General Gaming News and Discussion

elidib said:

I dunno. Haven't heard of a single layoff coming out of Firewalk studios yet. Every day they aren't shuttered is another day nobody at the top cares about making profit and only cares about The Message (tm) and expanding to a Modern Audience.

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The studio is probably chock full of minorities and lesbos, so unless you wanted to be sued for wrongful termination because of race, sexual orientation, or gender discrimination, then you better get your ducks in a row first and show termination with cause. Which in this case means being patient until final sales numbers are in, quarter P&L sheets are done, and then you can show the negative effect the company has on your bottom line, then Sony can excise them from their holdings. Also need to get your lawyers involved, develop a proper exit strategy regarding compensation, and avoid a knee-jerk reaction just because this Firewalk took a giant shit in your garden. You better believe Sony, under advisement from their lawyers, is at this very moment creating a giant paper trail to show termination with cause.

double post

Daidraco said:

New World taught me a lesson about cosmetics in the last few years, too. If the release versions of armor look "Bad ranging to - ok" at RELEASE, then they'll never, EVER, release an armor that looks bad ass. They'll shoot for it, and at first glance - itll look good. Until you look at it closer, cause its on your fucking character and you'll realize just how awful it is. I hate to be a "woman hater" but who do you think was in control of the armors in New World? The department was/is all women and the one dude there is a junior - lowest on the totem pole

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As a caveat, in PvP games some players intentionally pick dumb looking armors because getting killed by someone in one is extra insulting to the defeated player

If you’re playing a PvP game and see a person in bear costume with a rainbow skirt or whatever, you know they’re going to be playerkillers lol

TomServo said:

You suck dick

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Wait did you unironically actually like that game?

elidib said:

I dunno. Haven't heard of a single layoff coming out of Firewalk studios yet. Every day they aren't shuttered is another day nobody at the top cares about making profit and only cares about The Message (tm) and expanding to a Modern Audience.

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the entire studio got put on paid leave for like 2 weeks after they announced concord shutting down while sony execs figure out what the fuck to do. probably execs are deciding whether to relaunch the game as f2p or shut the studio down and take it all as a huge loss, what they say in the next month about what they do in the next few weeks will be the sign whether the ship is turning around or whether DEI is full steam ahead still.

there's just a lot of turmoil at sony, it turns out Bungie execs were the ones Sony leaned on to greenlit/can the GAAS games that were in development, and Bungie people told Sony that the Last of Us 2 factions multiplayer was DOA and should be cancelled and a few other games, but Concord and Fairgame$ is the best bet. It turns out Concord is headed by a bunch of ex Bungie employees so there is likely a lot of insider shit that went down. Also doesn't help that one of the lead Bungie execs was fired a few weeks ago for sex harrassment. Or that Destiny is failing money wise badly and Bungie was forced to do big layoffs and is way less independent now. The CEO who greenlit all the GAAS initiatives over sp games also recently left. Just a huge mess at Sony.

They might pull a SquareEnix after The Avengers game flopped - they’ll just get squeamish about big budget GAAS and either retool GAAS stuff in the pipeline or cancel them

The unappealing character designs alone can't explain this total failure. sure thats one point of failure, and a giant obvious one. but its not the only one.
There are other games with unappealing character designs that do well, or at least ok. Theres even other markets, kids, women, soyboys. none of them engaged with this at all either.

Mist said:

So, lol. This continues to be interesting for people who have an interest in trainwrecks. And god, I love a trainwreck.

This was the concept art vs what actually got made:

I am not saying the concept is good. But the product is... so much worse in so many profound ways.

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theres a massive fuckup somewhere for sure. There is absolutely some lost in translation. and, a massive lack of coherence overarching design.

I've contemplated doing a "fix" myself. As for the characters, I think there are two obvious influences that got fucked up somewhere.

Imagine they recreated this credits, as their game intro, with their characters. That would have hit so differently, and instantly warmed people up to these characters.

(pink shirt/short tie guy is wearing the SAME outfit as the metro sexual robot.) you could have the DESIGNS of concord, and the STYLE of Buckroo banzai, and this would work.. maybe. but concord is also lacking any damn style.





So, I don't think the "looks too real" is actually a fully valid issue. nasapunk, and 80's, etc are a find target to go for.

Major design issues.
I think I posted this over in TV. but, its application here to Concord is even more relevant. concord is a million times worse then overwatch at this.


game character design requires multiple things. look cool, engaging sure. But, also needs to be easy to read, easy to see threats, focus the eyes, suggest gameplay just by visuals.


Being pretty isn't actually #1. look at this character though. you have 2 seconds. Guess how this character plays, and what its abilities are. Identify where the dangerous parts of it are, and where you should be focusing on. And this isn't even a pvp game.



you can't do that shit in Concord.

What is this characters abilities? how do they play? are they good or evil? etc. nothing. all you got is.. rocket launcher?

if I told you this Rocket launcher chick can fly? would you believe me?


The posture alone in Concords shots is awful.

The dangerous part, umm the big weapon on the shoulder maybe?

The game was poorly if at all advertised, brought nothing knew to an already nearly dead genre, and cost money to play because it was supposed to be a PS5 must have. All three of these were a deathknell regardless of overweight black ladies or not. You want to see absolute "what the fuck are you doing? What year is this?" models, just look at Deadlock. I give about 0 to none shits about character graphics but some of those things look like they took a 9 year olds crayon drawings and 2002 disney animationed them into existence. But that game has 200k players, because it's a decent game. And it's currently free. AND it's audience is 100% people who want to try the game and actively seek out a code.

Having people pay $40 for a game that doesn't have a campaign for casuals at the minimum is a big oof in this day and age.

This is Roka's abilitys tailer. the pose her btw is about a million times better.

how many of you guessed ground slam?



Another example. I've never played Overwatch. I only know this guys name, via people talking about concord, and that one guy reviewing the character designs.

I can tell you that this guys is a melee fighter. medieval armor,. tank. the buckler, and claws on this boots, tells me this guy has a charge slam attack. probably has some kind of shieldblock ability. medium to low mobility otherwise.



looking up. oh look, charge, barrier. and highest hp tank.

apparently he does have a hammer not shown here though. other moves are related to that. that is odd to not show him with it.

Overwatch's design is really impressive. I remember watching some seminar where they explained their pipeline. Each character's silhouette, abilities, and design are iconic. (With some inspiration from TF2.) Most of them even have their home map and some theme music. To me, it's on par with what Capcom did with Street Fighter 2. I don't find the new character created after Remattra very appealing. Mauga is alright, but the character's design and main idea were created prior to their switch to Overwatch 2. Juno is a significant improvement over the previous one.

I think they did switch their team of late. Not sure where I have read it.

On other side. The design of the druid in D4 is really bad IMO.

mkopec said:

I fuck up in my job at 1/100 the level they did and im fucking gone. Yet these people linger in the industry with no repercussions.

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spronk said:

i doubt its a top down thing, the sony guys just say "make our own version of fortnite" and then go off and do hookers and coke for the next 4 years

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The thing is, these people 100% did their job. It wasn't some unfortunate perfect storm of underskilled workers. You can't look at the same thing happening across all major media products and say it's not a top-down thing. These people made the shitty game that they were told to make. I'm sure they're also shitty, but that's mostly because anyone that wasn't either wouldn't have been hired by these people in the first place or they would have jumped ship at the first possible opportunity. People that are actually good at things always end up trying to make the best of the bad situation that management engineers, but sometimes that mountain is just too high.

Palum said:

Maybe don't make Lizzo your main character?

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Execs be like

Caliane said:

if I told you this Rocket launcher chick can fly? would you believe me?

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I wouldn't believe you that's a chick. More like some soy fueled androgenous soon to be was/were.

mkopec said:

The woke mind virus folks. Lets hope this shit end soon, especially on the backs of lost money and fails like the above. Like how are any of these people in the industry after leaving a steaming pile of shit like this? I fuck up in my job at 1/100 the level they did and im fucking gone. Yet these people linger in the industry with no repercussions.

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It might die sooner than i anticipated.

Heian said:

Overwatch's design is really impressive. I remember watching some seminar where they explained their pipeline. Each character's silhouette, abilities, and design are iconic. (With some inspiration from TF2.) Most of them even have their home map and some theme music. To me, it's on par with what Capcom did with Street Fighter 2. I don't find the new character created after Remattra very appealing. Mauga is alright, but the character's design and main idea were created prior to their switch to Overwatch 2. Juno is a significant improvement over the previous one.

I think they did switch their team of late. Not sure where I have read it.

On other side. The design of the druid in D4 is really bad IMO.

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The peak character design was hammond