There’s much that’s been said about Concord. As you can imagine, tons of people have come out of the woodwork giving unsolicited advice to tis developers, Firewalk Studios. However, one voice has emerged with just a bit more authority than your average YouTuber.
Laura Fryer was one of the very first members of Microsoft Game Studios when it formed in 1995, and the Xbox project in 2000. She helped launch the Xbox as a console and a company, and worked for the likes of Microsoft, Sony, and Epic games on franchises like Gears of War, Zoo Tycoon, and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
Fryer seemingly disappeared from the public eye in a while, but reemerged with this newly formed YouTube channel to talk about making games. And her new video about Concord is worth watching, even if you don’t work at Firewalk Studios.
Fryer believes that the Firewalk Studios suffered from breaking their internal feedback loop. She cites her own experiencing producing the games Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Gotham City Impostors. Just so we’re clear on this now: she says the mistake they made making those games seems to mirror the mistakes Sony and Firewalk made with Concord.
In the case of Vanguard, Fryer explained that its studio, Sigil Games, was hostile to feedback. She saw that the genre that Vanguard was entering into had just been disrupted by the launch of World of Warcaft.
Sigil’s game, in contrast, was clearly made in the mold of Everquest. Fryer explained that in this situation, because there were people at Sigil who refused to accept or act on feedback, other people who wanted to give that feedback learned to go quiet, or left the company. Vanguard flopped in the face of World of Warcaft, and in this situation, this was clearly a case of the developers not adjusting appropriately.
Gotham City Impostors was a different story. This was Monolith’s push to online gaming, before the tropes of live service games were clearly defined. Fryer explained that Monolith’s staff didn’t have the self-awareness to realize that the character designs they made and enjoyed among each other did not resonate with the players. In this case, they did get the feedback, and sought to make corrections on the title. Fryer was VP of Monolith at this time, and she explained that in spite of their willingness to make changes, the devs had a hard time accepting that feedback.
Fryer paints a picture of game studios that some gamers may not realize even existed, or may have forgotten that they knew about. We’re sure many of you can relate to situations like this in your workplaces as well (we know some of you reading this are adults). We note that Fryer shared some numbers for Concord, but she did not claim to have insider knowledge, and simply used what information she found online as a launching point.
What really gives Fryer’s video credibility is that she used games she helped making, and that failed, as her examples. You can tell that she really lived through the rigors of game development in the trenches, and her insight is genuinely valuable. You can watch Fryer’s history lesson below.
