The AI conversation is very complex, but if any Concord artist comes across videos like these or someone on Twitter posting a revised version of any Concord character design, especially using A.I...
OH MY GOD
They might already feel devastated after the total rejection of their vision (which is good), but this could put them on suicide watch.
I am convinced that the leadership at Firewalk and the producers at PlayStation (in charge of this project) are feeling completely demoralized, humbled, and humiliated.
And they should feel like shit. It was a complete disaster. Even worse, they refunded people. Granted there werent tons of copies sold, but there's also all the disc copies returned which Sony surely comped the retailers. If they are going to refund gamers, they'll refund all the wholesales cases of disc games too. Tons of products die and disappoint, but not too many offer a full refund no questions asked.
Every company big and small releases some clunkers. But it comes down to the magnitude of it, and how well the team improves in the future (assuming they all dont get fired). My company releases shit stuff too that can be cancelled in a year. What a waste of time, small sales and you got to comp the retailer to clear it out. Lesson learned and the marketing and R&D departments will have to do better next time. Thats business, but you move on and try again. And try to make a good product for an audience who will buy it. Not one based on personal interests hoping "if I like it, then everyone should".
I think what game companies should do is stop trying to be wacky wild west offices and try to learn a bit more from traditional companies how to market products and conduct themselves. It'll help mental health issues and put into perspective some business sense instead of winging it with a napkin math game hoping it sells, and employees going ape shit on Twitter.
Most new products dont do well. Its hard to get success and even harder to get ultra success like a a COD or Fortnite. But at least when launching a new product, the whole process of product development, strategy, marketing and ultimately a good product at a good price (value equation) is done in such a way that the company can at least sign off on it as a best foot forward.
However, given how bad Concord was from game to $40 price, the entire team must had been either blindest echo chamber employees ever, or perhaps the conspiracy theory I saw a few times where they knew it was bad but just launched it to just kill it off as sacrificial lamb. I find that hard to believe because you can always pull the product or cancel it. Games get cancelled all the time and EA pulled NBA Elite 2011 when stores had copies (the Jesus incident), so it can happen even for games. But Sony pushed it forward. There is no way anyone can say this launch looked good on paper. It had failure written all over it.
I still find it hard to believe that an entire team of FW employees and Sony execs truly saw this game as a big opportunity. They even bought the studio last year when they saw a game almost done. So they must had loved it enough to write a cheque. Swinging and missing this bad is so hard to believe especially since Sony's track record of first party games and buying studios is usually good.