🎮 Concord is shutting down, Spectre Divide and AI in gaming...
Concord is shutting down, Spectre Divide Launch, Jennifer Hale on AI in the gaming industry, Ballistic Moon faces layoffs just before the release and more!
Hello friends,
Today is September 5th 2024 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌
In today’s news:
🎮 Concord is shutting down
🎮 Spectre Divide Launch
🎮 Jennifer Hale on AI in the gaming industry
🎮 Ballistic Moon faces layoffs just before the release
⚡ Lightning Round!
🫡 True Tribute!
😄 Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️
Let’s dig in!
🎮 Concord is shutting down
So, it’s official now. Only 14 days after the release, Sony is shutting down Concord, stopping the sales and issuing refunds across all the platforms.
Ryan Ellis, Game Director at Firewalk Studios shared this message on the PlayStation Blog just a few days ago:
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 Northstar. Your support and the passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us.
However, while many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended. Therefore, at this time, we have decided to take the game offline beginning September 6, 2024, and explore options, including those that will better reach our players.
So, it looks like it may not be the end of the game, but more like a return to the drawing board, which makes sense. But based on recent examples of games not meeting stakeholder expectations, it’s much more likely that the company will undergo massive layoffs and then the new team will start from scratch (if that’s going to be the case). We’ll see how the situation evolves over time, but it’s most definitely the final chapter of the game in its current state. My peanut gallery comment is that this game should’ve never been released based on the reception and numbers they got during the beta. But it looks like both Sony and Firewalk Studios were trying to get at least something out of it considering the pretty high production costs of the game of this magnitude.
Press F for Concord 🫡
🎮 Spectre Divide Launch
Another new title was released this week and positions itself as a major competitor to Valorant and the like. And unlike Concord, it’s free to play.
Spectre Divide is the genre-evolving, competitive 3v3 tactical shooter driven by Duality. Use Duality to control two bodies in real-time, letting you defend two sites at once, cover your own cross, or even trade yourself. Master tactical gunplay and an arsenal of future tech to achieve infamy.
And if you haven’t heard about the game, it’s been developed and published by Mountaintop Studios with close collaboration with Shroud (streamer, former CS:GO and Valorant pro player, the guy who popularized PUBG back in the day).
But it looks like it also has somewhat of a rocky start. Despite rounds of closed beta, the game suffers major server issues. To top it all off, the monetization seems to be quite expensive to say the least. So, it’s no wonder that people are unhappy that the company decided to spend their time releasing 80$ skins instead of fixing the server issues and preparing for a wider audience. So far the reviews on Steam are “Mixed” and the players aren’t shy to point out the above two problems, but during the release, it accumulated a little more than 30,000 players. That should count for something, right?
Personally, it’s not my cup of tea in general and the gameplay mechanics are too complicated. I’m having a hard time controlling one character and this one says that I need to control two of them 😅 But seriously, I think that the only reason the majority of people even paid attention to it is because they know about or are fans of Shroud. That’s my reason, at least. So, I’m curious to see how much attention they can grab and if they can compete with Valorant, as it’s not really a competition now…
🎮 Jennifer Hale on AI in the gaming industry
A famous voice actress known for her work in a lot of video game franchises (such as Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, BioShock Infinite, Metroid Prime, Halo, Overwatch, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) recently had an interview with Variety where she discussed the impact of AI on the game industry.
Particularly, she has spoken against the use of AI voice actors and AI replication. All of this is one of the main reasons for the current SAG-AFTRA strikes.
AI is coming for all of us, because the truth is, AI is just a tool like a hammer. If I take my hammer, I could build you a house. I can also take that same hammer and I can smash your skin and destroy who you are.
If you use something that originated in our body or our voices, can we please get paid? Because now you’re using technology to take away our ability to feed our kids.
And I can’t agree more. If an AI model is being trained on the work of others, these people should be compensated for it. But everybody is bending over backwards to find a way to save money and I can understand that. What I can’t understand is this growing obsession that’s already bordering on the theft of intellectual property. There should be a line.
What do you think about the growing usage of AI in gamedev? Do you think it’s a good or a bad thing?
If you haven’t subscribed yet, this button is just for you ⤵️
🎮 Ballistic Moon faces layoffs just before the release
According to Insider Gaming, the developers of Until Dawn Remake have just laid off a number of developers before the game’s launch.
At this point, multiple Game Designers, Programmers and other people from Ballistic Moon shared their open-for-work posts on LinkedIn with a note that they were the latest victims of layoffs. There’s no telling how many of them are there, but the numbers are growing every day. The company has yet to issue their official statement on the matter.
The global trend of “restructuring”, “resource reallocation” and “reprioritization” continues to devastate the industry to this day…
That’s just cruel IMO. I know that I’m going to sound like the man who shouts at clouds, but companies behaving like wham bam, thank you ma'am with their developers are not going to get very far. Surely there are other projects and opportunities for people who worked hard on delivering the game, even though it was a remake. Until Dawn has a lot of potential, so it’s not clear to me why the company decided to let the staff go when the game hasn’t even been released yet.
⚡ Lightning Round!
1…2…3…Go!
🎮 The first Minecraft Movie trailer
Warner Bros. Pictures just released the first trailer for the Minecraft movie and IMO, despite the interesting cast, it looks a little bit weird. But I mean, it’s a freaking Minecraft movie. How else could it be, right?
🎮 Yet another No Man’s Sky update, this time with fish
The Aquarius update is the latest addition to an already impressive roster of features to this sandbox masterpiece. The update includes new fishing mechanics, deep-sea diving, boat-based exploration, new recipes, quests, and much more. And yet I still can’t find people to play this game with me…😿
📱 Destiny Rising is in progress
A mobile take on Destiny is still being developed by NetEase alongside Bungie. According to Insider Gaming and other sources, Bungie is still working on the game and there are speculations that the announcement will happen really soon. Probably as soon as the company is done with the restructuring.
🫡 True Tribute!
Today I wanted to salute
and the recent post about Star Wars Jedi: Survivor! was one of the first publication that I subscribed to when I joined Substack half a year ago and John was the first person with whom I collaborated on the guest post. A terrific author that shares a lot of interesting perspectives on a lot of different games. Give it a shot and you will not be disappointed!😄 Personal Update
I can’t believe the summer is already over. Finally 😅
With so many exciting projects releasing in the next few months, it will be a really challenging time for my wallet. But in the next few weeks, I still have a lot of work to take care of.
While I was on my trip though I had a few positive surprises that I can’t wait to share with you guys, so stay tuned for a Sunday post this week! Hopefully, with this post, I’ll be able to get back on track 😉
This is all the news I have for you folks today.
Thanks for making it this far! 🙌
If you feel like supporting me and my work, consider Powering-Up GameDev Relay 🎮
Have a great week!
Alex from Gamedev Relay.
AI is just a tool, but stealing other people’s voices, likenesses and art - that’s theft. And that’s not an AI choice. That’s a human choice.
Not paying for using an actor's voice... that's just stealing.