The Marvel Rivals game director explained why he thinks Sony’s Concord failed to attract an audience.
Having been shut down at an unprecedented speed, Concord remains a topic of interest despite its inability to engage PC and PlayStation players.
Some people placed the blame on hero shooter fatigue, while others believed Concord’s $40 price tag ruined its chances. However, Helldivers 2’s meteoric success debunks the latter argument.
Now, Marvel Rivals is proving that audiences were hungry for a new hero shooter experience. According to the Marvel title’s game director, Concord didn’t give players many reasons to explore what it had on offer.
Marvel Rivals dev says Concord “didn’t bring any unique value”
In an interview on the VideoGamer Podcast (via PC Gamer), Marvel Rivals game director Thaddeus Sasser was asked about his thoughts on Concord’s quick demise.
Sasser argued the Sony title “didn’t bring any value” to the genre, especially not enough to pull Overwatch players and the like from their game of preference.
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There’s a “switching cost” to consider when moving from one multiplayer experience to the next, he said, since users often sink years of their time and a lot of money into these types of games. Many players clearly didn’t view Concord as worthy of the cost.
Despite the public interest and promising beta impressions, Sasser said he and the Marvel Rivals team remained cautious in the lead-up to the launch.
The director added, “The truth is that I don’t think anybody can accurately predict this… There [are] a lot of games that come out that people are like ‘it’s going to do well’ then it flops or people come out and go ‘it’s going to flop’ and it succeeds amazingly. So, I think it’s really hard to tell ahead of time and you’re always worried about that.”
Of course, Concord and Marvel Rivals aren’t exactly one-to-one comparisons. One is free-to-play while the other asked for money upfront. Still, Sasser’s comments about Concord not providing a “unique value” in the hero shooter space could explain why it crashed and burned so quickly.
