Firewalk Studios’ big game-as-a-service flop, Concord, continues to be the talk of the industry…

A week after Concord shut down its servers indefinitely, one of the video game industry’s most experienced professionals has spoken out about the failure of Firewalk Studios’ game. However, this analysis is surprisingly different from the others. Because it does not focus on what were the more or less known problems with the “game-as-a-service” business model. Instead, explain how the developers turned a blind eye to them.

The problem with developing Concord is deep-rooted

Laura Fryer explained the situation through her YouTube channel. Keep in mind that despite not being a particularly well-known figure to the general public, she has held positions of responsibility at Microsoft as a veteran of projects like the first Xbox and executive producer of titles like Gears of War. What she points out is that the big problem at Concord was the internal culture of the studio. “When you fail so spectacularly with issues that would have been easy for consumers to control, it’s a cultural problem. Either Firewalk Studios had all the information they needed and didn’t care to fix things, or they were never asked if there was a problem”.

For Laura, both options are equally problematic.

These indicate that there was an atmosphere in the development studio that was not conducive to constructive criticism. The developers did not dare to criticize the work of colleagues and superiors. They didn’t dare listen carefully to the fans’ decisions. This error is relatively common. For example, it led to one of Valve’s biggest stumbles in video game development. The causes of such problems are manifold, from overconfidence to misplaced and misunderstood respect for senior staff. However, in all cases, it is about bad management.

The creators did not listen to the criticism

The Microsoft veteran explained this with the following words: “What makes game development so difficult is that it’s so iterative. You have to work by watching what’s going on around you because the games are evolving. What players like changes, and that means you need a studio culture that encourages healthy feedback. In the case of Concord, this obviously did not happen (…) It is never easy for a creator or artist to hear that there is a problem with their work. It’s one of the hardest conversations you can have with a creator, but you have to, or you’ll end up with a game that’s doomed.”

She said she was saddened by the situation and that she herself learned the lesson the hard way when she was involved in projects like Gotham City Impostors. But she hopes that the situation at least serves as a lesson. “Every problem in a video game is known to a member of the development team, the audience or the player. If you can surface these problems and do something about them, you will make a better game. It’s that simple. Studio culture matters,” she said.

Source: YouTube