well that was quick what else is there to add really Concord shutting down 14 days after launch this has got to be some sort of record surely this must be a first in video game history right a live service game launching and then dying in two weeks I mean granted this was a particularly vast economic failure with very few equivalents in video game history save ET in Superman 64 I suppose and yet in this day and age in our rings of power and Suicide Squad times I I guess we we all kind of expected that Sony would just kind of keep doubling down on failure hoping that somehow a beautiful butterfly would Rise From the Ashes of this particular mound of Broken Dreams and feces and yet instead they are doing the in intelligent thing the smart thing they are looking down to the Kaka covered carcass and saying no more you will not bleed us for months as we try to desperately fix what cannot be fixed as even if we assumed in some absurd hypothetical universe that they could turn conord into a good game after this disastrous launch its PR damage the the harm done to its brand for lack of a better word is already so overwhelming that there's no rescuing this and so Sony is simply going to cauterize the wound and write it off as a loss I mean this cost like $200 million or something eight or nine years of development time presuming the studio has at least some Talent within its ranks or assuming Sony simply burns the entire God awful thing to the ground and hires new people well that's like 98 years of free development that they can simply write off on their taxes there are worse Fates particularly after such an earth shattering cataclysm so let's have a look at the official announcement Here Concord fans we've been listening closely to your feedback since the launch of Concord on PlayStation 5 and PC and want to thank everyone who has joined the journey aboard the North Star your support and passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us I imagine it probably did after the Cascade of negative feedback I imagine the five or so people that actually went don't worry about it your game's not the worst thing I've ever played they must have held a position near and dear to the developers Hearts I do imagine however while many qualities of the experience resonated with players question mark question mark question mark we've also recognized that other aspects of the game and our our our initial launch didn't land the way we'd intended that's kind of like saying a blue whale leaping on top of sinking a luxury yach was not quite sticking the landing the owner of aforementioned lot had lot yach had fully envisioned when he pulled up his telephone and thinking to himself this will be an Instagram moment but details details a little bit of PR marketing speak to lessen the blow to the five people that were actually playing therefore at this time we have decided to take the game offline beginning September 6th 2024 and explore options including those that will better our players while we determine the best path ahead Concord sales will cease immediately and we will begin to offer a full refund for all Gamers who purchase the game for PS5 or PC if you purchase the game for PlayStation 5 from the PC PlayStation store or Playstation direct a refund will be issued back to your original payment method and this too is key not only is Sony going to stop the bleeding they are also quite crucially going to regain a great deal of public trust with this particularly after the H divers to debacle they really do need a PR win and this is a pretty good one honestly people Wen even really asking for refunds on mass at least as far as I'd been able to see and now they're simply offering them up if they're already writing off the entire development as a loss then well the what 20,000 odd extra sales less than a million dollar you know considering the clater is already 200 million bucks deep one or two more or less is really not going to make a difference but the p R gain is significant as Sony comes out of this well smelling like roses frankly Anda that has been a little bit of an angry backlash here and there um I feel for Concord even though it's not my type of game I hate to see games fail it's not good for anyone anyone cheering the downfall you're not welcome in The Gaming Community I have news for your Kurt uh it turns out you're the one not welcome see we tried this whole like if you have nothing good to say don't say it it didn't really work out as it turned out that a lot of people would take advantage of that stance to well [ __ ] us down the throat in essence and it got unpleasant awfully quickly and so now we have reversed our statement on that as it turns out positive feedback is mean meaning diddly diddly dick creative assembly has never changed their business strategy or adjusted their DLC policy because people went like oh thank you but could you please not you know be quite so rough with us no only when the stick came out and started beating them repeatedly did they change this is the entirety of the gaming industry the stick the stick and only the stick is our means of communication because it is the only one that has proven even remotely reliable simple as so in his decision to terminate Concord is bigoted and sets a bad precedent not only are people's jobs at stake I half think this might be a joke but coincidentally 100% of games featuring black Trans women have committed suicide there's nothing to celebrate again I don't know about that think this has got to be a joke people celebrating conod failing should be ashamed of themselves Games should be C Games should be celebrated shame if it wasn't free to play across all platforms at least it would have had a Fighting Chance possibly you know I can't disagree with it if it had actually been 100% free it would at least have had an opportunity if you're blaming Conor's failure on female minority characters models being woke please for the love of God go outside I refuse but this entire narrative as well that I don't know the thing that caused Concord to fail was the $40 price tag is idiotic it is absurd we are living in the era of 7 $20 video game with season passes with microtransactions with DLC okay we are living in an era where video games have never before been more expensive and offered Less on release and more after you've already entered your credit card number the idea that a $40 video game might somehow be a complete deal breaker is ridiculous in this day and utterly and completely absurd and anyone making that defense is only making it because they don't really want to see this reason cuz it's the more obvious one really now they did mention the post here that they were thinking about something you fig like what we determine the best path ahead so they took the game offline and stopped sales sales and they're offering refunds now to me that sounds like they're probably going to shove the entire product but I do believe Paradox did the same after vampire the Masquerade bloodlines 2's development team completely collapsed and they are now going ahead with that in the wrong direction as always but hey what can you do in this backward worlds of ours so there is at least the conceivable possibility that Concord might rise as the Phoenix reborn and hey you know what it's not impossible Sonic for example actually demonstrates a way back for companies that appears to be on the verge of absolute Financial Flopper Sonic gave us an absolutely terrible character design the internet applied the stick the company instead of going you talentless hacks we would never listen to you we know best instead looked at the paying customer and thought okay if that's what you want we'll give it to you I mean we can only actually become a financial success if we give that to you so here redesign Sonic and now now it's on his third goddamn movie or no man Sky there is a theoretical a highly theoretical but there is still a possibility of Concord being relaunched I mean hey they could even make a what was that um snow break was it there were there was a free-to-play like anime. jpeg Gathering Simulator game a little while ago that had a dreadful launch but then went all in on fan service in order to attract back the audience that they had previously failed to appeal to I uh would be shocked and surprised if Concord went that way but it would probably work I imagine indeed that it might be an effective marketing strategy if conod reemerged in 6 months with a wholly redesigned roster of characters all of which are sexy conventionally attractive sexy with some nice animations allow giving us from um Zena Zone zero at the moment for example I imagine in fact I'm virtually certain that a lot of the people who are riding the game right now for looking awful would get on board with that simply as a way to demonstrating to Sony and other video games developers that if you just actually give us the product we want we are all on board with it so um there is a Redemption Arc here it's a long shot oh God is is a long shot it's probably akin to lifting the Golden Gate Bridge with your erection level long shot but still the theoretical possibility exists just like the you know the knocking noises aboard the stuck little space port right now it's probably not a space monster but this might be Humanity's first interaction with chaos and if nothing else that would certainly liven up the news cycle something to consider until next time I have in Arch thank you all very much for listening and I do hope to see you all again soon and um Concord long may it live we'll see about that have a good day