Marvel Rivals director discusses possible reasons behind Concord’s failure

In a parallel universe, Marvel Rivals and Concord might have been distant competitors, but in our reality, the two titles have had contrasting fortunes.

While the hero shooter containing superheroes and villains from the Marvel universe is off to a flying start, Concord’s launch was disastrous, to say the least. Much has been made about why Sony’s mega project didn’t manage to get a strong reception from the audience, and it appears that Thaddeus Sasser, who is the game director of Marvel Rivals, has two key points as possible reasons.

Marvel Rivals director believes Concord didn’t offer unique value

In a podcast with VideoGamer, Sasser shared his insights about why Concord might have failed to lift off. This podcast happened before Marvel Rivals launched, and Sasser believes that there wasn’t anything in Concord to make players forego the resources they might have invested in similar titles like Overwatch.

There’s a switching cost,

I’ve already invested in Overwatch, I’ve got 15 skins for Pharah, I’m not going anywhere.”

Sasser was pretty cautious about his predictions for Marvel Rivals back then, emphasizing on the relatively-uncertain nature of the video game industry.

The truth is that I don’t think anybody can accurately predict this or the game industry would be radically different today. There’s 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.”

On the podcast, Sasser was hopeful that fans would be able to share the same love he has about the project, with the Marvel characters being the highlight. One week later, it’s certain that Marvel Rivals has been getting the love of the community.

Be it the Steam reviews or concurrent player count on PC alone, Marvel Rivals has managed to become an instant hit with the fans. It’s not only about the characters, as the roster offers decent variety. The microtransactions are truly optional, and players don’t miss out on any key gameplay component if they choose not to spend.

Concord, on the other hand, had a poor launch, and it proved to be fatal for the project. While the developers did continue to make updates to improve the situation at hand, Sony decided to pull the plug on the project, and there’s no way of knowing if the IP has any future at all.

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