Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[BIONIC]

I wish was as passionate about anything in life as DeliciousSonyD is about Concord

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

who here is up for an exciting game of FOAMSTARS? 

#neverstopfoamin'

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

I wish was as passionate about anything in life as DeliciousSonyD is about Concord

it's never a bad time to start. 

Find a passion you love and never let go.

[Boredfrom]

The best bromance of the world: EpsteinXTrump

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ex-concord-devs-interview-on-a-life-well-wasted-podcast-it-was-the-most-beautiful-car-that-we-crashed.1289436/page-14#post-144868644

While I do think there's a larger "aesthetics as a reflection of values" situation here around Concord and other modern video games that truly does apply, it's only one facet. And this "aesthetics as a reflection of values" concept, and how it exists in games and reflects back on the larger culture more broadly, has been something bubbling up for awhile now. Long before Concord came and went.

...

It's like all the years ago with Oblivion's horse armor. Now you've got high end car manufacturers locking formerly included features behind goddamn recurring payment subscriptions and even worse nickel and diming than ever before. There's a causality chain here, even if people most desperately wish to pretend otherwise. Hugely popular online multiplayer video games, and what succeeds and fails within this space, absolutely is right at the heart of our increasing cultural sickness.

Here's some articles more illustrating what I've been trying to get at surrounding this. Alan Moore's Guardian article really cuts right at it. Though the WIRED pieces about Steve Bannon's relationship to World of Warcraft and how that launched him into politics is also relevant to what I've been trying to say.

...

And the "Übermensch" angle and how Concord's characters were perceived largely as "ugly"/"not cool"/not "hero" enough also feeds into my points about its failure hinting to the larger cultural fascism/creeping totalitarianism. That's something Alan Moore has noticed and commented on too and that I fully agree with him on.

...

The US fascist movement's major architect was directly inspired by the form of World of Warcraft and the social/psychological/material conditions it promotes. That was fundamentally unsurprising to me as, similar to Steve Bannon, I could see all of this lurking, waiting to be exploited. This is a directly related yet slightly different conversation topic.

Valve's former economy designer calls the modern economic environment foisted onto people via the internet and computer technology "digital fiefdoms", complete with neo "Feudal Lords" and "digital serfs". All with a ton of rent seeking behaviors, mechanisms, and techniques designed to extract ever more "rent" from the "serfs". This most specifically is the point I've been trying to drill down on when talking about this game and its failure. Beyond the aesthetics, beyond the minority representation. Beyond subjective personal tastes.

...

It turns out, maybe the children really do "yearn for the mines". They WANT these "digital fiefdoms". Supply and demand, and the supply has created and crystalized the demand. They want the limitless serfdom. They want the cages lowered down on them. When presented with a new, good, original alternative that wasn't seeking to exploit them, trying to maximize their profit/value and respected them as people and their time, it was soundly rejected. All of this is what I'm trying to get at.

Concord was good as fuck and easily justified its existence and the very paltry cost it asked of the consumer. It was very tightly, elegantly designed. People can try and use "subjectivity" in attempts to objectively define why Concord failed, but I think a lot of it (the vast majority) is total horseshit. It failed for a lot of different reasons, but a lot of those different reasons for its failure point to an increasingly dystopian reality. All I'm trying to say.

This is just a bunch of incoherent gibberish that doesn't mean anything. It's saying random buzzwords and "connecting the dots" by saying the buzzwords are somehow connected ideas when it's just gibberish. Gamify -> WoW -> Bannon -> fascism -> fiefdoms -> supply and demand -> dystopia.

Except none of these connect. What Bannon learned from WoW by his own telling is that people can become super obsessed about things, but this has nothing to do with WoW or "fandoms" because it's obvious and everyone knows it, just look at sports or religion. Bannon's purchase of Breitbart and so on he explained because he hadn't before considered you can make money from this stuff, WoW showed him that and he realized there was money in his real interest of conservative politics. WoW's "digital fiefdoms" have nothing to do with the rest and there's no connection between these and fascism because neither feudalism nor fascism operate by supply and demand. (Neither WoW nor F2P service games are examples of serfdom, as should be well known by know the vast majority of the players don't produce profit for the games. WoW is different because it's subscription based for one thing. Enjoying playing the games isn't "serfdom" because you can stop like people who played Concord did.) None of this connects to Concord because Concord didn't reject any of this, they simply failed to monetize it after spending massive amounts of capital. That's bad investment, not rejecting it ideologically. It's like saying I rejected dystopian gaming fascism because I haven't invested in The Bire when I simply don't intend any return on the "investment" since I value the operation of the community more than pittance I spend on the hosting.

I tried, for years. Didn't and doesn't matter. Lost my closest friend of almost 20 years over this motherfucker and this fascist cult movement.

They will take the cult over their loved ones. That's one of the truest signs that this shit really is a fascist movement. Hatred is more powerful and satisfying for these people.

With "friends", I've given up entirely. My parents are also in the tank, but I only really try with my dad. It's a similar dynamic of Luke Skywalker making appeals to Darth Vader. I feel like I've been breaking through, chipping away. But I'm not entirely sure. And I use Star Wars as my common deployed metaphor when going over things with my dad, as it's something we both love and it works incredibly well for analogy purposes (of course, because that was its entire point).

https://www.resetera.com/threads/september-8-2025-ap-democrats-release-suggestive-letter-to-epstein-purportedly-signed-by-trump-which-he-denies.1291884/page-6

This shows a lack of actually trying because Star Wars is a heavy handed "metaphor" in which the other side's intent is literal evil for evil's sake. Framing it as an appeal to Vader is perfectly tone deaf in this way since Vader switched sides in both instances for entirely selfish reasons and even when purportedly on the "good side" slaughtered a whole bunch of people for the same.

And you're "taking the cult over [your] loved ones" if you're rejecting them for not giving up on the cult.

[Nintex]

But who was Epsteins photographer I mean all those pictures of him an Ghislaine that's some magazine spread/cover shit.

Was it FBI informant Donald John Trump per chance?

[Boredfrom]

PogiJones: Skepticism about “everyone must have a therapist” can coexist with acknowledging targeted use cases—acute risk, stuck patterns, trauma, relational gridlock—where evidence‑based modalities (CBT, ACT, IPT, behavioral activation) tend to outperform going it alone or purely venting online. A low‑commitment trial like three sessions with a clear goal (“reduce sleep‑onset time,” “cut catastrophizing before posting,” “repair one strained relationship”) can demonstrate utility without endorsing therapy as a lifestyle.[1]

I always knew PogiJones was into Cock & Ball Torture.

[Nintex]

Ghislaine should publish a book like OJ.

Instant best seller.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/us-politics-2025-ot-taco-trump-and-the-big-beautiful-bullshit.1236576/page-56#post-144880404

pritzker being a billionaire is an issue but even bigger one is him being an AIPAC stooge. I think that's grounds for disqualification!

[HaughtyFrank]

The best bromance of the world: EpsteinXTrump

It's so funny that he wrote a letter that basically says "We both have an amazing secret we can't tell anyone   "

Would almost be even funnier if he isn't a pedo and he was talking about tennis or some shit

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

Every single one of these people would smoke Nep's non-binary cock if they thought it would get them one rung up the prominent member ladder.

She's "one of the good ones" who is trying to reform the corrupt institution from within.

But she's the most corrupt! 

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/us-politics-2025-ot-taco-trump-and-the-big-beautiful-bullshit.1236576/page-56#post-144880404

pritzker being a billionaire is an issue but even bigger one is him being an AIPAC stooge. I think that's grounds for disqualification!

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

Loud terminally online people who might call themselves leftists but probably never vote anyway don't matter.

Leftists that actually care about improving society somewhat probably wouldn't be too against Pritzker.

Whether or not he can win the presidency, I don't know, but that doesn't really come down to leftists anyway.

VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO 

No

[Boredfrom]

I think is probably genuinely a good time to try to dissuade your family from following an asshole politician now that is almost clear that the dude, at the best interpretation, was a pedophile enabler.

I think is worth the shoot.

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

lil bro was known to fly the lolita express before 2024. I think it's a little too late for those cultists.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

Let's stop this "harm reduction" thing before it spreads.

HARM MAXIMISATION!

[DavidCroquet]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ex-concord-devs-interview-on-a-life-well-wasted-podcast-it-was-the-most-beautiful-car-that-we-crashed.1289436/page-14#post-144868644

[quote=DeliciousSunnyD!]I agree with a lot of the stuff you've written here for the most part.

This is a super long post, so I'm nesting it all inside of one big quote box.

After this post, I'm officially checking out of this entire conversation with anyone. People are free to PM me if they'd actually like to talk with me directly, privately about this though (and I've had a few messages in the year since talking with me about all this shit)

It's pretty clear that I'm struggling to properly convey my points. Or that rather, people are struggling to grasp them.

While I do think there's a larger "aesthetics as a reflection of values" situation here around Concord and other modern video games that truly does apply, it's only one facet. And this "aesthetics as a reflection of values" concept, and how it exists in games and reflects back on the larger culture more broadly, has been something bubbling up for awhile now. Long before Concord came and went.

Mainly, I've been trying to say that Concord was an absolutely incredibly designed and crafted video game. And that it being unable to find enough, modest success (I am not speaking about it becoming a worldwide, all-consuming phenomenon) is not an indictment against the game of Concord and its quality or supposed lack-thereof. That it's instead an indictment on a greater number of other things. Namely, people's collective (failing) ability to accurately judge (broadly speaking, "A person is smart, people are dumb" - MIB Tommy Lee Jones paraphrase lol), and the media and social environment of today (a huge reason the game failed was because Sony didn't understand how to market this in this new media environment, which I've felt has been a problem with their online MP games p much the entire time they've been trying to publish them). Sony's made a bunch of really incredible multiplayer games over the years, and one of the things they've always really struggled with is the ability to market them.

For me, Concord was easily the best designed and made multiplayer game Sony has ever published, and I've played almost all of their biggest ones since the 90's. It took the throne of the initial period of The Last of Us Factions before ND mucked its design balance up as the "singular best" MP game that Sony produced.

Concord may have worn its inspirations on its sleeves, but I think describing it as "regressive" or "unoriginal", isn't true at all. (Aside from being a shooting game, which I get your point there) I do think that more applies to something like Marvel Rivals, which is another game I'll never touch and play either. Just because Concord had a sweeping suite of pretty obvious inspiration sources, doesn't mean it was regressive and unoriginal. Really, there's no original things. All things take inspiration from that which comes before, then collates those inspirations into something remixed yet not wholly, completely new and original. This goes for all human works, games and otherwise.

I would argue that if Concord would have been virtually the exact same game as it was, but they swapped out their original characters for a known IP such as Star Wars or Marvel (two of its obvious sources of inspiration), it wouldn't have met the same fate. And this point speaks very specifically to the point I've been trying to articulate. But it also, IMHO, would have been a different, and lesser game, if it had to lean on established brands. And it absolutely shouldn't have had to do that.

Or if instead of it being a brand new, wholly unknown studio behind its construction, it was a new game from a known, widely beloved dev instead. If the splash screen leading its unveiling was "Bungie", "Blizzard", or "Valve", would it have seen nearly the same degree of indifference and hatred? I seriously doubt it. Hell, there's practically cold hard proof of these points being the reality considering Marvel Rivals in comparison and its success (before speaking to the economic model).

Those points, plus the economic model of Concord versus something like the F2P model and the broader effects on not just video games and their designs, but culture more broadly outside of games themselves.

It's like all the years ago with Oblivion's horse armor. Now you've got high end car manufacturers locking formerly included features behind goddamn recurring payment subscriptions and even worse nickel and diming than ever before. There's a causality chain here, even if people most desperately wish to pretend otherwise. Hugely popular online multiplayer video games, and what succeeds and fails within this space, absolutely is right at the heart of our increasing cultural sickness.

Here's some articles more illustrating what I've been trying to get at surrounding this. Alan Moore's Guardian article really cuts right at it. Though the WIRED pieces about Steve Bannon's relationship to World of Warcraft and how that launched him into politics is also relevant to what I've been trying to say.

Alan Moore writing for The Guardian: 'Fandom has toxified the world': Watchman author Alan Moore on superheroes, Comicsgate, and Trump
[quote]About a decade ago, I ventured my opinion that the adult multitudes queueing for superhero movies were potentially an indicator of emotional arrest, which could have worrying political and social implications. Since at that time Brexit, Donald Trump and fascist populism hadn't happened yet, my evidently crazy diatribe was largely met with outrage from the fan community, some of whom angrily demanded I be extradited to the US and made to stand trial for my crimes against superhumanity – which I felt didn't necessarily disprove my allegations.

Ten years on, let me make my position clear: I believe that fandom is a wonderful and vital organ of contemporary culture, without which that culture ultimately stagnates, atrophies and dies. At the same time, I'm sure that fandom is sometimes a grotesque blight that poisons the society surrounding it with its mean-spirited obsessions and ridiculous, unearned sense of entitlement. Perhaps this statement still requires some breaking down.
. . . . .
Unnervingly rapidly, our culture has become a fan-based landscape that the rest of us are merely living in. Our entertainments may be cancelled prematurely through an adverse fan reaction, and we may endure largely misogynist crusades such as Gamergate or Comicsgate from those who think "gate" means "conspiracy", and that Nixon's disgrace was predicated on a plot involving water, but this is hardly the full extent to which fan attitudes have toxified the world surrounding us, most obviously in our politics.

Alan Moore here in this article is precisely, exactly speaking to the very points I am trying to make regarding what's happened here.

And the "Übermensch" angle and how Concord's characters were perceived largely as "ugly"/"not cool"/not "hero" enough also feeds into my points about its failure hinting to the larger cultural fascism/creeping totalitarianism. That's something Alan Moore has noticed and commented on too and that I fully agree with him on.

WIRED - Trump Campaign CEO's Little Known World of Warcraft Career

Before he became CEO of the Donald Trump campaign, and before he took over the alt-right media outlet Breitbart, Steve Bannon made his living selling virtual gold on the Internet.

Today, an article in Mother Jones reminded us that back in 2008 we here at WIRED wrote about it. The story focuses on the World of Warcraft marketplace called Internet Gaming Entertainment, where players could pay real money for virtual goods, like gold, in the game. The company was founded by former child star Brock Pierce, and Bannon was an investor. Bannon managed to convince Goldman Sachs to plow $60 million into a company that sold imaginary goods in an imaginary world.
Surely there's a metaphor in there somewhere.
In 2007, following a major lawsuit by one World of Warcraft player, who accused IGE of "substantially impairing" players' enjoyment of the game, the company took a nosedive. It rebranded to Affinity Media, and Bannon took over as CEO. He stayed in that role until 2012, when he joined Breitbart, which, coincidentally, also peddles imaginary stuff on the Internet.

You should go read the whole story.

The original Wired story from 2008:
The Decline and Fall of an Ultra Rich Online Gaming Empire

The US fascist movement's major architect was directly inspired by the form of World of Warcraft and the social/psychological/material conditions it promotes. That was fundamentally unsurprising to me as, similar to Steve Bannon, I could see all of this lurking, waiting to be exploited. This is a directly related yet slightly different conversation topic.

Valve's former economy designer calls the modern economic environment foisted onto people via the internet and computer technology "digital fiefdoms", complete with neo "Feudal Lords" and "digital serfs". All with a ton of rent seeking behaviors, mechanisms, and techniques designed to extract ever more "rent" from the "serfs". This most specifically is the point I've been trying to drill down on when talking about this game and its failure. Beyond the aesthetics, beyond the minority representation. Beyond subjective personal tastes.

Concord wasn't positioning itself as a "digital fiefdom" seeking a sea of "digital serfs" to generate constant "rent"; its economic form (and overall form and design top to bottom) communicated as much. Though let me be clear: they DID seek to eventually generate additional revenue overtime with an added cosmetics storefront. Though we have no clue how that would have truly materialized. But it wasn't the same thing at all IMHO. It assuredly would have been much more player friendly, just as the rest of the game was.

And here's another comparative illustration I'd like to make.

Helldivers 2 at $40 succeeded. Concord at $40 flopped. PvE versus PvP no doubt matters here, but just how different were the games in material quality, truly? Really? Both were smaller scale/scope shooting multiplayer games at their core, both with strong action mechanics a (moving and shooting was strong in both but I'm only judging HD2 from a distance here as I've not played it; it looked solid in this realm) and a bit new tweaks on long established and popular designs. Helldivers 2 was an evolution on Halo's firefight. Concord was an evolution on Halo's traditional arena multiplayer design. One game is almost like stepping into the shoes of Imperial Stormtroopers. The other was more like stepping into the shoes of the Millenium Falcon rebels (Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, and the droids).

The collective gaming audience ate up the Stormtrooper power fantasy, but they hit the Millennium Falcon Rebel Alliance power fantasy with the Death Star laser. RIP to the Northstar (which is a spaceship I'll remember fondly right alongside the Millennium Falcon).

It turns out, maybe the children really do "yearn for the mines". They WANT these "digital fiefdoms". Supply and demand, and the supply has created and crystalized the demand. They want the limitless serfdom. They want the cages lowered down on them. When presented with a new, good, original alternative that wasn't seeking to exploit them, trying to maximize their profit/value and respected them as people and their time, it was soundly rejected. All of this is what I'm trying to get at.

Concord was good as fuck and easily justified its existence and the very paltry cost it asked of the consumer. It was very tightly, elegantly designed. People can try and use "subjectivity" in attempts to objectively define why Concord failed, but I think a lot of it (the vast majority) is total horseshit. It failed for a lot of different reasons, but a lot of those different reasons for its failure point to an increasingly dystopian reality. All I'm trying to say.

I played and was interested in four brand new games last year. Concord, Balatro, UFO 50, and the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion for Elden Ring. I put hundreds of hours into each of these games (just a hundred roughly with Concord, but I wish I could have gotten at least 10 to 20 times that amount of game time in it). Balatro, UFO 50, and SotE are all, definitively, three of the absolute greatest video games ever made, ever. And my attitude towards them lines up with the general consensus. Concord was in their midst and was even the best game of them. I stand by this statement. I'd stack it over the other 3 and the other 3 are GOATs. And to give some context for my "playing ability" and "Gamur Cred" (lmfao!) speaking on these games, I played through SotE entirely solo and beat its legendary final boss solo before they'd hit it with the nerf bat quickly after release. So I do seriously play plenty of video games, to give myself some credibility here. But I am incredibly particular with what I spend my time and money on. I play a lot of a very tiny amount of video games; I'm incredibly particular/selective.

And Concord had more than earned my time and money. I'd said this in the OT for it, but I'll resay it here. Concord was so good IMHO that I'd have easily paid $2000 to play it singularly (saying Concord easily could have been the only game I bought & played on the PS5 and it'd have more than justified its purchase for me). Hell, I feel this way about it just for being able to play it the ~115 hours or so while it existed.

I say this because I've historically done similar for other games I feel very high on. Bought a brand new 3DS XL at full MSRP to only play Super Mario 3D Land. It is still the only game I've owned and played on the 3DS. Bought both the highest end last two Xboxes and spent several hundreds of dollars on XBL and controllers almost exclusively to play Halo 5 and Infinite (…). I probably have more fond memories of Concord's two weeks than I do across the entirety of H5 and Infinite (and I loved H5 & think that's another game that had a raw deal). It didn't last long, but it burned bright and brilliantly, and I'm incredibly thankful to have gotten the limited playtime in it that I did.

Oh and thanks for name dropping Papers Please. That seems like an absolutely incredible game for sure, another one that I've not played (as I'm almost exclusively interested in playing action games over just about everything else). But considering all I know, the things I've written here, and what I think and feel about things/my personal values, I probably would love that game. Probably should check it out sometime.

Counterpoint:

[Orange Juice Box]

I'll be sure to DM you before I make any jokes from now on 🫡
luckily I'm almost never joking

 They think people will care if they get banned.  He's a lame ass, "character," that contributes shit to the LGBTQ community there.  You never see him say anything more substantial then "fuck ______." I don't think they've even posted in the Harry Potter thread.  

Loud terminally online people who might call themselves leftists but probably never vote anyway don't matter.

Leftists that actually care about improving society somewhat probably wouldn't be too against Pritzker.

Whether or not he can win the presidency, I don't know, but that doesn't really come down to leftists anyway.

VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO 

No

I was thinking how we don't actually have leftists on Era.  We have liberals who are   extreme    single issue voters.  People willing (wanting) to see the other side win if they don't get their way.  They just call that leftism.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

 They think people will care if they get banned.  He's a lame ass, "character," that contributes shit to the LGBTQ community there.  You never see him say anything more substantial then "fuck ______." I don't think they've even posted in the Harry Potter thread.  

After all the KetKat drama the users there know that brigading to get a permaban reversed will never work again. This worthless sack of shit thinks he'll be the one to change that.

[Orange Juice Box]

This will be funny when Era says, "she's just faking it.  You can tell by some secret shibboleth only true believers can see, that she's only pretending to be as virtuous as we are to win awards.  She'll probably do a movie with Ryan Reynolds next!"  

Or some shit to when reality bangs against the "factually true," ideas in their heads.


https://archive.ph/xSjBO

Christy, directed by David Michod, is at its most interesting when it occasionally steps outside the conventions of a biopic and interrogates the issues of sexuality and femininity in the backdrop of Christy’s story. Jim pressures Christy to dress and behave more stereotypically feminine (so much pink), no matter how it clashes with her pugnacious athleticism.

Gabor plays Christy’s teenage girlfriend, a thwarted first love who lingers as a great what-if in Christy’s life before resurfacing at a crucial time. Meanwhile, Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding) plays Christy’s rival boxer Lisa Holewyne, who appears only a handful of times but whose story intertwines with Christy’s in a satisfying way.
It’s tough to tell how much Sweeney’s status as a MAGA horcrux (and the degree to which her own politics do or do not lean right) matters to anyone beyond the very online, but Christy is bound to stymie easy narratives. It’s not a movie that attempts to hide its title character’s complicated sexuality, and the filmmakers make no bones about Jim’s abuse being rooted in a controlling misogyny and homophobia.

It’s a star vehicle that aims to do for Sweeney what Monster did for Charlize Theron or I, Tonya did for Margot Robbie.

[Uncle]

what the fuck

she needs to switch to PNG

[simiansmarts]

Loud terminally online people who might call themselves leftists but probably never vote anyway don't matter.

Leftists that actually care about improving society somewhat probably wouldn't be too against Pritzker.

Whether or not he can win the presidency, I don't know, but that doesn't really come down to leftists anyway.

VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO 

No

[Boredfrom]

Avocaboo?

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

Loud terminally online people who might call themselves leftists but probably never vote anyway don't matter.

Leftists that actually care about improving society somewhat probably wouldn't be too against Pritzker.

Whether or not he can win the presidency, I don't know, but that doesn't really come down to leftists anyway.

VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO 

No

[books]

Why is Bdibs such a pussy? Its one thing to not be plugged into online 24/7 and therefore that shit doesn't count, but his focus is terminally online folks; they're literally shitting on him and his weird algorithms that always seems to bring in racists and whatnot and he OBVIOUSLY sees this. Hes the kid getting shit on by another loser and refusing to do anything about it.

Edit- id do what I did in HS and push him to get into a fight if I could but im no longer a bully and already am banned from Ree.

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

MOD EDIT: Droops is an egg 

[HaughtyFrank]

Counterpoint:

I forgot just how bad it was



Meticulously crafted in a laboratory to appeal to no one

[books]

Concord was the culmination of exclusive test marketing run amok. 

Or racism.

[benji]

I forgot just how bad it was



Meticulously crafted in a laboratory to appeal to no one

Man out here admitting he doesn't understand anti-fascist aesthetics when he sees them.

[books]

Queer yellow trash can robot was the best.