45 votes

Sony closes Concord studio and permanently shuts down the game

42 comments

  1. [2]
    Wafik
    Link
    This is both not surprising and incredibly sad for the team that worked on this game. Obviously the game was a flop of epic proportions so this seemed like the only way this was going to go. I...

    This is both not surprising and incredibly sad for the team that worked on this game. Obviously the game was a flop of epic proportions so this seemed like the only way this was going to go. I hope the devs are able to find new jobs quickly.

    27 votes
    1. TheJorro
      Link Parent
      Hopefully the engineering team is retained because the performance they managed to eke out with the PC port is nothing short of a marvel. Sony could really make use of a high-quality PC port group...

      Hopefully the engineering team is retained because the performance they managed to eke out with the PC port is nothing short of a marvel. Sony could really make use of a high-quality PC port group within its ranks.

      11 votes
  2. [28]
    RheingoldRiver
    Link
    if a small self promotion is allowed*, the editors who made the Concord Wiki did almost all their work after the shutdown was announced, and imo it's an amazing testament to the dedication &...

    if a small self promotion is allowed*, the editors who made the Concord Wiki did almost all their work after the shutdown was announced, and imo it's an amazing testament to the dedication & caring of fans and the positive things that can come from fan audiences

    *i work for wiki.gg

    17 votes
    1. CptBluebear
      Link Parent
      For future reference, yes self promotion is allowed on Tildes as long if it's not the only thing you do. Plus it contributed to the conversation so you're golden.

      For future reference, yes self promotion is allowed on Tildes as long if it's not the only thing you do. Plus it contributed to the conversation so you're golden.

      14 votes
    2. [17]
      lou
      Link Parent
      Looking at the character images, I can clearly feel they're bad but I can't put my finger on it. Why is it that they feel so immediately bad for me? Any artists or designers around to explain?...

      Looking at the character images, I can clearly feel they're bad but I can't put my finger on it. Why is it that they feel so immediately bad for me? Any artists or designers around to explain?

      https://concord.wiki.gg/wiki/Freegunners

      (Also, I don't like that the main wiki page moves horizontally on mobile) .

      7 votes
      1. [2]
        TumblingTurquoise
        Link Parent
        My two cents: all of them lack contrast and have low saturation coupled with soft lighting. It makes the portraits look washed up and unappealing. There’s also no interesting lighting effects on...

        My two cents: all of them lack contrast and have low saturation coupled with soft lighting. It makes the portraits look washed up and unappealing. There’s also no interesting lighting effects on most of them (I would expect some at least on the magic users). It also doesn’t help that all of the portraits have the same background, which makes them look more like trading cards than some character presentation.

        15 votes
      2. [7]
        stu2b50
        Link Parent
        I mean, a lot of them are just… ugly, by standard beauty conventions. And per developer commentary, that was intentional, to challenge what was expected etcetera ecetera. But, in the end, that...

        I mean, a lot of them are just… ugly, by standard beauty conventions. And per developer commentary, that was intentional, to challenge what was expected etcetera ecetera.

        But, in the end, that does seem to be a bit of an impediment to sales, to intentionally make characters explicitly non-attractive to the average person…

        12 votes
        1. [4]
          lou
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          I don't think they're ugly! A lot of those people would be considered attractive in real life. Edit: there's a mage character making a gesture with her hands but there's no lightning or magical...

          I don't think they're ugly! A lot of those people would be considered attractive in real life.

          Edit: there's a mage character making a gesture with her hands but there's no lightning or magical thingy going on. It looks dumb. Maybe that's what I'm feeling. Something's missing in those character cards. Even the robot without a face looks off!

          7 votes
          1. [3]
            V17
            Link Parent
            Some of them would be, for sure. But I'd say that many people (me included to be honest, at least during first impressions) have different beauty standards in media, just like most Hollywood...

            I don't think they're ugly! A lot of those people would be considered attractive in real life.

            Some of them would be, for sure. But I'd say that many people (me included to be honest, at least during first impressions) have different beauty standards in media, just like most Hollywood actors who play "ugly people" in movies are in fact street attractive and at worst "LA ugly". Most of these characters are certainly "LA ugly".

            Plus, as said above, this was done on purpose and people noticed.

            5 votes
            1. [2]
              lou
              Link Parent
              Just by looking at it the majority of the characters are conventionally attractive so I have no idea what this is about. This is not like the Fable situation.

              Just by looking at it the majority of the characters are conventionally attractive so I have no idea what this is about. This is not like the Fable situation.

              3 votes
              1. V17
                Link Parent
                Nevertheless the group of people who find the characters weirdly unattractive is likely not small, since it was reflected even in some mainstream gaming media. But let's not get stuck on the...

                Nevertheless the group of people who find the characters weirdly unattractive is likely not small, since it was reflected even in some mainstream gaming media. But let's not get stuck on the specifics of that, I think it's likely to only lead to frustration.

                I also spent some time looking it up and there's a game developer who does character design and decided to do two whole videos about what's bad with Concord character designs, one trying to break down everything and one comparing them to Overwatch designs, which also contains a mildly funny part where he's doing an analogy on himself and his own clothes and accessories.

                They're long as hell, so I just clicked through some bits, but the tl;dr seems to be that everything is wrong from the artistic craft standpoint, down to not understanding the proper usage of colors, how to use shapes and symmetry to guide the eye etc.

                8 votes
        2. [2]
          Lexinonymous
          Link Parent
          I think this is a bit of a red herring. I can think of many popular games with great gameplay and inessential or bad art direction, but I can't think of any where the opposite is true.

          But, in the end, that does seem to be a bit of an impediment to sales, to intentionally make characters explicitly non-attractive to the average person…

          I think this is a bit of a red herring. I can think of many popular games with great gameplay and inessential or bad art direction, but I can't think of any where the opposite is true.

          2 votes
          1. stu2b50
            Link Parent
            Depends on what you mean by “great”. Memento Mori is a Japanese gacha where there basically isn’t any gameplay, it’s an autobattler, and the only reason to play is for the character art and the...

            Depends on what you mean by “great”.

            Memento Mori is a Japanese gacha where there basically isn’t any gameplay, it’s an autobattler, and the only reason to play is for the character art and the songs. It grosses around $20m a month (that’s right, month), which is more than some games make in their first year of sales.

            Is it a great game? Well, it’s certainly a financially successful one.

            4 votes
      3. an_angry_tiger
        Link Parent
        Talking out of my ass but: they went very realistic graphics-wise in the rendering, and made every character zany (quirky?, also: not a value judgement that part, its a video game), but then based...

        Talking out of my ass but: they went very realistic graphics-wise in the rendering, and made every character zany (quirky?, also: not a value judgement that part, its a video game), but then based the faces off of what I can only describe as the most theatre kid headshots I've ever seen.

        Like they've all got this weird expression on their face of a person who will try and get you to see their intermediate improv show and then talk your ear off about disney, it's just got that annoying quality to it.

        Compare that to something like Deadlock (https://deadlocked.wiki/), where it's also got zany and quirky characters, but they went far more cartoony, and the portraits are all neutral expressions (the game is still a work in progress) or more apt to the character (like Infernus smirking in an evil way, Kelvin looking focused, McGinnis looking tough). It doesn't conflict as much.

        8 votes
      4. Protected
        Link Parent
        Huh. I can't quite put my finger on it either. Let's see... These people don't look unattractive to me; most of them are attractive if I look at them one by one. I can tell for sure that I dislike...

        Huh. I can't quite put my finger on it either. Let's see...

        These people don't look unattractive to me; most of them are attractive if I look at them one by one. I can tell for sure that I dislike the color aesthetic, but I'm not sure it's for the same reasons as everyone else.

        I think there are things that irritate me about this cast of characters' presentation that also irritate me about similar casts of heroes in much more successful games, so maybe my experience isn't all that representative of what makes people like or dislike these. It has to do with what I take away from looking at the set of characters as a whole?

        None of these people look interesting to me. Each picture feels like it's trying too hard to convey to me a set of easily parsed aesthetic traits (including color scheme) that should make it easier for me to remember the character. But when there are a series of them side by side, they all feel so generic. Like you picked the traits (axes) in advance, randomly generated a bunch of combinations and then drew the illustrations for each selected combination.

        Like, do I care more about lady with purple hair, red coat and knife than guy with black hair, blue coat and gun? Why should I?

        There's some backstory in the wiki that certainly helps individualize the characters, but it doesn't really come through in the visuals. I did the opposite of what @TumblingTurquoise did and turned a screenshot of that page into black and white and the soulless genericity of the cast became even easier to see. Almost everyone is rendered with a similar size. They have the same faint smirk on their face. Shiny skin. They look buff (even the robot!) They have some kind of headwear. They're either holding an item or crouching in a stupid pose.

        I would be much more interested if they'd toned down the cartoonish clothing and poses and focused on making them look like normal people. But I guess this sort of thing sells?

        8 votes
      5. PuddleOfKittens
        Link Parent
        I hate their lack of primary colours, personally - there's "sci fi colours", but they're washed-out or muddy shades. And lack of natural colours, which would look good when washed out. I suspect...

        I hate their lack of primary colours, personally - there's "sci fi colours", but they're washed-out or muddy shades. And lack of natural colours, which would look good when washed out. I suspect you could get some major gains with just a better choice of color palette.

        5 votes
      6. teaearlgraycold
        Link Parent
        It feels frustrating to try and figure out what they look like when they’re cropped and interact oddly with the borders.

        It feels frustrating to try and figure out what they look like when they’re cropped and interact oddly with the borders.

        3 votes
      7. [3]
        RheingoldRiver
        Link Parent
        (I can't repro that, do you mean on that specific page or on another page?)

        (I can't repro that, do you mean on that specific page or on another page?)

        1 vote
        1. [2]
          lou
          Link Parent
          It's the main one: https://concord.wiki.gg/wiki/Concord_Wiki
          1 vote
          1. RheingoldRiver
            Link Parent
            thanks, I'm not sure how to cache refresh on mobile but do that and it should be fixed!

            thanks, I'm not sure how to cache refresh on mobile but do that and it should be fixed!

            2 votes
    3. [2]
      Interesting
      Link Parent
      Sorry for the off topic, but it's not every day you get to talk to someone who works for a wiki farm. What is your opinion on Weird Gloop?

      Sorry for the off topic, but it's not every day you get to talk to someone who works for a wiki farm.

      What is your opinion on Weird Gloop?

      1 vote
      1. RheingoldRiver
        Link Parent
        I'm glad for any option to host wikis that isn't Fandom ;)

        I'm glad for any option to host wikis that isn't Fandom ;)

        2 votes
    4. [7]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      A bit unrelated, but I was wondering: does wiki.gg bar all edits without an account? I recently wanted to contribute information to a Risk of Rain 2 item page, but I couldn't find a way to...

      A bit unrelated, but I was wondering: does wiki.gg bar all edits without an account? I recently wanted to contribute information to a Risk of Rain 2 item page, but I couldn't find a way to actually do that. Ultimately I just posted it to reddit instead.

      Even with these difficulties, I still greatly prefer wiki.gg to either Fandom or Fextralife. I don't understand how they continue to rank so well despite being full of empty articles and misinformation. I finally installed Indie Wiki Buddy and have been all the better for it.

      1 vote
      1. [6]
        RheingoldRiver
        Link Parent
        By default we bar logged-out edits, but it's on a wiki-by-wiki basis, any wiki that requests us to enable anon editing we'll grant immediately, and there's a couple big wikis that prefer anon...

        By default we bar logged-out edits, but it's on a wiki-by-wiki basis, any wiki that requests us to enable anon editing we'll grant immediately, and there's a couple big wikis that prefer anon editing to be on.

        If Discord is ok, we also welcome people in our main discord at https://discord.gg/rTnST57tuW to send us some info, the wiki, and where they want the info to go, and we (staff) can edit it; although individual wikis tend to have individual discords (or a channel in their topic's general discord), and that might be a better place. Also if you make the wiki's particular admins aware that anon editing is desired, they might request us to enable it which we'd be happy to do!

        We actually were already having some internal talks on how to make this preference more visible, rather than a default that's hidden to change, I think we will edit our 'new wiki request' form so people can indicate which option they'd prefer!

        Anyway in this case I forwarded your reddit post to someone else on staff and asked them to edit the wiki on your behalf, I'd do it myself but I'm flying ORD -> VIE in about 17 hours oops

        3 votes
        1. RheingoldRiver
          Link Parent
          (note, the form is now updated, tick one of the gaming/entertainment/other options and scroll a bit to see it, "Should users need a wiki.gg account to edit your wiki?" we also have a new form that...

          (note, the form is now updated, tick one of the gaming/entertainment/other options and scroll a bit to see it, "Should users need a wiki.gg account to edit your wiki?"

          we also have a new form that wiki admins can submit to request a toggle)

          2 votes
        2. [4]
          Wes
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          Thanks for explaining, and very kind of you to forward the request. I'm glad to better understand the relationship between wiki.gg and the individual wikis, as I wasn't sure how independent they...

          Thanks for explaining, and very kind of you to forward the request. I'm glad to better understand the relationship between wiki.gg and the individual wikis, as I wasn't sure how independent they were.

          Optimistically, I hope that if we see more wikis defaulting to a model of allowing anonymous edits, we'll see a greater number of small contributions and fixes. Of course there is a tradeoff to be made, as friction can turn away positive contributions, but can also prevent lower-quality edits and vandalism. That seems like a hard problem to solve.

          Intuitively, I feel like the best model might be one that allows anonymous edits, but still requires review (either human or automated). That too requires resources, and potentially domain-specific knowledge, but presumably would be easier than writing original content. It could also be tied in with a Stack Overflow-type reputation system, where those with established histories could be given review powers.

          Of course, with pending changes you'd require a queue, and would need to account for conflicting edits then. Similar to pull requests. So some sort of three-way merge system may be necessary...

          Whoops, sorry. I think I nerd sniped myself on that one. Suffice it to say, I can appreciate that there are challenges to all approaches.

          1. [3]
            RheingoldRiver
            Link Parent
            haha so yeah a bit more context, and I'm going to let it go without saying that MediaWiki is the only acceptable wiki software, everything else is absolutely awful for anything beyond a tiny...

            haha so yeah a bit more context, and I'm going to let it go without saying that MediaWiki is the only acceptable wiki software, everything else is absolutely awful for anything beyond a tiny personal wiki that only 1 person will use ever (whoops, MW is still better, cos u may want to share it in 5 years)

            Now so that said MW has a number of problems, not the least of which is revision control.

            There's two main extensions that you can use for revision control as you are proposing, and I used one of them (FlaggedRevs) for much of my career, when I was the lead admin/manager/dev at Leaguepedia. The other one is called Approved Revs, and I had previewed that to see if we could get it to replace FR because FR is very server intensive, not well maintained and therefore a gigantic pain to deal with on MW version updates, and extremely hard to start using if you weren't using it from day 1; but AR has really bad UX and so far no one is interested enough in using it to fund development, which would IMO require basically a complete rebuild with a mindset of making it easier for reviewers.

            AR is available on wiki.gg if any wiki wants it, FR is not, because FR is just too big a nightmare to use for the good you get. I think we have maybe 2-3 wikis using AR but most don't because it's not a good extension.

            Now all of this is just tech problems, once you get past that you still have people problems. Any revision system is only as solid as the people doing the approving, and so your approver list has to be short enough that everyone is trusted, but long enough that if someone takes a break or quits without notice etc, other people can take over. And reviewing accurately is a LOT more important once there's a tool in place to review, because then the cultural assumption is "well if this was here it was reviewed" and not "well anyone can edit Wikipedia, I'm guessing that the Sears Tower isn't actually 70000 stories tall."

            Additionally, my experience has been that there's a very narrow band in which a wiki has enough contributions to warrant this and not so many that keeping up with approvals becomes impossible no matter how many reviewers you get because of the general 90/9/1% content creation rule, and that goes for wiki admins too, there'll be a spectrum of availability.

            And what do you do when you have FR/AR enabled and then the only admin is MIA for 3 months and you have 500 pending edits and no one on staff knows the first thing about this game? (Note, we have about 900 distinct language families of wiki atm, with over 1k if you include translations.)

            As for turning on anon contribs - tbh most wiki admins are very scared about "vandalism" and it's likely a lot fewer wikis would get made in the first place if we forced anon editing everywhere. It's a matter of effort, your willingness to create an account saves the wiki admins hours and hours and hours of cleaning up some kid's idea of a fun prank etc (or anxiety about having to do so even if it doesn't materialize on many wikis).

            I don't like having anon contributions open personally, even aside from vandalism it makes it super difficult to get in touch with, for example, a contributor who seems well-meaning but doesn't understand some convention and is messing up dozens and dozens of pages; with an account you can send a talk page notice, but as an anon there's nothing you can do.

            WMF is making some strides with temporary accounts which will mask IPs and possibly (?) enable browser notifications if you write on the talk page, I'm not sure yet, and that will go some way forward but it's just really hard to accept anon edits.

            3 votes
            1. [2]
              Wes
              Link Parent
              Thanks for outlining some of the challenges involved. That's all very interesting. The technical problems seem difficult to overcome, though potentially solvable with enough engineering time....

              Thanks for outlining some of the challenges involved. That's all very interesting.

              The technical problems seem difficult to overcome, though potentially solvable with enough engineering time. Funding the engineers and designers, or finding contributors is always the hardest part. I would've thought the Wikimedia Foundation might be interested in something like that, but I see that they were actually the original authors of FlaggedRevs before letting it languish. Maybe then they found it wasn't too important to running a wiki on their scale. Maybe other solutions like protected articles were preferred.

              I think the problem space must be better understood today than when these plugins were first written, and that might help narrow the scope to solving just the most important problems. It seems like FR did a lot of things, and possibly provided too many features to be easily maintainable. Approved Revs is definitely more narrow in scope, and does seem to still be maintained, at least.

              When coming at this problem before, I was thinking about integration of VCS functionality, by using git as a backend or such. But actually, MediaWiki must already have some native support for revisions+history, right? So a plugin wouldn't necessarily need to recreate all of that infrastructure at least. It could instead build onto that system to flag revisions as pending, published, etc. Then on the frontend it could provide panels for quickly reviewing and actioning pending changes. That seems relatively simple in theory. In practice? I've no idea.

              Assuming there were a review system in place, I'm not sure the list of approved reviewers would necessarily need to be that small. After all, if registered users have the power to make direct edits, it seems reasonable that it'd be okay to accept changes that have gone through two people. I think a small step before granting that power could make sense, but it doesn't necessarily need to be locked down tight.

              As you said though, there also remains the people problem, and it may be the larger of the two. Your example of a well-meaning user who misunderstands the convention seems like the best example of that. The methods and language of wikis is often inscrutable to new contributors, so I find that very believable. If there's no mechanism to correct their behaviour, they're just creating more work for everyone else.

              On top of vandalism, we also see examples of "edit wars", and other spats. With anonymous edits, you can't address this at the user-level and need to instead address it at the article level, or rely on things like IP bans which offer their own problems. So that's another strong argument for requiring an account.

              I guess I'm somewhat turned off by the idea of accounts because I've always appreciated that Wikipedia and similar systems put inherent trust in their users. It feels like a very charitable view, and gives me optimism that we're all putting in our best. I recognize it must take a lot of work to make something like that possible though.

              In the case of a solo admin that's MIA, I think that will be a problem no matter the case. It's true that it's bad to let pending edits pile up, but it's also not great to have editing enabled with no oversight at all. Even if all edits required user accounts, that's not an impassable wall for a spammer or dedicated troll. With no mechanism to ban the offender, it seems like eventually the good-faith contributors would get tired of rolling back changes and either lose interest or move elsewhere.

              Anyway, I'll be curious to see how well the "temporary account" approach works, because that seems to tackle some of the problems you described without the technical complexity of some of these other solutions.

              Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I always find it interesting to learn more about these systems that power major websites and services. And I'll just add that I recognize that I'm the furthest thing from an expert in this area, so I consider these thoughts as just idle speculation, and not practical ideas. Cheers!

              1. RheingoldRiver
                (edited )
                Link Parent
                I've got to run to the airport (to travel to a wiki conference heh) so just a couple brief thoughts: WMF operates wikipedia, and publishes MediaWiki as a side effect. Engineering for so-called...

                I've got to run to the airport (to travel to a wiki conference heh) so just a couple brief thoughts:

                • WMF operates wikipedia, and publishes MediaWiki as a side effect. Engineering for so-called "third-party" wikis is not a priority for them, never has been, and likely never will be. So if WP isn't using FR, FR dies
                • Originally typed out a long comment about wikipedia's moderation policies but I don't want to be negative. Wikipedia faces a HUGE and CONSTANT problem of special interest groups/people, children, confused people, etc, who are constantly making the site worse. The number of active moderators (not a real thing in mediawiki, that just means "power users who care a lot") and admins (actually an elevated rights group) on wikipedia is unparalleled almost anywhere, the only analogy I can think of is reddit mods (taken as a whole), but reddit mods have it easier imo. There is a cost to relying on this many people, which is that you're more or less at the whims of their collective mood as your "brand identity" towards any new editors.
                • The solution to a REALLY REALLY REALLY difficult problem is "ask people nicely to make an account" which to me doesn't seem that bad? You don't even need an email address. You can just make an account, make one edit, never save the password, and move on with your life. All you have to do basically is solve a captcha challenge.
  3. Sodliddesu
    Link
    Well, that's curtains for the "it'll be back and free to play" crowd.

    Well, that's curtains for the "it'll be back and free to play" crowd.

    10 votes
  4. [8]
    foryth
    Link
    As this is the first time I've ever heard of this game, it must have had no budget for marketing

    As this is the first time I've ever heard of this game, it must have had no budget for marketing

    6 votes
    1. [7]
      babypuncher
      Link Parent
      It was marketed. They had well publicized closed and open betas, and big splashy trailers during Sony's "State of Play" streams. It just wasn't a very good game. I think the ugly aesthetic in...

      It was marketed. They had well publicized closed and open betas, and big splashy trailers during Sony's "State of Play" streams. It just wasn't a very good game. I think the ugly aesthetic in particular drove a lot of people away. The open beta actually had fewer participants than the closed beta, indicating that people who tried it were not impressed enough to come back for a second weekend.

      17 votes
      1. [6]
        AugustusFerdinand
        Link Parent
        Just watched the gameplay trailer, what's ugly about the aesthetic and what do you consider to be attractive aesthetics in comparable games?

        I think the ugly aesthetic

        Just watched the gameplay trailer, what's ugly about the aesthetic and what do you consider to be attractive aesthetics in comparable games?

        1 vote
        1. [2]
          babypuncher
          Link Parent
          I found the color palette a bit unpleasant, but mostly the characters were too detailed and without distinct enough silhouettes to really work in a 5v5 "hero shooter". As a result, battlefield...

          I found the color palette a bit unpleasant, but mostly the characters were too detailed and without distinct enough silhouettes to really work in a 5v5 "hero shooter". As a result, battlefield readability is pretty poor. Also, from my time with the open beta, the UX was a hard to read mess, particularly the hero select screen.

          The whole thing also gave off big time "we have Guardians of the Galaxy at home" vibes.

          I think it's a good examaple where the technical execution of the visual presentation was excellent, but the art direction itself was lacking. A game like this really needs strong, distinct art direction to stand out. I think this is a big part of why Overwatch was and still is so successful.

          9 votes
          1. Eji1700
            Link Parent
            Yeah that was my big take. This is just "here's the Guardians cast. Make legally distinct versions of this"

            The whole thing also gave off big time "we have Guardians of the Galaxy at home" vibes.

            Yeah that was my big take. This is just "here's the Guardians cast. Make legally distinct versions of this"

            3 votes
        2. an_angry_tiger
          Link Parent
          I wouldn't say ugly, but I would say weak aesthetics. I hadn't heard of the game until the weak release either, didn't hear a lick of marketing or anything about the game until I heard it flopped....

          I wouldn't say ugly, but I would say weak aesthetics.

          I hadn't heard of the game until the weak release either, didn't hear a lick of marketing or anything about the game until I heard it flopped. Looked up some gameplay footage, and the most striking thing was that it was both quite pretty graphics-wise, and also incredibly generic design wise, it felt like I was watching a video of every FPS game ever, like AI generated it based off the laziest prompt.

          6 votes
        3. Captain_calico
          Link Parent
          After watching the gameplay trailer, I felt this game lack any personality. The backdrop, animation, character design were fine, but there's nothing underneath it all. Worse part, a lot of hard...

          After watching the gameplay trailer, I felt this game lack any personality. The backdrop, animation, character design were fine, but there's nothing underneath it all. Worse part, a lot of hard work and talent went into this game, but the game lacks cohesion, story, world building and vision. Hard to sell anything without a narrative. There is nothing really alluring you into this world.

          2 votes
        4. V17
          Link Parent
          I tend to be overly critical in this aspect, so take it with a grain of salt: It's uninteresting and the slightly cartoony colorful characters feel like they're supposed to be badass, but it's...

          I tend to be overly critical in this aspect, so take it with a grain of salt:

          It's uninteresting and the slightly cartoony colorful characters feel like they're supposed to be badass, but it's PG13 badass that's lacking any hint of edge, and the dramatic background commentary in the trailer doesn't match the feel of the actual gameplay for me. All of that makes it feel like stereotypical design by committee AAA slop.

          2 votes
  5. Pixlbabble
    Link
    Those people should be grateful that they got away with an epic grift for so long and wasted so much money. I don't feel bad.

    Those people should be grateful that they got away with an epic grift for so long and wasted so much money.
    I don't feel bad.

    6 votes
  6. [2]
    ogre
    Link
    I really want to know what everyone at Firewalk was thinking behind the scenes. They were founded in 2018, ramped up to full production in 2022, then delivered the biggest flop in AAA history....

    I really want to know what everyone at Firewalk was thinking behind the scenes. They were founded in 2018, ramped up to full production in 2022, then delivered the biggest flop in AAA history. Firewalk's goodbye tweet gives me the impression they don't think the game was bad, but that the market just wasn't ready for it

    And ultimately ship and deliver a great FPS experience to players- even if it landed much more narrowly than hoped against a heavily consolidated market.

    What about it is great though? You can check a million boxes with regards to metrics, novel solutions to technical challenges, but when there's nobody playing your game it might not be great. Does the entire studio believe it's just a market problem? Was it blind leadership? I hope Jason Schrier's office has a line out the door of Firewalk devs spilling the tea!

    4 votes
    1. stu2b50
      Link Parent
      In the end, it’s a farewell tweet. Most of the time, you don’t talk shit in an obituary. It’s not like they were going to write “well, the one game we made was such dogshit that it became one of...

      In the end, it’s a farewell tweet. Most of the time, you don’t talk shit in an obituary. It’s not like they were going to write “well, the one game we made was such dogshit that it became one of the biggest commercial flops in media history, panned by critics and players alike”.

      8 votes