Secret Level Creator Comments on Concord's Awkward Anthology Inclusion

3 reasons, devs were late to the party, $40 price tag(Compared to its competitors that are free) and their character designs were ugly.

@Nepp67 definitely agree, the live service field is packed and if you can't offer some that stands out you're going to fail.

"I honestly don’t understand why it didn’t work."

And that here, my friend, is exactly why you picked it in the first place, because you don't have a clue how the games industry works. If you did, you would've picked literally anything else.

Everything started when that talented group of artists decided to make some of the most ugly game characters 100% on purpose lol. If they weren't able to see that, there is a huge problem there.

And the episode is probably going to be the most popular one. Concord is one if not the biggest failure in PlayStation history so of course everyone interested will watch that episode even if it's only to trash Sony either because how bad it is or because how good.

If you can't see exaclty why that game failed, then you shouldn't be allowed to make a game. The amount of red flags was obvious from space.

People can keep parroting the same over exaggerated excuses as to why this game failed, like character and art design. But it’s much bigger than that. This game had a target on its back and people looking for it to fail the moment it was announced.

What's funny is I predict that episode will be the most watched episode of the series. At the very least the episode that creates the most social media engagement. People love to hate watch on streaming services, and while Concord was a huge loss for Sony, it made a lot of money for content creators as people love to watch content making fun of Concord.

The reasons it failed are obvious to everyone but Herman, the Firewall leadership, and this guy.

The game was doomed from the reveal. Sure it wasn't ground breaking but it wasn't some abomination. **Full Disclaimer** I was never going to play it- just ain't my thing. It was 10 years late, wasn't free, ripped off GotG AND the internet is loud. Sony isn't known for this type of game. Just stepping into this realm from Uncharted, Ghosts, GoW, ASTRO, TLoU and many other single-player oriented titles I won't list meant it was screwed from jump. If this was made by a 3rd party dev I think it would have been closer to a suicide squad or Xdefiant type failure...not the most colossal failure in any medium of entertainment ever lol

Nicer to whom, not to gamers that for sure, saying things like "talentless freak" etc on twitter when they're given non positive advices.

Don't worry Tim Miller. Sony, and Firewalk are also totally baffled as to why nobody liked Concord...

I forgot what this show. If it’s a competition nobody wants to watch anyone playing this. Not sure what else it could be. Past my bedtime, I’ll check in the morning.🤷🏻‍♂️

If devs fail to see why it didn't work they'll keep making the same mistakes and losing tons of money/getting studios shut down.

Funny thing is that the Concord episode will be one of the more watched ones (if not, THE most watched) on the show but not for the "right" reasons.

Several reasons why Concord failed.

First....it was entering a crowded, saturated market where gamers had already invested a lot of time, energy and money into established games. It takes something special for gamers to abandon that investment.

Second...it had a $40 price tag. This demonstrated a lack of faith by Sony who were planning to get their money up front and raised questions about Sonys commitment to keeping the game active long term. A bit ironic as Concord was pushed heavily by Hermann Hulst and Sony really pushed it in marketing.

Third...bad design. The game, for the most part, was technically competent and surprisingly polished. But it was bland, generic, average and had no hook, no unique selling point to attract gamers. It was a tick box exercise. It looked bland and the gameplay was standard. More, some of the design aspects where it did try to be different came across poorly...the game was not a twitch shooter but tried to be more coop. However, this resulted in slow movement, lack of mobility and long TTK. Exactly what todays market doesn't like.

End of day, it was trying to out OverWatch OverWatch in a universe where OverWatch did everything better.

And finally....the big reason why Concord failed. Marketing.

Sony marketing is usually top notch. And Sony really spent on Concord. And pushed it hard...Hulst believed in it and saw it as a potential Star Wars level franchise.

It was to be Sonys OW-killer and Halo-Killer and COD-killer in one.

But when first revealed, the Internet was mocking the teaser, making fun of burger jiggle physics. Noone was really talking about the game. Marketing dropped the ball, let a VERY negative vibe take hold and did nothing to counter what was turning into toxic speculation.

Then came the trailer. Poor acting. Poor writing. Technically competent and yet utterly average and generic.

The playtests. Who chose the playtesters? To a one, they were clearly uninterested and unexcited about the game. Bland, boring, robotic. Fragpunk was doing some testing at the same time and the excitement and buzz of the testers there was palpable.

Sony marketing acted to discourage people and depress interest. The open beta exposed players already inclined against Concord to a game that was not a twitch shooter and had balance and gameplay issues. And the $40 price tag meant players already inclined against Concord as a result of poor marketing and poor word of mouth were unwilling to drop in and give it a go

Concord needed 1, maybe 2, characters with actual personality and it needed to drop the $40 charge. That way, it might have attracted enough players to counter the negative vibe and keep the game running. A couple of months and FireWalk would have patched most of the gameplay issues out, brought in more modes and maps and added a few new characters that weren't as generic as the starter bunch.

@Loamy well look at you. Its nice to see you embracing your sarcastic,cynical inner self..it feels great dosnt it?

Hashtag Bring Back Concord will be trending the day after. I'm only half joking, I can see it happening.

Wow, the man producing the paid advert from Sony thinks highly of the game that he was paid to advertise.

didn't care for the game, don't care for the episode. barely had any motivation to write this comment.

it's just sooo boring to wait for a doctor in the clinic at 8:45 in the morning..

@clvr what don't you understand that Sony backed up a huge dump-truck full of cash. I think they do know how the industry works... a lot better than you. They've been working in the games-industry doing CGI for a very long time. Of course Tim Miller's not going to unwind on his customers (Sony)... I'm sure he wants their business in the future. He's not commenting on the game itself... just the concept.

Edit - reading through the comments... people clearly don't understand who Tim Miller is... or what his role was. He makes movies/TV/trailers. He doesn't make games.

And I don't know about anyone else... but I'm actually getting over the hate for Concord. It happened. It's over. We don't need to bring up the same things again, and again, and again.

Concord was destined to fail even before the characters and price tag were revealed, the amount of comments online on this site and social media running the game down as soon it was announced it was a live service game. The character designs and price were just added fuel to their already unnecessary outrage at Sony dabbling in live service.

Concord - The massive elephant in the room trying not to make eye contact and acting all weird

"I know they were trying to do their best, and they were a talented group of artists [...]"

He's joking right? Please tell me he's joking.

He seems a little tone deaf if he doesn't understand why Concord didn't work out. Sony seems to be a little tone deaf on the situation too.

Give the guy a break. He is likely under contract with Playstation so it's not like he is going to say "I don't know what they were thinking with this thing!"

He's just trying to be nice. It's not like Concord has had a lack of criticism thrown at it anyway. We all know why it failed.

@Nepp67 no mode seller. It's just a copy of a copy, nothing unique about it.

In my opinion, they should cancel the episode. I'm trying to buy the IP, I can't have collaterals give it value. It better be the worst episode in the show.

There is this part of me that really hopes the Concord episode is good, solid entertainment.

I don't care for these mp only games ,so all this concord business is a giant meh for me , I am looking forward to this though, I loved love death and robots , some brilliant episodes that I wish had full series.

Go woke, go broke

Why do they keep emphasizing on how hardworking the devs are?

Working hard in the wrong direction just brings everyone further away from the goal. LOL. Isn't this life skill 101?

"I don't understand why it didn't work..."

Followed by that picture, it pretty much sums it up! Haha

Just reskin the characters as Guardians of the Galaxy and sell it to Disney. Problem solved.

lol (this message is constructive)

$40 game in a genre that tends to be free to play, new characters with no marketing or other media to make them interesting to potential players, some definite missteps in the design/aesthetic, bog standard level design - You need to give people a reason to play your game. This is not field of dreams. If you build it, you still have to test it in the market and advertise the absolute piss out of it. A failure to get the community involved is probably their biggest mistake.

The problem is that it's a hero shooter. Why lock all the stuff, from cool story moments to character interactions, behidn weekly cutscenes and walls of text while spend most of our time shooting the same characters over and over again? I said it before but a "No Man's Sky or Rogue Galaxy meets Borderlands" Concord game would have done wonders.

@BamBamBaklava89 Yeah, you're not wrong. People were very vocally against Sony trying out some new multiplayer games before we saw any footage from them.

Seems bad taste isn't subjective after all xD

While fair and while we really don't need to hear more I thought stuff already leaked about their development/management already?

Sure other insight helps, sure it's a hot topic to cover and so on, one for the history books as well besides any inside type show coverage but even still.

I mean I'm not against others covering the game/situation but even still stuff already came out about it (whether rumours, believable or not) weeks/months ago already.

@SoulsBourne128 I really liked how it looked at first it looked like fun. But i rather would have seen it like a coop shooter with a storymode. I never had the chance to try it so i really can't say I hate it. But I believe the game really gets way too much hate.

@Korgon I don't know maybe he did like it. I'm certain 90% of the reactions are from people who didn't even play it once. I would have loved to try it and see if its the worst thing ever and just don't believe it's that bad as people make it out to be.

“I don’t know why it didn’t work”. It failed because once again the “modern audience” that the gaming industry are so desperate to pander to are all talk and no action.

@Flaming_Kaiser
I was more just commenting on people being like "Is this guy clueless? How does he not know how it failed?" rather than if he liked it or not. I'm just saying the dude obviously isn't going to throw more shade at Concord considering he worked on this collaboration with Playstation/Firewalk.

For the record I actually liked certain parts of Concord myself. The no respawn modes in particular were where the game shined for me. However, even then I had a feeling the game was not going to make it very long. (Though I did expect it to last longer than a couple of weeks.😅)

I think a lot of people will watch this out of pure curiosity. Concord may be infamous for the wrong reasons, but that may draw a lot of viewers to a video series.

People won't play a game if the characters look as bad as they did in Concord. I guess Miller has no knowledge of videogames but he still should have realised how untalented the artists were.

Night of the Mini Dead is a cinematic masterpiece.

@Korgon I'm really disappointed I never got to try it. With so much hate and it looking quite ok for me i would have love to try it. With my work with shifts are killing my gaming life. 😢