Highguard - Concord 2.0?

[Thiletonomics]

Is it really that hard to just admit a product is bad? Stephen King has one of the largest egos I've ever seen on a human being and even he admitted the Bachman books and the latter part of the Dark Tower series were shit.

Just take the L dude.

The one thing I can think of is that with all of these circlejerk dev studios that put out Concord after Concord, saying that you worked on a game that sucked will make you never hirable in the industry ever again.

 

[NerdShamer]

Because the paid enterprise agreement is likely one of those things that varies based on the revenue they think you can generate along with the price they think you're capable of or willing to pay.

Yeah, Epic's other stuff has the old 88/12 rule until it's shifted towards the "first million is free, then you start paying us at this rate"


As with Concord, even with Epic's "generosity," something's gotta cover the studio's operating costs and I have an feeling that this is most likely the only game that the company has ever made.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Yeah, it's surprisingly hard to get actual comprehensive pricing information about the entire product suite, especially coming from the same asshole who pitches an endless fit about Valve and their precious 30%. You'd think if his offerings were better and cheaper, he'd be singing it from the rooftops. Funny, that.

What was so dumb about EGS is that they didn't seem to understand that "Valve takes more from developers!" isn't good from a consumer standpoint. Steam beat traditional retail for selling games because they didn't need to add any shelving price or the additional cut that a retailer would take, and that's reflected in cheaper games for the consumer. EGS should've passed the lower fees to the customer, and if your everyday prices are 5%-10% lower than Steam that would be a real selling point, but he didn't.

I genuinely try to avoid the cognitive bias of assuming the devs were hopeless, arrogant, and completely out of touch. Unfortunately, they are consistently providing irrefutable evidence they are all three and deserve zero sympathy. I was originally apathetic about the game as I was with Concord, but now I am actively enjoying the fact it failed.

Plus, Concord should've been the "the people playing Overwatch will keep playing Overwatch and no one else is going to want to play with your GaaS diversity slop" canary in the coal mine.

I am prepared to accept the potential fact that it was even worse before the failure of Concord forced them to dial down the stupider parts.

 

[moocow]

EGS should've passed the lower fees to the customer, and if your everyday prices are 5%-10% lower than Steam that would be a real selling point, but he didn't.

No chance. That was never the goal. Tim's a greedy, manipulative, lying cunt. He was just rocking the boat to attract attention to EGS. He wants Valve's 30% for himself and gives zero shits about devs or customers (as you point out, passing on reduced costs directly to customers via lower prices would have actually worked). I'm genuinely shocked he actually ponied up for some big-budget exclusives and freebies early on. It came off so obviously desperate and transparent that people figured it out instantly he was just clawing for market share and had no intention of keeping up the freebies. There's no chance whatsoever if he'd actually managed to peel off some sizable portion of Steam's customers he'd have left things so "cheap" for the devs. The backend price would have slowly climbed back up towards that 30% figure (because anything lower than 30% and he can still say "hey we're still cheaper than Valve!") and there'd have been no incentives to offer gamers lower prices.

Tim's end goal is "Steam, but Tim's," and that's it. Like so many others, he just figured he could buy his way in with a bag of money and a half-assed also-ran middleware and store.

 

[Oliver Onions]

I did notice that people in gamedev seem to feel especially entitled to employment, and for some reason gamers are expected to feel sorry for them. Even if they clearly fucking deserve getting fired.

I feel sorry for devs who put out good games that fail, but I see no reason why I should mourn someone who loses their job because they wasted years making something shit.

Damn, this thread reminded me of Fairgame$ being a real game.

Surely we'll hear about a release date this year, right?

I heard a compelling theory that Sony didn't buy Haven for Fairgames like they did with Firewalk and Concord, but because they wanted their proprietary AI technology. Luke Stephens covers it pretty well in this video:

He won't stop! Is he a masochist? This post was quickly deleted btw.
View attachment 8558814

"Would you like this free apple?"
"No thanks, I don't like apples."
"You can't say you don't like my apple until you've had at least 3 bites. All my friends think my apples are delicious!"

saying that you worked on a game that sucked will make you never hirable in the industry ever again.

True, but there's always the option of saying nothing at all. All the devs managed that just fine after the TGA reveal.

 

[volatile puar]

EGS should've passed the lower fees to the customer, and if your everyday prices are 5%-10% lower than Steam that would be a real selling point, but he didn't.

1. Steam doesn't allow you to do that, at least according to lawsuits, devs would need to give up the biggest marketplace to do this, and it would probably wouldn't stand out as competitive pricing without being on Steam for a higher price.
2. I'm pretty sure Epic doesn't set the price for games on EGS except for when they pay studios to do so.
3. Considering both of these factors, why would a dev agree to not sell on Steam for the benefit of making the same profit per sale on Epic?

 

[moocow]

Considering both of these factors, why would a dev agree to not sell on Steam for the benefit of making the same profit per sale on Epic?

Yeah ... that's exactly what fucking everybody has asked Timmy from the very beginning, and the greedy prick has never come up with a good answer but instead just says "b-b-b-but muh 30% Valve unfair!"

 

[Disc]

I feel sorry for devs who put out good games that fail, but I see no reason why I should mourn someone who loses their job because they wasted years making something shit.


I heard a compelling theory that Sony didn't buy Haven for Fairgames like they did with Firewalk and Concord, but because they wanted their proprietary AI technology. Luke Stephens covers it pretty well in this video:

"Would you like this free apple?"
"No thanks, I don't like apples."
"You can't say you don't like my apple until you've had at least 3 bites. All my friends think my apples are delicious!"

True, but there's always the option of saying nothing at all. All the devs managed that just fine after the TGA reveal.

"We're introducing a whole new breed of apple! Tell me, guys, have you ever heard of the red apple?"

"...Yes..."

He won't stop! Is he a masochist? This post was quickly deleted btw.
View attachment 8558814

There are a lot of people who at some point decided posting everything on twitter was their form of stress management. But what do you do when the thing that's causing you stress is your garbage takes on twitter?

 

[Hermiöne Granger]

Former Highguard Developer Reflects on Disastrous Announcement and Launch: 'We Were Turned Into a Joke From Minute 1' (archive)

Woke crybaby devs, hows that participation trophy working for ya?... they fucking get what they deserve for making this wokeslop

 

[hawkisnight]

View attachment 8559786

Woke crybaby devs, hows that participation trophy working for ya?... they fucking get what they deserve for making this wokeslop

Maybe they should try making a good "joke" of a game next time.

 

[Lucas Silva #4903141]

So, getting back to that PC Gamer article titled "Highguard didn't flop"
I fed the content into Grok. Got an amusing response and suggestions for better headlines.

The original headline—"Highguard didn't flop"—is provocative and absolute, which misrepresents the article's nuanced take. The piece doesn't claim Highguard was a success; it argues that the studio's sky-high expectations (despite no playtests) were unrealistic because most new shooters fail to become massive hits, even good ones. Highguard's ~2,000 concurrent players is "normal" or even decent by Steam standards for non-blockbusters, but the studio laid off most staff anyway, treating a typical launch like a disaster.

 

[Astro Galactic Megalul]

He won't stop! Is he a masochist? This post was quickly deleted btw.
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Out of all the people that got laid off, I know who's going to have the most trouble finding another job in the industry.

 

[Agares]

If all it took to torpedo your multimillion dollar budget live service game was a few chuds calling your game “Concord 2” during its reveal, you might want to rethink your entire business strategy. Not that they ever will though because someone made it a job requirement to have your head up your own ass to be a AAA dev/exec. Some of these people will fail upwards and end up working on TES 6 and Fallout 5, mark my words.

 

[p1138]

The one thing I can think of is that with all of these circlejerk dev studios that put out Concord after Concord, saying that you worked on a game that sucked will make you never hirable in the industry ever again.

If that's the case then we wouldn't be seeing people who worked on dragonage veilguard, concord, SW outlaws, redfall, starfield, etc. continue to get work. But they do.

He won't stop! Is he a masochist? This post was quickly deleted btw.
View attachment 8558814

Holy shit what a retard. Also still fails to understand that it wasn't just people who didn't play the game that posted negative reviews. The negative reviews were from people that actually played or attempted to play it. I've said it before, but review bombs (outside of random shit like when the bugmen in china throw a collective tantrum over a mention of taiwan existing) aren't a fucking thing. Thousands of people are not going to waste their time to download, install, play, and uninstall your shitty game just to review it negatively.

 

[volatile puar]

I've said it before, but review bombs (outside of random shit like when the bugmen in china throw a collective tantrum over a mention of taiwan existing) aren't a fucking thing. Thousands of people are not going to waste their time to download, install, play, and uninstall your shitty game just to review it negatively.

Review bombing does exist but it basically only happens with positive reviews because Redditors like to whiteknight whatever has been astroturfed to them, doubly so if you tell them trolls are leaving mean reviews. There is no incentive for someone to leave a bad review on a game unless they actually dislike it. They might dislike it for reasons that you disagree with, but why should someone be shamed or scolded for disliking a game because the company is greedy or whatever?

 

[p1138]

Review bombing does exist but it basically only happens with positive reviews because Redditors like to whiteknight whatever has been astroturfed to them, doubly so if you tell them trolls are leaving mean reviews. There is no incentive for someone to leave a bad review on a game unless they actually dislike it. They might dislike it for reasons that you disagree with, but why should someone be shamed or scolded for disliking a game because the company is greedy or whatever?

Oh certainly, I'd call that more "brigading" than bombing. But strictly in the sense of negative reviews? Other than the example I gave, or trannies failing to shit on something(like the harry potter game) it just doesn't happen. When games get masses of negative reviews, it's because the games are shit.

Maybe on metacritic or something where there's no way to validate that someone played the game? But the discussion is about steam reviews. And even metacritic, most people aren't going to bother wasting their time to do that when they could just move on.

 

[Jace on ice]

Oh certainly, I'd call that more "brigading" than bombing. But strictly in the sense of negative reviews? Other than the example I gave, or trannies failing to shit on something(like the harry potter game) it just doesn't happen. When games get masses of negative reviews, it's because the games are shit.

Maybe on metacritic or something where there's no way to validate that someone played the game? But the discussion is about steam reviews. And even metacritic, most people aren't going to bother wasting their time to do that when they could just move on.

How do you distinguish between review bombing and real reviews when the product is actually bad though?

Yes "Ayyo where all the futanari girls at? Sneed" ~ Gamergoy420 is probably not a real review but I've read the Highguard negative reviews and the majority of them are not that. Most are of the "hi so I played the game and it's bad because of X reasons." ~ Michael C.

That's not review bombing, that's just genuinely disliking a product for completely legitimate reasons which is your right as a consumer.

 

[Pale Empress]

All the kvetching about review bombing and consumers being great big meany-pants for not playing the game is them missing the forest for the trees. Fact of the matter is simply that Highguard was way too late to the party in an oversaturated genre that's actively falling out of style. There was no audience for the game, because they're all playing other, better games.

No amount of coping will change that.

Like come on dude, read the fucking room.

 

[Thiletonomics]

If that's the case then we wouldn't be seeing people who worked on dragonage veilguard, concord, SW outlaws, redfall, starfield, etc. continue to get work. But they do.

I get the impression that those people that fail upwards either stay silent about working on a Concord game, or they do the usual "blame everyone and everything except themselves for the game failing" tactic, and most of those statements usually don't admit that the game was bad.

 

[The Lаughing Man]

All the kvetching about review bombing and consumers being great big meany-pants for not playing the game is them missing the forest for the trees. Fact of the matter is simply that Highguard was way too late to the party in an oversaturated genre that's actively falling out of style. There was no audience for the game, because they're all playing other, better games.

No amount of coping will change that.

Like come on dude, read the fucking room.

If that were the case then marvel rivals and arch raiders would've never been popular. Highguards gameplay loop simply wasn't fun to play.