
In another worrying sign of Concord's ongoing viability, complaints of lengthy matchmaking times have begun to emerge as the already small player base seemingly contracts. After the game's launch weekend, one PS5 player reported waiting up to eight minutes to find a match outside of peak hours, which is obviously not ideal for a multiplayer-only title.
PC Gamer has been monitoring the situation, and it's easy to see where the problem lies, at least on PC. As of this writing, just shy of 200 people are playing on Steam, and that number dropped to a low of just 86 off-peak (a far cry from the weekend's already lacklustre high of 697 concurrents). As a 5v5 PVP title, there are only a few potential matches already; some may be full, or connectivity might become an issue.
It's hard to say if the player counts on PS5 is as dismal; we suspect it might be slightly more robust, but that's just a hunch. Regardless, if players actively engaged with Concord are driven away by lengthening matchmaking time, the problem is further compounded. It remains to be seen if Firewalk can right the ship or if Concord can be saved, but it's clear that something drastic must be done, and fast.
Are you playing Concord on PS5? What's the matchmaking experience been like? What, if anything, can be done to salvage the situation? Initiate the free-to-play protocol in the comments section below.
[source reddit.com, via pcgamer.com]
Comments 101
What a shocker....
Growing pains. If they like the game, they’ll stick around. If not…
Gaming is healing 🙂↕️
My PS5 wait times have been 30 seconds or so. In some cases longer and in some cases shorter. No mate than any other MP I’ve played.
I’ve always been perplexed by developers not putting an AI element in their MP offerings so that when the player base inevitably dwindles (unless you’re COD), then the game can still sustain viable matches and accordingly additional sales. Numerous times I’ve wanted to play a MP game long after it’s hit the market, only to find out the matchmaking is basically dead and thus passed on a game I otherwise would have spent money on. With the prevalence of AI these days you’d think it would be an easy thing to do to help sustain a game. KILLZONE: Shadow Fall comes to mind as a solid example of this.
@Loamy the devs are the ones who decided to make this game what it is though. Firewalk worked on this game for 6 years as a fully independent studio before they got bought by Sony. The studio is made up of a bunch of ex Activision and Bungoe devs who got fed up with making COD and Destiny. This is supposedly their uninhibited artistic vision. At a certain point the developers need to be held accountable for when a game is poorly made instead of blaming it on the “suits” all the time.
Keep getting worse for concord, I expect a desperate attempt to save the game soon from Sony. Maybe adding it to plus or free to play but not even sure that would save it. The Live service arena is so crowded you really have to release something that stands out from the crowd.
@PloverNutter pretty dull unoriginal artistic vision. The devs have no one to blame but themselves.
i can’t wait to read tomorrows concord article 😂
This game is DEAD! You need high player counts for these games to work and even then they have some struggles. Sad to see, cause i really would like to support Sony’s efforts into multiplayer games, but they just haven’t had a hit yet there. They will in time. But concord is far far from that.
Dead on arrival. Who knew.
Sure it will come to PS Plus very soon. It is its only hope.
BTW, my wait time is… FOREVER.
20 - 40 seconds for me in UK. Quite enjoying it to be honest. The character designs are terrible but the actual abilities and weapons of those characters have been really fun.
I also brought wukong and have pre order astro bot and plan on getting vampire survivors today. Man I like to many genres of games.
@HonestHick I think it’s only fair to say Helldivers 2 was a hit multiplayer game for them.
Everyone at Firewalk and Bungie are having a blast huh 😁
I'm not sure I've seen a major release bomb this hard, this quickly in my lifetime. It's extremely interesting to watch from a distance.
I expected the game to do poorly, but this is... something else, lmao.
@Khayl firewalk made the game not firesprite 😉
Why didn’t you mention the country he is in? It matters.
In the US, I’ve been able to find matches ranging from 10-30 seconds on average. I’ve had one, ONE! game that took a minute to find.
The hate boner gamers have with this game is crazy.
F2P has warped gamers.
@IamJT they don’t own the studio, but yes it was a big game for sure. Kinda surprised they didn’t try and buy them or maybe they did and they don’t want to be owned, not sure. But Sony’s own studios have been flop after flop with online games lately.
I have over 20 hours since Friday and waited over a minute maybe twice?
To be fair to Concord, I've had minutes long waits in splatoon games and 20+minutes waits as a DPS BLM in FFXIV and that's a game with thousands of concurrent users.
I doubt many are playing Concord but the wait isn't unique even in extremely populated games
@HonestHick ah yes, Sony studios online games, such as.. uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what exactly
@SlipperyFish let’s play a game together shall we. I will call it success and failures. Here’s the rules i will name games Jim Ryan signed deals with using Sony funds or out right bought and used Sony funds with for failed live service games.
1. Destruction All stars
2. Concord
3. Twisted Metal
4 Last of us Factions
5 Foam Stars
Now it’s your turn to name the ones they partnered with or bought outright that have been a success.
We need to see that Jim Ryan invested 50% of the budget into games that aren’t good. That also pushed back games that Sony are great at making that we could be playing this year.
Didn't know this game was part of the Dead or Alive series.
That's why I keep seeing DOA, right? RIGHT?
@DETfaninATL specialized software or in other words AI is relatively new. AI wouldn’t help this game. AI codecs or software need copious amounts of data to assist with procedural generation. The pathetic player count for this game wouldn’t help create a good AI in which human players wouldn’t it. Now a game like COD with several years of data could help. However as far as I’m aware developers don’t have a “black” box to track our inputs when we play these games then steal it. Like every AI steals data that was already stolen (collected) by companies like google. But why would you want that mate? Paying to play online with bots? The masses would reject it but some would be okay. Just like some sign up for AI GF services.
@DETfaninATL Perfect Dark had bots out of the box on N64. No need to cite a "modern" release.
I can see this being a Playstation Plus monthly game at some point.
F2P may save it. But other than that, buying this game is now a risk for it may end up abandoned by the end of the month.
Everybody keeps talking about F2P. But what about those that bought the game? This would be the last game i bought from Sony if they make it F2P later!!
@DDDD You give them $40 worth of in-game skins, cosmetics and/or currency. They either turn it to F2P to have a fighting chance (maybe getting those 2,000+ players from the beta) or everything stays the same and the game is pulled in a couple of months so those who paid get to play dead air.
On PS5 i have to wait no more than 30 secondo, it depends on the time of the day. On PC probably is totally different if you turn off crossplay
@DDDD They do not care about you. Sorry, just stating a fact. You might get a skin out of it.
I don't understand why Sony didn't give it for free on ps+
It would at least have had a fighting chance. Pre-order numbers must have been pretty bad.
It's failed, cut your losses and go play one of the free far superior versions
Let me guess, Bungie greenlit this game and threw the monkey wrench into Naughty Dog's TLOU Online. Real Nostradami that bunch.
Time to make it F2P!
@Loamy is it though? It's nothing like overwatch it's a arena shooter overwatch is not
@DDDD If Sony don't do something to somehow attract more players, those that paid for it soon won't have a game to play anymore anyway. Free to play seems like the bare minimum, but even that probably won't be enough to save it.
There is one positive thing to come out of all of this.
ConCord maybe the first paid live service game in which the servers held up and there was no problems connecting to a server.
Maybe not getting a match outside peak times but no server crashes hahaha
Even the numbers reached during the free, open beta would be considered a catastrophic failure - you can't keep running a AAA live service by a studio of 100+ developers on a CCU of 2500. Not even an anime bunny girl skin cash shop could harpoon enough whales from such a tiny playerbase to have the game remain financially viable.
Concord was a dead man walking upon release, and with 66 players as of right now - less than a week from release - it's over. It should never have been conceived, the studio should never have been acquired by Sony, and post-acquisition the game should have been sh*tcanned immediately.
That’s so sad….anyway…
Well, the devs have removed the LGBTQ tag they had on the Steam page for the game so they seem to believe it may help with sales. An observation not a criticism.
@riceNpea The true face of modern capitalism - allies only whilst it makes money. Look at how corps deal with Saudi Arabia or China.
Why does anyone think making the game F2P will save it? It might make it slightly less of a disaster for a little while, but we saw the interest (at least in the Steam numbers) when there was an open beta and they were miserable, certainly not enough to sustain the game long term. There are just 63 Steam players playing the game right now, on day 7 following launch, not even enough for seven full matches on their own!
It's gotten to the point where people who literally flog dead horses are going to start using the idiom "don't pump for Concord", as that task seems even more futile.
@LifeGirl exactly. When companies promote something, just look at if they do the same in the Middle East and you know its all bullcrap.
Whatsmore, even the organisers of stuff like that don't believe in it because it's easy to do it in a country that's already changed, take your message to the countries where there's oppression. But they don't as its far more challenging. Greenpeace used to do it all the time. Missionaries do it. They believed in their message and want to put it where it doesn't exist. I can respect that.
Despite knowing how most players feel about this "DOA" game, I do feel concerned about the devs at this point. These are not bad devs, it is not Gollom standard by any means!
At this point, is it even possible to turn that players amount around?
Sony even knew how the game was going in a certain way, but didn't step in to put it on PS+ for instance. They lose the money either way but now there is so much negativity around this title, people won't forget about it soon! This could've been minimal damage!
From what I have read it is more a problem with matchmaking quality and not times, because they turned of MMR (which results in stomps) and region locks (which results in huge latency spikes).
The longer Sony waits to do something about the business model, the further is sinks.
@HonestHick you could shoehorn Bungie to that list
@DDDD They can give them some 'founders pack' with a bunch of free credits to buy from the microtransaction store that comes out in October to give them back something.
Probably would have been better to have shown the game off a lot earlier instead of pushing on with the development. Could have made a better game with fans early criticism. I’m not interested in an Overwatch-alike game. I hope the developers get a chance to make a proper shooter.
Make the game free or put on PS+ to give it a boost. Then move on with the next thing. The game has already become the joke on the internet I don’t think people would care for it anymore even if they managed to turn it into an amazing game later on
@Pusher2021 "These are not bad devs, it is not Gollom standard by any means!"
No, Gollum had more players (on Steam)!
Joking aside, you're right, the devs are clearly very talented. The animations are exquisite and the gunplay is reportedly among the best. (I played the beta and didn't like it personally, but I'm not experienced enough with FPS games to judge really).
The problem was that these very talented devs were working to a very ill-judged brief. They made a game that no one wants, but they made it very well.
Going F2P in 3....2....
@Juanalf : wauw. 40 dollar in cosmetics to show off your character against... nobody.it's mind boggling they still asked 40 dollar for a game they knew was going to fail. And now because of low player count they want to give the game F2P?? It just shows again how Sony and developers just want to milk as much money as possible from gamers with live service games that give you the bare minimum to begin with.
@Ainu20 No because geving the game F2P now just shows they could do that from release. Yet they still tried to milk 40 dollar from the consumer. Low player count and not even a week after release it's possible to maybe play the game for free??
Making it F2P is not so easy with this game, there is no battle pass or such things to build on. Would require serious changes to the game. And it still would lack something special to make players choose it over other established F2P games.
@LifeGirl i didn't buy the game no worries. They can keep their garbage and i hope that Fairgame$ and Marathon fail just as hard. Al Sony did this generation was taking anti-consumer decisions and pumping money in live service crap that's dead within a year.
@DDDD yeah, I remember thinking to myself when I bought PSVR2, 'BLOODY SONY! spending millions developing new technologies for a niche audience! Grrrr!!'
20-60 seconds for me in the Uk. I’ve never had any issues. Played about 20 hours now. Great gameplay and performance. Fun character abilities but poor character design.
@DDDD It's not about what's possible, it's about what is necessary.
@Ainu20 What is necessary is leaving this game for what it is. It failed. Sony should take lessons from it and move on instead.
@riceNpea Totaly different story. They knew Concord was going to fail. And i said it before. Yes we need new IP's. But Concord.. Don't know why they continued with this one.
@DDDD your point is that Sony is anti-consumer. Clearly they are not. That's an insane business strategy. They've got it wrong with this game but that doesn't make them anti anything.
@DDDD And how would that help the people who bought it? Because that's what you were initially saying, that going free to play would be a slap in their faces.
@riceNpea they tried to shutdown PS3 store. Changed the PS+ system, now not being able to renew your existing abo with reduction unless you upgrade. Now they changed PS Stars. Points only last a year instead of 2 years. Not very consumer-friendly in my book.
@Ainu20 it is a slap in their face. People who bought the game were very much aware that the game could flop. Yet they still gave 40 dollar for the game. And now because of low player count suddenly everyone can play it for free? And sorry but i don't think it will improve the amount of players. Maybe for a little bit but this game won't last 6 months.
It’s not even on the front of the PS Store on PS5. It’s bizarre.
@DDDD But you're arguing that everyone being able to play it for free is worse for the people who bought it than the game completely dying, meaning they can't even play the thing they bought anymore.
I'm just not following that logic. Not that I think anything can save it at this point, but they at least have to try.
@Ainu20 I understand what you are saying. That's why i think F2P now is not the way to go. I just think they should take their loss and continue on (Sony), instead of making things worse.
@riceNpea i was being nice and giving him at least one to start with. HAHA! Truth told Bungie needs to snap out of their funk. It’s not to impressive lately with what they have going on either. I still believe in them, but i am concerned.
@DDDD I agree, not friendly but not anti either.
Longest I have ever had to wait was maybe 1 minute. Not sure if this dude is lying or what. PS5 time queues have been 30 seconds or less. Game has quite a few active players. no cap
@DETfaninATL
Gears Of War does this very well. Recently got into the franchise and I can still plays Gears of War 1-3 matches with a few real players and bots to fill out the map.
@HonestHick they had a "hit" for a few months it's called helldivers
@LifeGirl but people will just play overwatch still because the characters are just superior and original so this game was doomed from the start honestly.
@Victor_Meldrew You can't there are enough examples that you can do that.
@riceNpea their treatment of costumers tells a different story you can't even get a refund on psn and they treat you like a criminal if someone hacks your account and you chargeback a purchase that they did.
There is no excuse to not allow refunds on the playstation platform, i think the only time they've done it is for what cyberpunk?
@Deityjester Is the game already offline? As far as i know it still is in a working state.
I know one reason why some people don't like it. For a diverse cast they really made a effort not to include Caucasian characters and the one they include looks so generic.
I don't want hate on diversity but isn't this just a stupid way to go. Diversity now means no white people it's totally dumb. And I find the characters not that cool to begin with.
The game looks fine but I tend to play with characters I like and for the diversity it's somehow lacking in standard characters.
Overwatch has a lot of different characters and somehow i see more fun different characters they balance it out way better.
@WizzNL True, though XIV is a class balance problem with only 4 healers 4(?) tanks, and 50000000 DPSs. Lots of people playing the game. Nobody playing healers and tanks.
That's my one gripe with that game. A billion people playing but everyone has to wait for the 200 tanks to get in their lobby. I do love playing SCH, but it sucks because my SCH and GNB keep leveling up and getting gear while my BLM that I intended as my "main" is always behind and unable to do things, and under-geared. So they release Dawntrail and introduce......two more DPS....
@HonestHick You specifically said Sony's own studio games. Not anything to do with games they invested in.
@Deityjester still shocked they didn’t try and buy that studio. HD2 was a decent game. I got bored of it quickly and then Sony did some shady stuff with it that gave it a black eye for a bit, but over all really solid and i think a HD3 could be really great.
@SlipperyFish the rules to the game were very simple sir. Do you have any successful games then 1st party wise. I thought i was being nice giving both invested and owned. Is it fair for me to assume you have no list to provide? Sony is not good in this space is the point. They were smart to let Jimbo go and get back to making single player games. So far the live service push has been BaaaaaaaaaaD!!
@HonestHick ...my entire point was that there has only been ONE sony studio online game so far...
I was not saying they have been successful or not. Only that only one exists so far and it's been an astounding failure. How the hell did you come up with the idea that I was supporting them?
After seeing the trailer (or was it trailers?) It was obvious the game was going to be DOA.
@SlipperyFish you scared me for a second. I thought you were coming off that way a little. Also there is more than 1 Sony studio and a few they invested in. Back to the point at hand. It’s a little scary someone at Sony thought these games were good enough to invest in and even make a special edition controller for it. Let’s hope Sony get’s this figured out. The good thing is MS will be bringing their live service games to the PS5 for the fan base, but that isn’t the cash cow Sony is trying to have. Interesting generation so far my friend. I think it’s safe to say this is my least favorite console cycle yet.
@HonestHick I don't want Microsoft's garbage live service games either. The best online games are always third-party multiplatforms
@SlipperyFish thats subjective. Sea of thieves just sold over a million copies on PS5. More to come. Plus they own some of the better ones now. To each their own of course. But i think they will continue to sell well on PS5 and expand the player base. Instead of having long wait lobbies like concord.
@HonestHick Sea of thieves, the same game that had 58% of it's PS players stop playing after less than a month.
Concord sucks, but Helldivers 2 was a massive success. Sony are simply taking risks. I'd rather see a great game come out of several bad ones than many mediocre games.
But as you said, to each their own.
@PloverNutter Bingo!
I'm sick of that attitude, as well. "Suits", "board room", "management", and so on. Sure, the amount of responsibility scales the higher one is in the corporate ladder, but the blame is on everyone down to the janitor.
It's funny that, when a game succeeds, the "devs" are celebrated as the heroes and, when it fails, they are the poor victims.
Intreasted to see what happens when it goes free to play. Mabey it will find it's audience
@SlipperyFish well if 58% quit, then thats a cool 400K still playing on top of PC, and Xbox. I would call that a success. I think any game company would take that. Steam numbers for that game remain high after many many years on the market. Thats how you build a successful live game. Don’t look now but HD2 player numbers on steam have been nose diving. Not that i care, i think it’s a good game. But using your logic, it seems over 58% of players are leaving that game. Part of the live service journey. Just wait until the 624 players quit concord. HAHA literally 624 the last i checked.
and they bought that studio. They own them. They would have done better using that money on LOTR Gollum DLC.
@Flaming_Kaiser I don't know about not included Caucasian character is the reason why some people dislike it. But i'm sure most people agreed that the characters design are bland and forgettable af.
I've watched some youtuber who played Concord for a couple of hours and he said he still not yet remember the name of any character. So he just called each character based on their appearance like big guy, alien guy, black lady, or something like that lmao 🤣
I just can't believe 8 years in development with AAA budget but Firewalk artist and the producer / director doesn't understand the important of designing memorable characters for a hero shooters game. The characters is the face of the game. If players doesn't found the characters looks interesting to play then the game is pretty much dead.
And yeah, one of the reason Overwatch 1 was a big success is because it has memorable characters that can be easily distinguish one from another. I only played Overwatch from the open beta like years ago but i still remember which one is Hanzo, Tracer, Widowmaker, Genji, D.Va, Winston, and Mccree. Blizzard really nailed Overwatch character designs that there's plenty of rule34 version of them ol.
Only criticism I have is lack of PvE content. Similar to Warframe this game would have had a better shelf life if there was more types of content.
It will be on PS plus in a couple of months or just become F2P alltogether. They’ll put a small team on cosmetics and put in an ingame shop to hopefully get some revenue going while going to work on other stuff with the majority of their developers. The so called weekly cinematics will stop once the stockpile of finished ones they already have run out.
@PloverNutter I don't know the full details and it's entirely possible that it was 100% a studio decision to make the game this way. But I don't think it's as simple as some decisions being on the devs.
Any new studio going independent for 6 years needs investors, especially one making a game this size and scope. And those investors often get a say in the studio and the product at some level. It may well be they tailored the product as a live service to get investors in the first place, putting the onus back on the studio. Or it might be that it pivoted to some degree as a request by a potential investor to secure the money. Maybe it was intended as a more old-school multiplayer game and the live service was a condition of investment? Maybe not? We don't know. So it may not be as black and white as it seems.
Also when we talk about the 'devs' there is still a hierarchy. It'll be a set few studio heads and directors that decide the ultimate direction of the game. So even if the studio made the decision to go Gaas, it's not really on the devs per se, it's on the studio heads...who may also be devs, but a handful of high ranking devs.
Either way it worked out for the investors when Sony bought them, but less so for the team who are probably worried about their jobs right now.
“Players”
Literally one person. But sure you fan those flames. 🙄
I'll never say I'm happy to see a game fail, because a team of dedicated people worked hard on it and they don't deserve that. But I will be happy if this game's failure results in less emphasis on live-service titles like this one.
Current steam chart has concord at 92 players. Jeeeeze.
I don’t think anyone would have predicted it to do this poorly.
@PuppetMaster They made a lot of different characters not big bunch of the same ones. I have no issue with diversity but man the white guy is a straight rippoff of soldier76 but worse.
I have no issues with including heavier people I'm one of them. But the effort to exclude Caucasian and the one you put in is so generic it's sad. Also people somehow like characters they can relate to.
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