next big thing and has a lot of problems. But if you can tell me why games like Vigor, The Front, and Deadpoly (All on steam) have higher player counts I'd be dying to know. I know Concord got hit with the hate train, but this is just confusing. I'd rather play a generic new hero shooter over another generic early access survival crafting game.

I think people just expect hero shooters to be F2P these days. At the same time $40 may be expensive but that would only get you 1 or 2 skins in a game like Overwatch. Not only that but Overwatch used to cost about $40 and nobody gave a shit back then because you could potentially get all the skins in the game for free if you grinded enough. Nowadays if you want all the Overwatch skins in the game you'd have to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get them all.

[–] Kevo@lemmy.world 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if they made more money from the $80 controller than the $40 game because of how cool the controller looked (in my opinion). I bought the controller knowing full well I had no intention of buying the game

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Well the fact that it doesn't even have the name of the game on it and the fact that it looks cool would be a pretty good selling point. You wouldn't even need to know or care what the game even was.

[–] Kevo@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

The name is actually on the back, but yeah, probably a good choice you don't have to look at it constantly

[–] mihnt@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Looks more like it's themed from The Last Starfghter movie to me. I'm old though so who knows.

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not that old but my parents loved that movie. Definitely gives off similar vibes. Other movies I'd have listed would be the original Tron and Wargames (I think that's what it was called). Honestly that whole era in the 80's would fit pretty well. I wasn't alive in the 80's but they had a lot of bangers when it comes to movies.

[–] mihnt@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's what I was comparing it to. It's the symbol for 'The Rylan Star League' aka the good guys from that movie.

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Oh yeah, I see what you mean now. Looks almost exactly the same lol

[–] InquisitiveApathy@lemm.ee 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It released in a saturated market with better and more mature options already available, for free. They also barely marketed the game at all. I don't know how any of this can be a surprise.

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Well if you can give me any recommendations besides games like Overwatch, Valorant, Apex Legends, and Paladins I'd be dying to know. Because I'm honestly sick of all of them. I'm genuinely curious because I'm exhausted with all the current hero shooters I've played. Kinda the reason I was bummed when this game was pretty mid and flopped. Everyone always talks about the market being saturated when everyone that plays these hero shooters is pissed at the developers of said shooters almost on a daily basis. I don't think Concord was the next big thing. I'm just so sick of all the games currently out to the point I'm willing to try anything.

Deadlock seems pretty sick though. That's honestly the one I'm waiting for.

[–] InquisitiveApathy@lemm.ee 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You kind of just explained exactly why the game failed without realizing it. You're exhausted and bored with the genre as a whole and a new flavor of the same games that already exist isn't innovative enough to entice new players. We've seen a long line of hero shooters that were dead on arrival because they have nothing new to offer and Concord is no different.

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's less about exhaustion with the genre and more about being exhausted with the f2p model. Especially with games like Overwatch where this is a new thing. The core gameplay mechanics of Overwatch are fine, minus the constant changes to larger mechanics like team composition and role changes. But as a FPS game there is nothing objectively wrong with the game from a gameplay standpoint. It's fluid, easy to learn, and responsive. Same with games like Apex. There's nothing objectively wrong with the gameplay. But they sacrifice server stability and game breaking issues that have been present since the game was released in favor of adding more ways to spend money. If anything these issues have gotten worse while the shop looks more complicated and predatory than Fortnite's in its hay day.

I know Concord isn't the next big thing, but I think it's worth a try. $40 is not even that much when you consider how much f2p games are charging for their skins. And I'd much rather pay $40 for a game and have minimal microtransactions than play a game for free but have to spend even more money than the game is worth just to customize the huge roster of characters these games have. And the argument "it's just cosmetics" is such a lazy excuse when customizing your character is one of the only ways to express yourself in a game. It's the reason why there are so many jokes about people saying the first 10 hours of a new game they bought is spent customizing their character.

Sorry, I went on a bit of a rant and didn't mean to. Got a little carried away. I'm not trying to say your point is wrong, just that that's not the reason I'm exhausted with hero shooters.

[–] InquisitiveApathy@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I understand being frustrated with f2p shenanigans and microtransactions, but I think that frustration is blinding you to some of the bigger picture issues at play. I agree that microtransactions are a problem, but honestly fps games are one of the few genres where I would say a f2p and live-service model actually makes the most sense.

Before the prevalence of battle passes most games followed the CoD model where a new game would be released every year or two and you would be forced to buy it because the player population of the older game would die off drastically. With live-service it allows the dev to still update games and gives players a reason to keep coming back every season to keep playing a game. An fps game is only as healthy as how large and diverse in terms of skill range its player population has.

I'm also excited for Deadlock though. It will hopefully keep doing everything right that Battleborne failed at and looks really fun.

[–] John_CalebBradberton@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

It's a $40 live service game that is borked on Linux. For as long as this remains to be the case, they can get fucked.