It doesn't take a genius to realise that Concord has bombed. Sony's PS5 and PC hero shooter has, by all accounts, seriously struggled to attract players. At this point, it's common knowledge that the title almost immediately crashed and burned on Steam, where its frankly dismal user numbers are publicly available. It took just days for the game's concurrent player count to drop into double-digit figures (at the time of writing, it sits at a borderline unbelievable 64 players).
But what about on PS5? The general consensus is that Concord will have sold better on Sony's system, where marketing has been more aggressive — but with the Steam numbers being so damningly low, it's difficult to imagine the title doing that much better on console.
And so the analysts have started weighing in — and the picture that they're painting is somehow even more disastrous than we had anticipated. For starters, industry veteran Mat Piscatella (via IGN), says that on Monday the 26th August, Concord ranked 147th for daily active players on PS5, in the US. That equates to 0.2% of all PS5 users just three days after the game's full release.
It gets worse. Analyst Simon Carless recently published a report on Concord through the GameDiscoverCo newsletter (paywall), which attempts to break down trends on how games are discovered, and why they end up selling like they do. Through his analysis of available data, Carless (also via IGN) estimates that Concord has sold around 25,000 copies in total. That's roughly 15,000 on PS5, and 10,000 on PC. If accurate, that's beyond abysmal.
And, just anecdotally, it's worth mentioning that our video producer Aaron has actually been playing Concord on PS5 over the last week or so — and even he's started to notice dramatically increased waiting times when searching for players. We're talking four, five, six minutes per game, compared to when the matchmaking was pretty much instantaneous during the review period.
It's looking bad for Concord, then. Real bad. Again, we're left wondering whether anything can be done to save the project. Going free-to-play seems like the most obvious move, but as we've mentioned several times before now, Concord has already been branded a total flop — and that's a notoriously difficult perception to shake.
What do you make of this whole saga? Did you think the underlying numbers were really this bad? Miss all of your shots in the comments section below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 174
25,000? JESUS CHRIST that's terrible 😅😂😂😂 like I expected it to be low but even I'm shocked it's THIS LOW! 😂
I think it's sold bad but I'd be surprised if it's that low. The problem is whether it's 25,000 or 250,000, it doesn't really matter. It's still a disaster.
That’s the gamble of live service games.
This one should really get everybody going.
It’ll be free to play in like 10 minutes, where it should’ve started, and may see some moderate success.
That's a big issue with live service games. If they bomb they essentially die completely. At least if a single player game bombs it's possible to enjoy it regardless of how well it does. There's also a chance it will become a solid legacy title or successful franchise if it's a good game.
Speaking with friends in the industry, the general consensus is that initially spending big on a live service game is a huge waste of money. It's much better practice to invest a smaller amount on developing a more simple game with solid foundations that you then build on it if it takes off. Going in with 8 years of development and investing $300m without even testing the waters first is borderline insanity.
My only opinion on Concord is that they actively tried to make the most unappealing cast of characters ever created.
I pegged the total sales to being somewhere between 35-40k units sold. That's bad enough, but 25k units with most people probably buying the $40 version is so awful that it defies belief. And that's before Valve and Epic take their cut of the sales too on PC.
I don't think I've seen a AAA bomb on this scale in my lifetime. I'm really struggling to think of another AAA game within the last decade that financially debuted so poorly. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at PlayStation HQ and Firewalk right now.
Good. This godawful trend for live service nonsense has to stop, and hopefully Sony gets the message. We’ll happily wait for quality games like GoW or TLOU and don’t need another flop like this.
We don’t get bloodborne 2 but this and Destruction Allstars get heavily pushed? Dire move. Sh!tcan the damn thing now and give out refunds.
This could make a great youtube documentary in the future, feel sorry for the staff involved. It did play pretty good aswell.
@Kanji-Tatsumi I watched a really good video on YouTube that analyzed how poor the character designs are beyond style, and it really opened my eyes to how badly the art and character design teams screwed up. Link below if anyone wants to check it out.
https://youtu.be/5eymH15AfAU?si=AE6d-EKzipYQJFVs
Release stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I made some harsh comments on this game. But actually, I feel pity for the devs, being forced to make a copycat and haven’t been able to give it a soul and identy.
@Johnnycide They can do both you know? People love Helldivers 2. It's not like Firewalk Studios would of been doing Bloodborne 2 if they didn't do Concord.
@get2sammyb No. 250k is a disaster, 25k is a nightmare and bitchslap.
Oh dear. Looks like the negativity campaign worked a treat. Well done 👏
@Max_the_German forced by who? This was they're own studio that Sony brought few years ago. The game started development 8 years ago.
@Johnnycide Agreed. Now hopefully Fairgame$ and Marathon are a disaster too.
People routing for it to fail is such a weird thing to me. It's not your type of game, great, fair enough, move on. It doesn't affect you if there's a game out there you don't like and have no intention of playing. Sony are still going to make single-player games for you to play.
This is genuinely depressing. It’s clear a lot of heart and talent was put into it the game but it’s been really killed by two things: silence regarding the games monetization model and the up front price. Many other hero shooters are free to play, why is this different? What does it offer that they don’t? Why do you have to choose a new hero after every match? How do you even truly enjoy the characters if you’re blocked from using them after one round? How do seasons work? Buy once play forever, sure, but surely seasons cost something?
These are all questions the developers danced around or outright refused to answer, and the general consensus is that it’s because the answer isn’t a good one.
Gamers are far more cynical than we used to be because we’re tired of games launching as get rich quick schemes, trend chasing or just buggy messes. Developers need to adapt to that. It’s not that your game is bad, it’s that you need more to sell us on it. The same exact formula as five, six or ten years ago at a higher price point doesn’t work. Copies will sell, sure, but breaking even with the development cost is becoming less and less common. Developers, the toxic ones that can’t kick a Twitter addiction that is, used to say that if gamers don’t like it then don’t buy it. Less and less people are buying now, and those same people are silent. This is what happens when you alienate your community.
That's good. Sony needs to wake up. It has been a sad generation so far.
This is by far one of the biggest gaming failures of all time. I've heard that Sony is on track to lose between 1 and 2 hundred million pounds. I doubt that the studio will make the end of the year either.
PushSquare needs to do a full post mortem on this game because this whole situation is fascinating. Something historic has happened here and I am not completely sure as to how and why.
@Bentleyma no, but Sony invested in this instead of another game like Bloodborne. That’s the issue.
I own Helldivers 2 and haven’t played in months, that’ll be dead in 18 months too.
Guys, just to give You some perspective, February 2009 - Killzone 2 sells 30 000 copies... in POLAND
@Ssimsim Please correct me if I’m wrong. Studios like Firewalk usually don’t have the money to start development of these big scale games. They need a publisher who funds it, and the publisher pushes the game in a commercial viable direction.
Did Firesprite start development without publisher, was Sony the publisher from the beginning?
@Johnnycide all of Sony studios that made games on previous gens are still making single player games. In fact they've added housemaque, bluepoint, insomniac to that list. Yes they've signed a couple of studios for multiplayer how does this stop them making single player games.
The sad truth of the matter is that a lot of those early players were probably reviewers.
@RBMango Ha ha I was watched this exact video earlier today what a coincidence ^__^
Not every game hits. This one didn’t.
Sony just have to take the Loss and move on. It’s all they can do.
What saddens me is it just gives ammunition to the haters who were either triggered by pronouns, Sony's live service push or online games in general.
The same people who will come for Fairgame$ too. No one will ever convince me that Concord deserved the hate it got not the general lack of empathy for Firewalk Studios.
(Sets sights on Fairgame$)
You may Fire when ready
@RBMango in its ever so so so slight minuscule defence. It probably isn’t AAA. But that’s about it.
It's embarrassing how happy some people are getting over a game failing which in return will lead to people losing their jobs or Studio closures.
If you don't like a certain game then move on and play one of the thousand other games available instead of fixating on one game to fail so it's inflates your ego.
@Max_the_German firewalk you mean? They're publishing partnership started in 2021 then like year later brought the studio. The game was being developed many many years before this so Sony forced them to make this? Nobody forced it this was the ex bungie and Activision Devs that decided to make this.
There is no way that a Last of Us live service game would have done this bad. Concord had everything going against it from the start. It’s just a sad affair that I hope Sony moves away from quickly. It may cost them hundreds of millions, but their AAA story based single player titles are what got them To where they are in the industry.
I honestly hope this pushes the game to being F2P or emergency offloaded to PS+. I dunno. I liked it. I just didn’t buy it because the player count was so low and I didn’t want to spend $40 on a game that shuts down after a year. So yeah, I’d like to play it. Sure, the characters are not well designed, but I do like the gameplay.
People didn't buy the game because they didn't want to. Nothing to do with campaigns.
There was a massive campaign against Hogwarts and people still parted with thier money in huge numbers. Every year there's plenty of negativity against FIFA and COD and they still sell well. GTA is usually accompanied by a campaign against it for various reasons. Diablo Immortal faced a campaign because it was on mobile, and made millions anyway.
The number of games that have failed because of a pre-launch campaign can be counted on the fingers of a mitten. Even Star Wars BF2 sold loads at launch and we all knew if was full of lootboxes because of a huge campaign!
If this game were appealing it would've sold. Unfortunately, it seems the characters in it are totally unappealing, from what I've read.
Whatsmore, IF by some quirk of fate a campaign against this game were the result of it not selling, well that would show us that gamers who play this type of game agree with the campaign and so why should anyone be upset? Especially those who never intended to buy it anyway.
We are not required to buy a game we don't want no matter how much work devs have put into it. Know your audience. Don't make something people don't want. This is why Disney is failing with Star Wars TV shows and recent Marvel films, until Deadpool.
I'm sure the game's fine and all that, but where's the hook? You can't just cobble together things that made other games successful without something to make your product stand out. I've seen nothing from Concord that sets it aside from anything else.
I legit would really love Jim Ryan's opinion or reaction to this situation. He's the one who went to Firewalk Studios, took a look at Concord (which was 6 years in) and probably shouted "this is incredible! Not only do we need this for PlayStation but we need you to be part of our family asap!!"
@Ssimsim I keep seeing people say Firewalk’s devs were forced to make Concord… it’s super weird they were independent for six years. This game, and its characters, were locked in when Sony bought them.
Just imagine if they spent the 200 million dollars remaking bloodborne, the ps3 infamous games, and the ps3 ratchet and clank game. They would have billions, or just invest in another spiderman game or anything but this *****. Hopefully this is a lesson for playstation that single player is king and we don't want their attempts at multiplayer
@Malaise a ps5 pro is needed to play the games made for ps5 at 4k60fps
Sad Dads unite! 🥳
They should of doubled down on the jiggling Cheeseburger. Far more interesting and delicious.
Poor Simon Carless, I hope he gets to drive some day!
@Frmknst people are still playing Bloodborne. It’s 10 years old and still popular. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s sold more than Concord in the last year.
@TrickyDicky99 that’s cruel but I do agree 🤣
I know I will come across as an *****, but I don't really see celebrating this game's failure as a problem. Concord is one of the big representatives of Jim Ryan's aggressive live service initiative (alongside Fairgames and Marathon), and I totally understand why someone who hated this initiative would see its catastrophic launch as a victory. Obviously, the devs don't deserve to be harassed or anything like that, but I'm not willing to pass judgment on those who take some joy or relief in seeing Concord fail.
@Tecinthebrain It was actually current co-CEO Hermen Hulst who did that:
https://x.com/hermenhulst/status/1385233214076329987
Not only was the trend chasing a terrible idea, but the game is just kind of bad. Sure, there’s a lot of internet haters and disappointed Sony fans who never wanted this type of content from them, but that doesn’t account for numbers THIS low. A poor product in a sea of really competent ones does, though. Especially when the rest of the lot tend to be free to play. I’m worried they’re going to double down to try to rescue it, pump resources into it, make it f2p, to try to justify the costs sunk. It’s either that or it gets turned off in a couple months.
I feel sorry for the devs. This was their debut game and it is performing horribly. I bet morale for them is at a all time low.
@UltimateOtaku91 Just got to accept that's how some people's minds work. Anything that isn't tailored specifically to you is taking away money/time/resources and that's bad. It doesn't matter that the two things are in no way linked
I hope the people celebrating this failure won't be complaining about Sony on this site when Firewalk gets closed down, all staff are layed off and there's a price rise to something to cover the loss. Don't forget that's what you advocated for....
Let’s assume every copy was digital so we don’t need to factor in the cut from game stores and packaging. Let’s even assume literally everyone bought the $60 digital deluxe version. Taking into consideration the cut that Steam gets from games: That would be $1320000 and that’s with all the best possible conditions. I don’t know where the $100 million budget came from, but the budget was undoubtedly high. This is maybe the biggest bomb in the game industry ever.
@TedLassoNikes Yeah but it's a single game in a market that consists of thousands of other games. I'd get it if there's only an handful of games releasing per year then yeah you would want to make sure you're getting games you actually want. Also Firewalk have never made another game, so Sony haven't stopped them developing single player games to make Concord as they were working on it before they got acquired. Sony haven't taken anything away from these gamers by making Concord.
@commentlife agreed. I think there's been a series of mistakes made with this game, but the main one was charging money for it when there are games in the same niche as it that are free, established, with more content, better character design and arguably better gameplay. It's not like Helldivers 2 that brought something new to GaaS with its visceral, bombastic, satirical co-op mayhem that understood how to give players a spectacle.
I hope that Astro Bot sells more than 2.5 million copies in the first week so Sony realizes there’s a 100000x times more interest in a good single-player game (that doesn’t even have to be AAA blockbuster) than a live-service BS.
This is the biggest failure ever put out by PlayStation Studios and maybe the whole industry as the cost of buying the 100+ staffs studio and developing this game costed around 200-300 million, and I will keep asking until the end of time what the heck did Sony see in the game to even buy the studio, and the game itself isn’t even that bad, just unappealing and irrelevant in the current market.
Concord was never for me to begin with, but it is equal parts fascinating and saddening to observe the unmitigated failure from afar. For as much as people online mitch and bone about big AAA games like GTA and TLoU, they still sell like absolute gangbusters — here, seems everyone voted with their wallet.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Factions 2 would have sold better.
I’m not saying they should have released Factions 2, but if there was a hypothetical choice between promoting Concord or Factions, it’s absolutely a no-brainer.
I'm hoping Sony keep Firewalk around and get them making their next game or give them TLOU Factions to finish. So far Concords sales have brought in revenue of £1 million and Sony surely atleast paid £100 million for Firewalk, that's atleast a loss of £99 million for the creation of this game so far. If the studio gets closed then Sony will be looking to cover that cost by raising prices in some areas.
25k is actually more than I thought. I was hoping it would do less than that.
When we saw the little teaser trailer for this I was expecting a cool sci-fi shooter with characters that were closer to the something like the space marines out of Aliens or a John carpenter movie or something.
Yeah it was my own fault for thinking that but I definitely don't like this modern audience slop that it turned out to be.
@Deoxyr1bose it probably has competition from Anthem.
@UltimateOtaku91 I agree with you. I don't see why Sony can't release all kinds of different games, otherwise all we'll be left with is sequels and people complaining there's no innovation (not that Concord turned out to be innovative of course!)
@Malaise no company builds mountains as a mountain is unable to sustain growth.
@jrt87 as usual I agree with you.
@UltimateOtaku91 I won’t celebrate it but the truth is that Sony should’ve never bought them, I’m not sure what they can do with them now as they only bought them for multiplayer/live service games but I hope they don’t immediately write them off.
I think they did everything wrong with the game, from the business model, character designs, reveal process and even the gameplay reveal and beta testing was done way too late, testing should’ve started at least 6 months before launch and that would’ve give them time to adjust the slow gameplay or come up with better character designs to at least try to turn it around, but beginning the testing barely a month before launch with no chance to change anything while public perception is already bad was yet another mistake, but all those mistakes are on them, not the players, and why the game has failed so badly, not because of some hate campaign or harsh comments on Push Square.
Removed - trolling/baiting
@Malaise that's a bit better 😁
@thefourfoldroot1 It's been confirmed that the game will have paid cosmetics aka microtransactions anyway, on top of costing 40 dollars.
You couldn't even fact check something this simple, yet here you are calling people morons.
@IOI I agree Sony/Firewalk did a lot wrong with the game, it's like they rushed it out as it was a quiet year for them other than Astro Bot. I think charging for it was the biggest mistake especially as it offered no story missions which I think could have helped it gain appeal especially if they were PvE based, it's something the Overwatch fans craved but never got. It's too risky to make a PvP only game and ask for money for it and then announce plans before release to add MTX later.
Also have the Beta 6-12 months before release, ask for feedback and change the game accordingly. The vignettes are cool to see but add some gameplay element to them either single player or PvE, add battle passes as that's what people are addicted to these days, make the overall gameplay a bit faster and add some playstation themed content into the game. All this could have been implemented if they had feedback a lot sooner.
@Malaise Don't give them ideas lol
Seriously though I think their best approach would be to make single player games that also have a separate multiplayer mode as well like TLOU 1, GoT, Killzone and Uncharted, but this time add MTX to them as well.
Awful decision-making to go live with this but cancel the Last of Us multiplayer game. Hopefully PS5 top brass can realign with what gamers actually want and not make mistakes like this again.
@Gaia093
You know full well the thrust of my argument is correct. No need to be petty. This failed in large part as it wasn’t free, games that are free need aggressive monetisation strategies. This is about as weak as it gets with a few paid for cosmetics.
This was expected and the same will happen to Fairgames (another garbage for what was shown). I hope Sony takes this flop as a message and returns to basics with great single-player experiences. I still can not believe they closed the Japan Studio, Team ICO, and other talented studios and invested in abominations like Concord. Why did they not invest even in TLOU multiplayer instead of this? This flop is well deserved and I am glad for Concord's failure.
@jFug Not necessarily. It's a gamble of releasing an unoriginal bad game. Contrary to popular belief, if the game:
It would still fail, because ultimately it is a bad game. It just so happens the other variables were present.
I'll try the game if it goes free-to-play just for the hell of it, but I'm not surprised the game has some terrible sale numbers.
The gameplay seems fine but the characters all look like Guardian of the Galaxy rejects and the dialogue is that horrible MCU written dialogue.
I wonder if Fairgame$ will have the same fate as Concord.
But how ironic that these AA sp games from Japan Studio and some indie devs that worked with Sony can sold a lot more than Concord:
Sadly Japan Studio are gone thanks to Jimbo but hopefully SIE new president can rectify Jimbo mistakes with focus more on unique and fun sp games and less live service games.
This game was doa. It never ever got a fair chance.
I was never the target audience for this (jrpg ftw) but even i could see the press leading up to this was abysmal.
I feel for the people who made this. Whatever you may think of this they put their sweat into it. And the game is not a terrible game to play either if the reviews are correct.
Harsh.
Didn’t Sony spend 100 million for this studio and game. So that’s like investing 100,000 per player 😂😂😂
25k seems high compared to the number of people actually playing the game. Less than 10k is probably more realistic.
@PuppetMaster It's a shame that Soul Sacrifice and Freedom Wars were restricted to the Vita, could have done a lot better if they were on Console as well. I think a single player Soul Sacrifice made into a Souls like would do well now.
@Blackmagehobbit you are right in principle, but certainly wrong in practice. The loss of 100M will be matched by gains elsewhere, and at the end of the fiscal year Sony will still generate profits and Concord flop will not even appear in the numbers. It’s like venture capitalist investing in tons of startups. Most will fail but the good one will bring billions. So I’m pretty sure we will see more Concord stuff in the future.
It's not a complete waste. The amount of schadenfreude generated by news of this game's failure seems to be pretty immense.
@B0udoir I was thinking the same thing. If even 10,000 people bought it on Steam... where are they? I get people can't be on games all the time, but the game is struggling to host a few hundred players at a time not long after launch. Heck, I just checked and the player count is 96 right now!
I just don’t see this competing against Destiny 2, Overwatch 2, Marvel Rivals, Valorant, XDefiant, and Warzone. High-budget, free to play, half decent games with huge fan bases already. Concord was up against some Goliaths and PlayStation didn’t realize they had.a David on their side with no spirit or soul.
Considering how the actual character design comes very, very late into the development cycle for a game like this, it's a possibility this game looked very promising in pre-alpha builds but the characters they slapped on top of the game ruined it for everyone
@B0udoir Honestly Sony would be fools to invest in more Concorde in the future. This is one of the worst sales performances in gaming history relative to the push it received from a major publisher.
It's astonishing really, I didn't even know a number as low as 25k was possible for a headline release from Sony.
@Malaise
Actually, based on PSNProfiles user data, the 15,000 sales on PS5 estimate lines up very closely with the trophy data.
PSNProfiles tracks roughly only 10% of active players. (We actually know this is pretty accurate based on comparing a game with known sales to how many registered users on PSNProfiles have played the game - it usually comes pretty close to 10%).
PSNProfiles lists Concord as having 1258 PS5 players currently - we can extrapolate approximately 13,000 sales then.
If accurate, this would be the worst performing AAA release in modern gaming history.
I said this before it came out: if it was free to play, I'd have given it a shot but it would have to do something really great to get me away from Overwatch. But at $40, it doesn't even get that shot
It should have been F2P at launch. They wasted their window - something we've already seen more unique games get wrong
On the subject of negativity surrounding the game being responsible for these awful sales figures, that is 99% cope. Average consumers don't spend time on message boards and comment sections, they buy what looks interesting and (more importantly) what receives a big advertising push from publishers. Concorde has flopped on its merits.
But let's assume for a second the gamer backlash did single-handedly, or at least mostly, cause this to happen. In that case Sony has no choice but to bow down because those people clearly have incredible power to make or break their business.
I also don't have much sympathy for the developers and I find those comments puzzling. I get being empathetic, but at some point you have to admit some people aren't fit for a task. They made the game they wanted to make, as ex-Bungie and Activision staff. This was their vision which Sony only bought into very late in the development cycle. They failed to create a compelling product. They failed so spectacularly it was hard to believe when I first read the headline, 25k for a major PlayStation release is unprecedented. They aren't cut out for this and the market has spoken loud and clear. They're one of the few studios I won't be sad to see shuttered if that indeed happens, it's hard to argue they deserve anything better if you look at the situation objectively. No one owes them a second chance because they tried their best. Their best is obviously very bad and has no customers.
More than Dust Born at least. 😉
They need to make this game free to play as fast as possible!
@IOI I reckon Astrobot has already sold more than this.
Me imagining a timeline where the character Haymar from this game was instead the lead in something like Playstation's equivalent to Metroid Prime. I want to live in that timeline😭😭😭😭
It seems that a lot of people are using this games failure as an excuse to lament "live-service" games, and they're doing so with broad strokes, lumping PvP, PvE, MMO, MMORPG etc all together because they're online games.
To me, a live-service game is a multiplayer online game where the story is constantly expanded upon in iterations, such as Destiny 2, The First Descendant, Suicide Squad - the drive in those games is the story. The story is what is expanded.
Games that focus on PvP like Overwatch 2, Concord, Warzone, XDefiant etc shouldn't be considered live-service as the PvP is the focus. The developers simply provide free expansions to keep people interested in the game. Expansions being different maps, weapons and characters.
If we're going to define live-service as any game that is online, has multiplayer (PvP and/or PvE) and is expanded upon post release, then pretty much every game that has an online component and has had expansions should be binned, with the developers focusing purely on single player, offline games that are sold complete at release, to satisfy the people that complain about 'live-service" games.
@thefourfoldroot1 That's the thing mate - you don't have an argument.
You're insulting people who'd rather have a free-to-play game with MTX while saying that Concord, a premium game with MTX (i.e. the worst of both worlds), is the better price model for the players.
In other words, you make zero sense because your first comment was based on the misconception that Concord's got no MTX and you're getting a complete package when buying it. Nothing petty about pointing it out, especially when you're not just being wrong but pointlessly rude as well.
Sounds like an over-estimate of 25,000.
@Malaise
Definitely fascinating if you are a numbers person or interested in the business aspect of this industry.
I guess we can say Concord made history and managed to break records. Just not in the way they intended.
People keep saying they feel sorry for the developers but let's be honest. They have managed to get nearly a decade of full-time employment out of this project. That's a pretty good reward given the poor quality of the game they eventually produced. Firewalk deserve to get shut down, frankly.
@Bentleyma I'm sorry, but this GaaS push does affect the people who like single player games. Just look at Naughty Dog, and the years and effort wasted making Factions. If I'm not mistaken, Guerrilla is also making an online Horizon game. So, sadly, this does affect everyone.
@glennthefrog I think people are sympathetic for the coders/engineers, and other developers who are not directors/designers/artists etc. The ones just make the game work as opposed to designing it
I got my $40 worth and have had a great time playing. Firewalk is a talented team. The game released bug free and well polished.
Really feel bad for the developers. It isn’t a bad game but has been caught up in the anti live service push that has really destroyed its chances
@SlipperyFish That's fair. Those doing technical work are just innocent victims in this train wreck.
@Malaise That sounds amazing we were robbed 😭😭😭😭😭
There's no revenue for them if they go F2P, I think the devs would run into the same problem Splitgate faced when it became a hit. The game just wasn't built to be monetized effectively so they abandoned it in favor of Splitgate 2 built with the required backend for it.
EDIT: I did enjoy the beta and I think there's a very solid and good looking game in there. It was pretty stable too! Shooters just aren't really my thing this days, I do think it had all the makings of a modest hit if marketed better or releasing into a less crowded field.
@get2sammyb where do you think Sony goes after this ? Do they completely abandon this Live Service push or at least try to continue with their established proven IP ?
Removed - inappropriate
This is very much on your mans Hermen Hulst.
@Johnnycide
This. People are getting sick of this live service nonsense, and just want good "buy to own" games again.
@Gaia093
It is perfectly rational to question the intelligence of those thinking the model I was arguing against is anything other than complete garbage. I have nothing against fleecing adults who want to waste their money on cosmetic tat (although these games are not really rated as for adults of course), which is why i said I would have preferred this game to have done well to show Sony this is the way ahead. Unfortunately they have been given the opposite, disastrous message.
@Max_the_German they did give it an identity mate. It just didn’t click with the main audience.
I’m not surprised at all. People were roasting this on various social media platforms since it was announced.
F2P sure has warped gamers.
I guess the majority now love being nickel and dimed to death with having characters, costumes, gear pieces and other types of cosmetics all locked away along with have battle passes and season passes shoved down our throats with a health dose of FOMO because if you don’t unlock everything in your season pass, then you lose it.
Then, we have these damn people that will spend hundreds or thousands on MTX but lose their damn mind when a traditional COMPLETE game cost $40. It’s really disappointing seeing so many people will become warped.
The only lesson these big companies will learn from this is that gamers don’t want traditional games they want to be nickel and dime to death.
I think the only hope it has is free to play, but that alone wouldn’t be enough. I don’t know anything about the gameplay, but if it’s solid enough and can get some major streamers interested… maybe? But otherwise it’s going to need a serious investment to get people interested and I doubt that’s worth the effort.
This game will be a memory by this time next month, I’m afraid.
I feel bad for the developers but overall this is a good thing.
One can only hope that developers and publishers finally acknowledge that no one wants these kinds of games
At 25K units, they could have made more money making this a tax write-off.
I ask again, why does anyone expect going F2P will help at this point? The game was just as unpopular when free public betas were available.
It’s beyond saving if you ask me.
Now I just feel bad for people who actually bought the game. Then again they were warned, constantly. Incessantly.
It would have done better if it were free to play
OMG that might be the biggest disaster in video game history!
At least add Jimbo as a character to shoot at. It'll boost sales slightly. At least every shareholder will buy it.
@Ralizah " I was thinking the same thing. If even 10,000 people bought it on Steam... where are they?"
That's exactly what I'm wondering, every single day the 24 peak players has gotten lower and lower (I check everyday because I'm fascinated by this trainwreck lol). So where are these people, did they buy the game but got buyers remorse after the 2 hours refund period?
@InsaneWade The only way that could save it is to make it a free mod for overwatch 2.
@Ralizah It's a 4x4 game. 96 players means there's 12 whole lobbies running right now LMFAO 🤣
Biggest flop this gen?
@AlexPorto You could just play one of the hundreds of other single-player games available. Plenty of single-player games to keep you entertained between Sony's offerings. There's no shortage of single-player games coming out.
Too many cooks (veterans) ruined the food (this game)
@UltimateOtaku91 I would double dip if Sony remaster Freedom Wars and Soul Sacrifice for PS4/5. The online co-op would be much better too since the connection with cable are more stable than Vita wifi.
But here we are with this unappealing live service game where most PS userbase doesn't ask nor want it...sigh...
They should remove the $40 for extra and premium subscribers, that should give them a boost.
@UltimateOtaku91 you shoulda bought two and a half million copies yourself mate to get em to break even 😂
Another woke title bites the dust. Sony seems to be imploding like everyone else 😂
Unfortunately, live service is here to stay. There may be some failures along the way that try ti catch the money train, but because of games like Fortshite , I mean fornite , and rocket league , they make a shed load of money , not to mention the mobile market . So there are the brain dead consumers that pump money into these things to get an outfit etc . That’s why they’ll never stop as there is always room for one new game to break through. Just play goldeneye again and you’ll be fine
I very much suspect Concord and perhaps the whole "12 live service games" initiative is why Connie Booth suddenly left around the time the CEO changed and just before TLoU online was cancelled.
@Netret0120
Exactly. I'm surprised it got greenlit, let alone released.
@Dalejrfanfreak "Another woke title bites the dust."
Baldur's Gate 3 was "woke" and so was TLOU2, in Cyberpunk 2077 there was a trans character and you can make one... I think those games sold pretty well 🤔
Again woke is irrelevant and won't prevent a great game from dominating the charts. Concord was generic crap that would have flopped even if all the characters were sexy moaning bunny girls in thongs and high heels 🤷
Well here we are. Where is the person I was talking to before this launched? I want to say I told you so
@UltimateOtaku91 I mean we don't have to buy games we don't want to
@UltimateOtaku91 my thoughts exactly, publish those single player games but give them an online multiplayer option as well.
@DDDD Sorry - why hope for games to be a disaster? If they're successful, that means there was an audience... If it bombs, it's because they didn't match the game to the audience... but these games are notoriously difficult to get get right. You shouldn't be "hoping" that they get it wrong, waste money, or people's creative efforts. But plenty of live service games ARE popular.
Also remember, those devs are people - and while I agree in this case, huge mistakes have been made - I don't think it's just because it was live service. I think the problems were at a deeper level, and most likely would have been there even if Concord was a SP game.
Live Service games are the most profitable and played on PS consoles... The issue is whether it's meant single player games are not coming. The industry just has a problem with trying to put all their eggs (money and time) into too few baskets. They keep trying to make their single games more "big" - but generally make them more bloated and cringe (because their filling content with the writings of near-teenagers and chat-bots seemingly). IMO the issue people should be complaining about is the lack of quality SP games, not that there are MP GaaS games being developed as well.
@DennisReynolds possibly the worst flop in the last 20 years I suspect.... and I think the saddest part is, this was a like watching a runaway train (where we all knew what was going to happen), but there was no one with enough courage to make necessary changes to prevent the crash that was inevitable. Doesn't bode well for future games if this is the culture.
@Frmknst Yet again with the most asinine takes. And that's coming from me. There's zero chance you don't know better, but Tarkov has like 10 million registered players, and people still talk in hushed tones about the greatness of Bloodborne and pray for a remake or even remaster. Around 10,000 people still play Bloodborne, daily. More than Concord has reached, and I am pretty sure Bloodborne has been out for longer than a week.
@jrt87 you are joking, right (about IGN investigative journalists)? My sarcasm filter seems to be on the blink.
@Lup True, but not like XBox is setting the world on fire, either.
Ouch...most live service games fail, but so many still try because they want to make the next big thing.
This is exactly what we need to start reminding developers of what people don't want to buy. Live service games need to continue to fail to stop them. The problem is executives are too stupid to understand. This developer clearly should never be trusted to make a decision. Not one person there noticed how truly awful every aspect of this game turned out. The characters are so bad that I think someone needs fired.
I do worry about the knock on impact from an abysmal failure such as this. It's been well reported that companies can't afford to just write off game failures any more. Goodness knows how much it cost to make concord, but the impact will inevitably filter down to Sony's other studios (and this being a new ip doesn't bode well for Sony signing off on new titles in future). The same vibe is also being felt around Fairgames - so Sony have a job on their hands to turn things around before it releases.
I hope Astrobot does very well, because otherwise this could be a tough winter for Sony as until dawn is already sounding like it is going to struggle given the high cost of entry
On one hand I am pleased, it gives a message to publishers to what games aren't wanted want loud and clear, bland live service shooters are old hat.
I don't know if the culture war stuff has played into it, but it has also featured on deidetected.com, i imagine this would only put off a tiny proportion of people, but a lot of people do care about that sort of thing.
On the other hand I'm sad, it's well made and I can only imagine the trauma and stress of watching something you put vast amount of time into come to nothing.
Oh and just to go a bit old school, I preferred it when multiplayed modes get tacked on to single played experiences such as Goldeneye and Halo.
Though there are succesful modern examples like CoD or even titanfall (less succesful but presumably better than 25k), so this isn't really an archaic concept either.
Why not use Sonys significant single player experience to entice us in, and then make us stick around for the multiplayer.
And this was part of Jim Ryan's future focus for Sony aka Live Service which was already sorted of dying after the Marvel Avengers game that bombed as well from Square Enix.
Suicide Squad was already set to fail when they showed that and the beta got ripped to shreds, Destiny 2 was the only game really what stands out today it beat Halo Infinite as a LA game. Its the only one that's managed to be successful even though it's had it's fair share of criticism and even more now the chickens have come home to roose since Sony over paid for them.
And now because of that Bungie maybe be swallowed up by Sony with just shadows of IPs as a remembrance
I’d love this to be the death of shedloads of live service games, but I know we’ll still continue to see them shoved on us. Great studios forced ti pivot into them, spending years chasing over, by time of release, long-gone highs.
But it won’t. Big-wigs won’t look at the Suicide Squad’s and Concorde’s, they’ll look at the Helldivers 2, and still go all in.
There are more comments in one day about Concord than people who are playing the game today.
It's not because it's live service. It's so funny seeing people using that as a bogeyman in the comments all the time not realising some games they like are live service. It's bombing because it looks generic and has the worst cast of character designs. Nobody wants to play as unappealing characters. They want to play as cool characters.
@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare IGN do genuinely produce some impressive articles as a result of proper investigation from time to time.
@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare you want to complain about the lack of SP games? They pumped 300million and 8 years in a live service game that literally nobody wants. Could have had a few very good SP games for that money and time.
Sony is looking for a holy grail live service game, but failing big time. They also thought they could get away with putting a 40euro/dollar tag on Concord. People are tired of the scummy business models of live service games.
Sony also ignores the fact that they HAVE franchises to succeed in live service games. Yet they refuse to make those games. Cancelling TLOU Online, cancelling Twisted Metal, they have Socom, Horizon, Resistance... Man people would be all over those games!!
PlayStation problem was Jim Ryan's fixation on live service, instead of letting games naturally become what they are, he has tried to push the narrative that way.
His other huge mistake was buying bungie and thinking they are kings of live service, when reality is, they are not, they just got into the market and got a fan base when live service in modern times was just getting going.
The next big mistake is thinking that Bungie knows what they are doing and Jim made them evaluate their live service projects.
The last of us factions 2 game would of done amazing, because it is last of us and the fact that factions was a great addition and they did well the first time around.
I just can't get my head around it, that this was green lit and naughty dog cancels it's effort.
PlayStation are best at shepherding great single player story driven games, so they truly should focus on games like that with multiplayer elements.
Helldivers 2 is a great example of live service but it's truly a single player game.
You team up with people to fight npcs and if you don't want to, you can go it alone. That's a successful formula for PlayStation.
Good, they should of got the message when they revealed this *****. Astrobot was also revealed at the same time, the reception speaks for itself. When are the idiots at Sony going to realise. Stop blowing money on live service crap. Also the news PS5 pro won't have a disc drive is another ridiculous decision by some overpaid clown !!
Based on player counts, that's better than I thought.
Great news, this is one of the most soulless wastes of money in gaming, and if it even slightly succeeded, we'd have seen the unfortunate knock on effect for generations to come, need to keep sending the message to Sony that we won't be buying these kind of cash grabs, 8 years and 300m spent on a generic clone of a genre that already passed it's peak 3 years ago, an absolute disaster and all executives (not the ground level devs!) should be held accountable.
Ok Sony, now if you want to show how committed you are to life service games and show that you know best what gamer want then they do, greenlight the sequel Days Gone never got!
I feel bad for the developers, I don't feel bad for the publishers.
@Bentleyma i think if the so called professor and the other studio members didnt come out attacking gamers then yes most wouldnt care. but when you insult the people that your trying sell something to then you win the stupid prize you deserve. when you insult people then guess what they wil laugh when you fail
@UltimateOtaku91 no they will use it as a tax write off
all those feeling sorry for devs if they get shutdown same people that told coal miners loosing jobs to learn to code.
I get this has nothing to do with quality. It has everything to do with a large part of the gaming world asking for something different, and Concord being very familiar to what there is a lot of.
@jrt87 no chance the professor has the pronoun get out jail free card lol and ethnic european saviour lol
This game failed because it has a character's pronouns next to their class 🤢
@jrt87 Zero chance that happens, unfortunately. None of the stuff that whistleblower brought up would be a problem to IGN.
Sony’s ‘E.T. moment’. Except game flops don’t get the dignity of a burial in the desert anymore. The company needs to wake up. It had a winning, but expensive formula, which has chosen to deviate from for greed. It needs to rein in costs and make its single-player games shorter and more focussed. This should have been put into PS Plus day one rather than Sony continue to milk that service revenue stream with obscure dross and old filler.
@glennthefrog This guy's get it.
I have no sympathy for their lack of planning and going against market research. They have more than enough cash to fund market trend research and act accordingly.
So yes, I'm glad the game is DOA and yes, I'll look forward to the studio shutting down because this product is *****.
Question for the author & editor: why is the word "actually" being used in the line "it's worth mentioning that our video producer Aaron has actually been playing Concord on PS5 over the last week or so"? Is that to suggest Aaron playing Concord is unexpected? That's interesting considering this is a gaming site: to play games is unexpected?
@DDDD just because you would be all over the games doesn't mean there's enough people that would. Sony first party games aren't selling like they used to anymore, and especially compared to the cost of the production. Also, the number of customers that still remember Twisted Metal, SOCOM etc etc are dwindling (and getting older)... the reality is just that the games environment has changed. Sony just hasn't worked out into what - or how to adapt with the games industry.
Can people stop throwing numbers around (first it was 100 million, then it was 200 million, and now it's 300 million - literally more than was spent on Spider-Man 2). Just everyone take a chill pill... it was a series of errors and mis-judgements that ended up with a middling game. Anyone would think they're stealing children with all the fuss that's being made. Companies spend money on all sorts of things, many of which don't work out; the challenge for Sony is just that these mistakes are coming at a very unfortunate time, and they are seemingly all culminating at once.
The Concorder 1886.
@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare Maybe, but it's still the fact that Sony owns those franchises and it maybe would cost less to make a good game with those known IP's. The games environment has indeed changed, reason more why Sony SHOULD listen to their fanbase and be more careful were they spend their resources on. Making 12 GaaS games to compensate for the lack of singleplayer games currently was not a good move in my opinion. Prices are going up and now there is the debate wether or not prices for games should go up once again. Yeah, maybe they can do that, until they price themselves out of the market. Gaming in general is a luxe hobby and with people have more and more problems these days to pay the bills, gaming is one of the first hobbies to go or to spend less money on. Covid sprinkled sand in the eyes of everyone that works in the gaming industry. Times were people have the time and or money to spend on games are passed, yet gaming companies still try to milk every last penny out of the gamer. People are tired to pay for half decent games, day one updates and monetization of gameplay aspects. Give us back full games with the option of (paying) DLC and i personally would be willing to spend more than 70 euro on a new game.
Pull the game and redesign all characters like how FF14 was redesigned. Then re-launch it a F2P game.
This is the only way but they'd probably be better cutting their losses now.
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