I watched a 20 minute youtube video where a guy ranted that the robot was non-binary. Which, is sort of funny thing for a robot to be. I mean, it's clearly binary. 010101
Yeah, it cost money.
Concord is dead and Firewalk Studio is closed [PS5, PC]
- Thread starter Cyan
- Start date
I said "seen as". What it is doesn't really matter, outrage farming and dogpiling is just what you have to deal with now.
We had multiplayer games before the GaaS craze. At least there is information available regarding games for conscious and rational purchasing. If sometimes you buy something and it you don't like it you at least realize it and move forwards. On the other hand game mechanics relying on purchase impulses, gambling mechanics, overpriced skins and paying to win that keep you unconsciously glued forever until you waste hours and huge sums of money is the epitome of frivolous waste.
Cappuccino
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To this day I haven’t seen a GaaS that is genuinely pay to win, it’s all usually skins that have zero effect on gameplay. Outside of mobile games I suppose.
Like I don’t remember this level of outrage back in 2010/2011 with TF2’s Mann Co store, where you could buy slot machines for unusuals or outright buy weapons for money (some of which used to be direct upgrades), yet when Fortnite or Call of Duty has skins you pay for we need to involve the attorney general?
Also, ‘unconsciously glued forever’? Let’s not remove agency from adults shall we lol. People like the games, they aren’t employing Polybius style mind control.
Let's be real. If agency existed, we wouldnt have had alcoholics, drug addicts, obesity, video game addiction, violence, social media addiction and the "free market" would have automatically eliminated the existence of junk food, fast food, frivolous entertainment, social media scrolling etc while everyone would have been super disciplined, multi talented masterminds because we are all 100% rational beings that always make the best choices based on our best interests instead on dopamine triggers.
Please don't turn the discussion confrontational.
My argument is it was 'front and centre' because those pronouns were right there and you couldn't help but see them and have to wonder about them. The 'small font' you talk about is the font used that also shared with the core info about character class...
Looking through the roster for who to play, the player is informed of character class which affects play style, and pronouns...for what reason? The attention is drawn to them by them being completely different and their presence have no bearing on the game or the roll of character selection. By putting the pronouns next to the names and role, Firewalk wanted to draw attention to their presence, and the only reason for that was politics. It's not a gameplay feature.
Size of font, type of font, etc. is immaterial to the impact of placing these politically motivated markers.
If you contrast that with a game that is diverse in a 'natural way', Apex Legends has diverse characters (and pronouns) in their backstories, presentation, and interactions. Respawn include diversity without making any part of the game about diversity and no-one's complaining. Pronouns on the character selection on the same informational level as character class is a choice that is (or certainly seems to be) about politics, not game design and execution, which just added another push-back reason.
Tying that back to your point...
"Anyways, Concord's criticized character designs weren't really cuz they were 'woke',"
The characters were in part criticised for being 'woke' because of a 'woke' presentation. They were poorly design characters (even got a mention how bad they were in a CG newsletter I get!) and the diversity, not an issue in itself, became an issue because Firewalk were drawing attention to it.
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This thread is getting very RPSC. Can people reign in the politics please before mod action is required?
In my time in the Beta, it didn't do a great job of onboarding either. I don't know how that compares to its rivals but there wasn't any way to learn about the skills or weapons and you just ran in and played. Some weapons seemed totally underpowered - the plant thing did something I didn't understand. They might have had sophisticated application in a team game with tactics, but there wasn't scope to experiment and learn. I also recall the walls being a bit awkward. As a new payer, I was presented with lots of character, no idea what they were like in play, and had to play a game and try them out. After however much time I played, the gameplay lacked appeal and there just wasn't interest in playing more to learn the characters. They might have done better with a smaller roster, or more in game guidance on new skills.
Then, as you say, it didn't differentiate itself from other games, many of which are F2P. Had it been a great experience, people might well have ponied up the asking price which actually would have been a positive as it'd reduced banned players returning. This is why Firewalk needed to open test the game long before final release to get it to something exciting with a strong social media presence and clear momentum so new players could trust the asking price would result in a healthy MP experience.
Cappuccino
Newcomer
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Concord is totally dead and so is the studio unfortunately
www.polygon.com
Sony shuts down Concord developer Firewalk, permanently cancels game
It’s official: Concord is never coming back
www.polygon.com
It was tucked away in small font in the far corner of the screen. Literally the opposite of 'front and center'. Sorry man, but if you're gonna dishonestly mischaracterize things for the sake of pushing an argument, I'm going to call it out for what it is.
"Front and centre" is a figure of speech that means something is "in a prominent or important position". It's not necessarily talking about about physical co-ordinates of something.
The pronouns in the screen Shifty posted are directly below the character's name, if you follow the flow of the information provided on the character screen even once (name -> class -> pronouns -> combat trait) you'll know the pronouns.
Probably ~100% of the people that had any interest in character class or abilities (which would be anyone who wanted to know the basics) would have been directed to this. This was intentional, this was deliberate messaging.
You might like this, you might not, you might not even care one way or the other. But it's absolutely not "tucked away" any more than the name or class or trait, all of which are presented as key information for the character.
This was entirely deliberate. It was inserted into the flow of the key information for a character intentionally, right under the name. Left or right aligned doesn't matter, it's only on one side and following convention it flows top to bottom, with core character information that they feel the player needs to know right next to the name. This is UI design. This is basically what twitter does.
"Hear me out boss, what if none of the characters are fan favourites!!"
It's like they didn't consider that people had the choice not to buy their game.
An Update from PlayStation Studios
*Below is an internal email from Hermen Hulst, CEO, Studio Business Group, Sony Interactive Entertainment distributed today to SIE employees. ********************************************************************************** Dear Team, Today, I want to share some important updates from Sony...
sonyinteractive.com
Guess it didn't work out.
I eagerly await the next big project where nothing is learned and all the same mistakes are made.
Where is the emoji with the little dude shoving popcorn in his face?
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They had eight years, 400 million to spend, and this is what they came up with. I think it’s a very reasonable closure.
If should never have come to that. Why were they given sooooo much rope?!
Likely abandoned forever. It's been sunset (ridiculous euphemism for terminated).
I have no idea. Apparently Sony expected this to become a huge franchise, surpassing even Star Wars. I can’t fathom how they ever thought that given the game they were looking at during development.
