Update: The weekend has not brought any signs of improvement to Concord’s performance on PC, where it’s now officially floundering on Steam. While the title peaked at a pitiful 697 concurrent players upon launch, it’s not passed that number since, and its daily highs have been getting lower throughout the weekend. On Saturday it managed a high of just 473 players, and so far on Sunday, it’s peaked at just 402 players.
Of note, we’ve had few issues finding games, and the majority of players we’re matching with appear to be playing on PS5. Sony doesn’t share concurrent player data, so we don’t know how many are currently playing on console.
Either way, there’s really no point in sugar coating it: these PC numbers are horrific. We’re not really sure what the platform holder can do to turn things around at this point, but it’s going to have to conduct an enormous internal review, because it’s gone from one of the biggest hits in its history with Helldivers 2 to one of its biggest ever bombs.
Original Article: There’s so much to unpack with Firewalk Studios’ debut shooter Concord that we may eventually need to write a full post mortem. The time for that is not now, as the title only officially released yesterday on PS5 and PC. As predicted, it’s performing particularly poorly on Steam, where it peaked at just 697 concurrent players.
That’s significantly less than other high profile flops like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (which peaked at 13,459 players) and Redfall (which peaked at 6,124 players). The other big new release this week, Black Myth: Wukong, peaked at 2.4 million players. It’s not a fair comparison because it’s a totally different type of game, but it puts things into perspective.
It’s worth noting that these numbers only account for Steam, and judging from our anecdotal observations, there are significantly more people playing on PS5. While crossplay can be disabled, we’ve left it on and noticed almost all players have a PlayStation logo next to their username on the score screen. Of course, this is purely circumstantial, and we still don’t know precisely how many are playing on Sony’s system.
The poor numbers are unsurprisingly going viral, however, and once the stench of failure begins to stick to a title, it’s difficult to shake it, sadly. Concord, unfortunately, appears to have found itself at the centre of several storms: some don’t like its character designs, others are tired of hero shooters, and many feel like it must fail in order to send Sony a message about its live service strategy.
We’ll have a review in the coming days, but ultimately we feel it’s all rather sad. This is an extremely high budget release without any of the slimy business practices many have been so vocally against. While we totally understand the gameplay style and character designs won’t appeal to everyone, the level of venom aimed specifically at this title has been bizarre to witness.
Are you playing Concord? (5,801 votes)
- Yes, of course I'm playing it
- I plan on playing it later down the line
- Nah, I'm not sure about the game yet
- No, Concord just isn't for me
[source steamdb.info]
Comments 317
I hate to say it but the abject failure (so far) of the GaaS Concord happening concurrently as the single player Black Myth Wukong is absolutely killing it, is… from my perspective at least, the best possible message that could be sent to Sony.
@colonelkilgore Why does Sony need to be sent a message, though? Why aren't they allowed to make a multiplayer game? They made loads of them on PS3 alongside a bunch of great single player games! We see on sites like this all the time people crying for a new Killzone, Resistance, SOCOM, etc etc etc.
It's really weird.
Like, I totally get if this game doesn't appeal because I'm not a fan of the character designs either, but I've never seen this level of sheer venom pointed at a title that's perfectly fine albeit unremarkable. Usually people just move on.
Apparently this game needs to be made an example of, though. Why?
This is my shocked face 😐
@jrt87 As sad as that was Japan Studio was an absolute mess that constantly released flops they tried everything they could to get the studio together but it never worked and no one bought their games. Now granted I believe that Sony desperately need to either create some more 1st party Japanese Studios from Scratch or acquire some but what happened to that particular studio was inevitable
Well I'll just say I wouldn't even know this game existed if it wasn't for this site. For most people it's not about sending a message, it's just about not even knowing it exists - and if they do know, simply not being interested.
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It's like every publisher apart from Sony is allowed to make multiplayer games, this game and Fairgames were hated on from the get go before any gameplay shown. Yet those same people will be bashing Sony when they close Firewalk and Haven down.
One of the biggest flops of 2024
@get2sammyb This is not a new Killzone, SOCOM, or Resistance, this is hogslop, which is what it is, but is none the less disappointing that resources were wasted on a poorly put together new IP, released into an overcrowded market of hero shooters.
@UltimateOtaku91 and every publisher that have chased the fortnite money have failed and have had to lay off staff. Only a few live service title do well.
@PSfan4Life22 Do a lot of people actually want those games though? If Resistance and Killzone are so popular and in demand then why were their sales so poor compared to other Playstation games? Why did Killzone Shadowfall flop so bad? And for Socom the entire series only sold 4 million copies...
It reminds me of the Japan studio closure where everyone all of a sudden loved their games and were disappointed in Sony for closing them down, yet looking at the sales figures for their games it paints a different story.
59th most popular game in the PS UK Digital store right now. I did not expect it to be THAT low, and half the games above it are not even out yet
Books will be written about this whole saga
Redfall got exactly the same kind of brutal attacks even though it was nowhere near as bad as people liked to make out.
This isn't my type of game but it's objectively not a poorly made product.
I really don't like how one of the devs decided to get all angry and start talking about people though.
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The same fate awaits Fairgame$ when it releases, it's become all too predictable now.
factions 2 would have done better than this
@PSfan4Life22 Nobody has a problem with Sony making MP games dude
Was you on this site when Sony announced their live service plans?
@colonelkilgore I mean they also had one of the biggest hits of the year in Helldivers 2 (a sony published online only game which was in development for 8 years like Concord). Also they're still making single player games. Astro is in 2 weeks. Ragnarok sold incredibly well.
@get2sammyb on one hand it shows more people want single player games instead of the fortnite / overwatch style multiplayer game.
The other hand people rather see Sonys own more popular franchises be an multiplayer game like examples you said and twisted metal
Most live service games are there to squeeze money kut of gamers . Sure this particular game has less toxic business practices. However a lot of gamers are sick of the lack of risk taking and constant remakes and remasters. Personally I'm not a fan of playing desthmatch over snd over to rank up . I'd much rather spend time on a single player game than dedicate my free time on a multiplayer game. It just looks like another fortnite clone
thats probably 300 million wasted in buying firewalk and the cost of making this game
What?! How?! You're telling me that they're making games no one wants to play, and no one is playing it?!
They nailed their coffin shut with the £35 price reveal. You can't enter a congested market with competing F2P options unless you're offering something significantly better than the competition to justify it. When Marvel Rivals was revealed they should have reevaluated and adjusted their approach.
I feel bad for the developers and those that worked on the game, as if this game fails I’m not sure where that puts the studio.
Having said that, making a live service game is a high risk venture in itself and as other titles have shown, costly to maintain and difficult to sustain engagement. To have any chance of success you need to be beating the current competition in either gameplay, character design or reach. This game does neither.
The gameplay isn’t ground breaking, the characters are forgettable and the title isn’t available on switch, xbox or mobile. It’s also not f2p which further limits its potential audience.
I don’t think anyone is surprised by the fact that this, at least on pc, isn’t ripping up the market.
I can't even imagine the morale at Firewalk right now. Even if there are ten times as many players on PS5, this is catastrophic for a live service with what I assume to be an 8 or 9 figure budget.
If they made a new killzone, socom, resistance or whatever that’s still catering to a specific audience. Maybe people don’t like military shooters and want another 3rd person adventure game like Uncharted or a racing game like MotorStorm or Gran Turismo. I’m not a big fan of Killzone, yet if they released a new one I wouldn’t go into every article about it hoping for it to fail. I would just ignore it and hope the next Sony game is for me.
Will they learn anything though?
That's the real question.
@get2sammyb I can’t help feel some of it’s to do with the Factions cancellation. That was probably the one gaas game PS players actually wanted and were looking forward to. Not saying it’s fair, of course, but if it is part of it I can see why some are salty about losing out on something that sounded genuinely unique and getting something totally generic instead.
@get2sammyb it's not really weird. You'll defend this game to no end.
The bemusement as to why there is so much "venom" against this game has bemused me 😂 if someone is that cut off from what the gaming zeitgeist is then you're in the wrong business
Whatever the actual reason for its failure is, I'm guessing that Sony bigwigs only lesson from it all will be that PVE games like Helldivers 2 sell and PVP games like Concord don't.
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@get2sammyb so I prefixed Sony being sent a message with “from my perspective”. I as someone who enjoy single player games would rather Sony make single player games. It’s my opinion… Sony can actually do whatever they like but we all have our individual wants and are totally entitled to them.
@breakneck helldivers is not a first party title but concord is.
@colonelkilgore 100%. Next time they try and shove the "single player games are dying" narrative down our throats we can remind them of this.
@breakneck we all know Sony made a pivot towards GaaS under Jim Ryan… and it’s starting to become clear that Sony are backtracking that pivot somewhat moving forwards.
@get2sammyb Because 8 year development cycles only to end up with gaas dross like this is hard to justify
The game isn't a bad game, the graphics are great, gameplay is great with great controls and mechanics, the vignettes are quite enjoyable and the characters aren't as bad as people are making them out to be.
I think the games main problem was not going free to play, it's a risk for people to pay £35 for a brand new IP for a game that's in an overcrowded genre of "Hero Shooter", especially when the other Hero Shooters are based on popular IP's already and have quite a die hard fan base who won't budge.
Free to Play with MTX is the way forward for Sony's live service games.
@UltimateOtaku91 helldivers would disagree
@Neither_scene I don't find it surprising since not being F2P is really dangerous for GaaS. People can complain all they want over battle passes etc but companies have successfully changed the wiring to have people not want to pay unless it is a game with massive hype.
Concord also had some very bad trailers which was the opposite of the great trailers HD2 had. Doesn't help that the art design isn't very strong like Destiny or Marathon where from the first trailer you're intrigued.
@get2sammyb probably because Killzone, resistance etc all had solid SP campaigns included with them. As far as I know concord doesn’t.
On topic I have to agree the character design is not good here. It’s what I’d expect the result to be if I asked AI to design me a 5v5 gaas shooter. Generic, tick all boxes design.
I don’t like to see games do badly when countless people have devoted their working lives creating something but with Sony complaining about profitability, surely super risky punts in live service games isn’t a good shout. They’d be better off going to the casino and putting the money on red at the roulette table.
I guarantee Haven is sweating bullets right now…
You know every likes different things but the amount of entitled gamers on here is unbelievable. Not everyone likes cut scene ridden, linear dad sims and some like to try different genres. Hopefully Sony hanker down and release more live service games and I will buy every single one
Well that's what happens when you just pander to a tiny target audience instead of the majority of gamers.
What's funny is the people they are pandering to still didn't even come out and support it.
@get2sammyb Why does Sony need to be sent a message? Because it goes far deeper than "if you don't like it, don't play it".
Now more than ever, we're in the midst of some fundamentally awful trends and practices that have permeated the games and entertainment industry as a whole... whether it be delisting, obliteration of physical media, A.I., micro-transactions, constant live service models, industry crunch and corruption, etc., etc., so on and so forth, that ANY push-back against something with the aim to create a more desired state, and not one pushed by greed and myopic trends is inherently a good (and needed) thing.
Know your audience.
@Isis_Script calm down Jesus Christ it’s gaming. Melodramatic much?
@get2sammyb 'Why does Sony need to be sent a message, though? Why aren't they allowed to make a multiplayer game? '
Couldn't agree more. This attitude that Sony shouldn't deviate from making SP games is bizarre. It's not like its a binary choice. GaaS, and MP games exist because there's a market for it, so why wouldn't Sony want to try to benefit from it?
@get2sammyb from what I see on social media it's one of those woke vs anti woke things again
SMITE 2 releasing in 2 days won’t help 😕
@Isis_Script what? You've gone full on Alice in Wonderland. Concord is not an example of corporate greed in the same way as CoD has been ruined by useless bloat compared to the days before microtransactions. It's more like Helldivers 2, from my understanding, and I've no problem with that.
@Artois2 Yeah these people need to understand that live service games are more popular than single players games, you might get the odd single player game that sells gangbusters like Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Wukong or Spider-Man etc but the majority of gamers are playing online games.
Look at steams top 50 chart and count the number of single player games, over two thirds are online games.
Live Service is the biggest market in gaming across consoles, PC and mobile so why should Sony be expected to not join in? They do realise more money for Sony means more games and content for us PlayStation gamers.
@Drago201 ignore that. Every argument devolves into that these days whether its relevant or not.
I think the quarrel with Concord is one of snobbery. People just don't want to see Sony make these games because they don't see, or try to understand, the difference between it and whale-farming Gatcha gaming.
@get2sammyb I feel it's mostly because this whole game looks like it was AI generated. Completely by the numbers, no creativity or originality at all.
Whatever happens with Concord, I don't care. I'm waiting on Astro to release
Dear Hermen,
Step down.
Best
Max
@Max_the_German it's a shame your name isn't Hermen.
By January '25 will be on PS+ and 12 months later servers will be closed.
@UltimateOtaku91 they don’t realise that though. These live service game will help fund the big blockbusters we all know and love but those hoping they fail can’t see beyond their own nose
Sorry but this ticks all the boxes of no for me.
-yet another generic hero arena shooter
-always online
-nothing compelling with gameplay
-box price
-required PSN subscription because of box price
Big time pass for me.
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Concord - agreement or harmony between people or groups
🍿 Thanks, Google.
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@UltimateOtaku91 It would be more accurate to say that gamers are playing a small number of the multitude of available multiplayer games. For every one that finds success (before ultimately losing much of its audience to something else) there are several/many that will fail outright - present company seemingly included.
Also, to suggest that the currently-playing list is an indicator of singleplayer vs multiplayer/live-service games' success is quite laughable, given that only one of them expects and needs to keep people playing ad infinitum. Generally speaking, the one and only metric of an SP success (outside of those which creep in GaaS elements like premium currency and battle passes) is how well it sold, not how many people are still playing it.
The loud minority of haters has done its share but this game will be remembered as a classic in due time
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@Shokwave2 what?
@jrt87 difference with those companies you have mentioned is that they don’t have a console to sell so they can afford to do that. Sony can’t because ultimately it’s their single player games that sell their hardware. Unless they are going to stop making consoles and go publisher only.at least that’s my belief
Isn’t “venom” what the internet is all about these days? Gamers raging about how bad games are that they never even had any intention to play? The “it’s cool to be cruel” crowd. Review bombing and all that.
For this game I also feel like there are a group of people mad b/c it isn’t free to play. Not b/c they wanted to play it but now they can’t afford too, but b/c their whole shtick is “free to play is bad, glad it failed”.😝
Personally I don’t do first person, this or Indy doesn’t matter, I’m out.
@get2sammyb I never understand the level of hatred that some people direct towards these type of games. I really like the first descendant but I don't like suicide squad (even though its a good laugh watching my nephew playing it.) I don't like overwatch and countless other gaas or whatever they are branded but that dosnt mean I can't see why people like them. I really want a new socom above all else or at least a new smash tv game.
They spent 8 years making this?!?!
If someone put "make generic multiplayer shooter" in a AI machine, this would be the result.
The market is already oversaturated with this crap, so it isn't exactly surprising the game is a flop.
Sony could have put the money on new Killzone or Resistance games instead, with multiplayer options.
@get2sammyb Sony can make a multiplayer game. But do we want Sony to compromise its traditional, successful game output for 12 GaaS games? No.
If people felt the PS5 had a great bounty of first-party games, people wouldn't be complaining so much. But to see an expensive, generic GaaS shooter come out in a year with only — what — 5 PS Studios games; it's disheartening.
It would also help if Concord didn't look so boring. I think everyone gets that it's polished. But there's nothing else about the game that makes it stand out. Helldivers 2 had a lot going for it, and most GaaS critics accepted it as a worthwhile release eventually. But Concord? If it wasn't developed by Sony, EVERYONE would be ignoring it.
Out of curiosity, I watched one of the big D2 PVP players play this yesterday, and he pretty much said "its extremely polished, well presented, runs well and is fun to play BUT lacks originality and for a pvp game thats costs money to play, it needed to do more than offer what you can already get for free elsewhere" Seems like thats the general consensus across the board from people playing it.
@Czar_Khastik Doesn't seem like the minority if these numbers are any indication. And live-service games live and die by their playerbase; it looks like the most it can amount to is a fondly remembered missed opportunity rather than a classic.
My only real problem with this game is the lack of originality. Why would I want to spend £35 on a game that i've already played before but under a different name? And probably for free?
@get2sammyb I agree. It reminds me of Forspoken, which had a similar thing where people just wanted to dogpile on it for some reason. I don’t get this trend in gaming where people have more fun hating a game than playing it. If anything Concord is more of what people tend to say they want out of multiplayer games too (at least people I know that used to play multiplayer, but have dropped out of it).
@Artois2 Not really instead of making this live service stuff if they want to make tonnes of revenue to fund single player games they can just make Gatcha Trash those garbage games rake in billions regardless of quality and they're not wasting big console game budgets on more failed live services Gatcha garbage probably doesn't cost half as much to make as these awful live service games like this and they won't have major teams time and resources wasted on them
@Shokwave2 That's a bad saying, doesn't relate to any actual trends in media (Barbie made all the money), severely misunderstands what makes something successful, and gives the 'culture war' far more gravitas than it actually has.
Concord isn't woke — really, until grifters do a decent job explaining what woke even is, I'm inclined to say nothing is woke. But humoring the nonsensical sentiment, is Concord woke because it has a competent, capable female character? Is there anything else in the game I don't about that makes it woke? Are people saying it's woke because it's humor vaguely associates it with Disney? Even though that makes no sense, Disney is fairly wrongly always called woke when they do anything, and Disney still frequently makes absurd amounts of money.
@Artois2 ''Not everyone likes cut scene ridden, linear dad sims.''
Dad sims? As in, ''a game for your dad'' or is that an abbreviation for something? Because I have to say that if it is the former, ''old people like single player games and young people like live service games'' is a very questionable statement to make. Especially given how the modern live-service game really is just a simplification of the old school MMO.
@get2sammyb
I hope it fails good and fast. People are tired with these games (live-service games) and especially the business model that is behind them. Yes people want a new Socom, Resistence or Killzone. Sony has all these great franchises and what do they do with it? Nothing. Instead they pump money in this awful game. Sony and developers need to stop milking gamers. Games need to stop with the battle passes and patches every week. I want games that are finished from the day they release and i'm happy to pay for DLC. As for Fairgames and Marathon: i hope they fail just as hard as Concord. Stop the live service BS.
@Artois2 Instead of making big budgeted GaaS games that'll likely blow up in their face and cause losses, Sony should make smaller, more creative games. Then they can increase their output, see if they get a big new IP out of it, surprise and delight their fans, while still making the money to fund the big blockbusters.
I'm really confused why there are so many people defending Sony over this. Are you happy with Concord? Do you plan on playing it for dozens of hours and expect to keep playing it in a decade? If not, why defend Sony for making it?
@somnambulance As someone who played Forspoken, I can tell you first hand that the ''for some reason'' is because Frey is one of the rudest, whiniest and least heroic protagonists I have ever had the misfortune of playing as.
And ironically, like Concord, it is possessed of an unoriginal gameplay experience that you can get anywhere else and probably for considerably less.
@get2sammyb
Someone else may have already said this, and apologies if they have, but i think you hit the nail on the head when you say "They made loads of them on PS3 alongside a bunch of great single player games!".
Sony 1st party AAA single player exclusives have really dried up (I know we have had a couple of 3rd party exclusives), but other than the amazing looking Astrobot, nothing much seems on the horizon from them - which in itself may be more feeling than fact due to the lack of info Sony seem to give out these days.
I think this has whipped up the perfect storm - because this game has taken up a dev team at a time when we have a drought of AAA single player exclusives - which has really been one of the main pulls of Sony's console since PS3 days, and realistically one of the main reasons for their success.
I know a couple of people who tend to play games like fortnight or COD most of the year, but always look forwards to the Sony AAA single player games, and only bought PS5 so they could play these alongside their normal live service / online MP games.
NB I dont think a lot of people will see or care if this dev team does or does not have any experience of AAA single player - they just see resource.
GaaS for a lot of people (not all) seem to fit into the you love them or hate them category, and with companies like Sony and WB trying to jump on the live service bandwagon, they are no longer being seen by those who do not like them as just as an alternative (to ignore), but as a threat, generating a more general bad feeling towards them.
For those that do love them (and i think you pointed this out in a recent article), you will find a considerable number have their favourites, and are so invested in these favourites now, both in terms of time and money, that they will see new GaaS games as a threat too.
Just an opinion.
@get2sammyb So which one of those revered IPs is this?
People want those classic, name brand multiplayer experiences. We are BEGGING for those. Have been for years!
So, yes. Sending a message we want THOSE and not THIS is still a very valid perspective.
I've yearned for a new Killzone, a new Twisted Metal, a new War/Starhawk, a new SOCOM, a new TLOU Factions (a new Jet Moto)... They announced 2 of those and cancelled them both. Then released dime store Overwatch while their classic IP sit and rot.
Sony deserves to have some cash lit on fire if they think THIS is what the market demands. Why are you white knighting for them? I know you're a big fan and your job depends on their success, to a degree, but... they don't need you defending their objectively bad business decisions. Investing heavily in THIS particular game in THIS particular genre for 8(ish) years DESERVES to be criticized. It was a bad choice. They now reap what they sow.
@jrt87 yep you're right, why put money into gta v single player dlc when you could just milk people on gta online. Especially when the game made you install updates for cars, music etc that you could only use in gta online even if you only played the single player game.
@RoomWithaMoose it's not a bad saying, it's common truth these days unfortunately.
I'm guessing you didn't, or refused, to see the Lead Character Designer's comments regarding white people privileges/supremacy, bad/ugly character designs, and other issues in the game that are constantly shoved down our throats by most media these days.
Look I don't care what sex/gender/animal the main characters in the game are, as long as the game itself is enjoyable and isn't shoving it's wokeness in my face. I play games to relax and escape the crap that is out there in the real world. As soon as it enters the game I trying to play, then that game is deleted/returned/binned.
Let’s be real, some of those character designs are downright ugly on purpose.
There’s a difference between not being DoA and trying to make your game intentionally ugly and then pretend it’s still cool.
@RoomWithaMoose those game never sold hence why Sony Japan was closed
Good, all according to plan, personally I haven't even bought Helldivers 2, as I will never support this live-service shift from Sony, even though I know it's a good game.
The bigger question is when Sony kills the servers due to not enough players, will they refund people who bought the game?
The problem I don't have is it is a multiplayer game.
The problem I do have is Concord can be fun sometimes, though it isn't doing anything to keep me long-term.
As people stated before even playing the beta it looked like a Destiny 2 PVP mode with Overwatch types of characters in a Guardians of the Galaxy art style. And that is EXACTLY what the game turned out to be besides the characters no one cares about, the story isn't there, the gameplay per 'hero' isn't motivating enough to stick with or like anyone at all imo. The annoying quips they say are sometimes more than annoying. The limited animations per character got old after less than playing 10 matches.
It is a bummer this is the final product and maybe it will get 3x more content over the next year but it needs that day one.
@get2sammyb you want the short answer? Players are tired of GAAS games… you only need to look at the steam numbers to shed light. That’s why Sony needs a message sending. Stop spending money on making garbage. And give fans stuff they’re actually asking for and they’ll see profit 100%.
@WanderWhere I don't recall Sony ever refunding anyone for anything in mass besides Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 from digital purchases.
@Shokwave2 So the Lead Character Designer made some comments, and now the game as a whole is woke? Like I said before, is there something IN the game I don't know about that makes it woke?
Being completely oblivious to this (not out of refusal, by the way), it certainly doesn't seem like anything is being shoved down the consumers' throats. I'm fact, it seems more like you've seeked out excuses to call the game woke.
@get2sammyb Sony needs to hear this out because they went too fast, too hard on GaaS. If they made one game at a time, while also not forgetting that their audience mostly likes single player games, would have been a much better and effective strategy.
Instead, they went all in, and what was it, 40% of their projects were GaaS, when just a year before that was 0%? Not a good strategy.
This GaaS push will go down as one of the biggest failures of PlayStation, and hopefully they don't spent half or more of their overall budget on this type of project going forward, allocating it to single player games.
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@trev666 I’m hoping it wasn’t completely shelved and it’s just on the back burner
@riceNpea I've gone "Full on Alice in Wonderland", have I...? Riiiight.
So everything I said (forgot to include the shuttering of excellent game companies absorbed by bigger corporations, for absolutely NO REASON), are purely delusional? Okay, then...
But, if you see no problem at all with this or this game in particular (which is a symptom of the culture it's born from), then by all means enjoy this tired, trend-from-a-decade-ago-chasing, D.O.A. shooter with the three other people online, before it gets pulled forever.
Deep joy.
I don't understand why after they saw the initial backlash they didn't try to change course a bit. The first Sonic movie should have been the template on what to do if your product is received negatively instead of the approach of ramming it through the finish line and pray for the best.
Sony still one more potential flop in Fairgames which I'm guessing they will also try to ram it through the finish line while ignoring any outside noise 😐
@Artois2 Yes, it is gaming and where am I not stopping you from enjoying it... Just sit in your room, and tune out anything else if that's what you wish to do (as it seems you're doing already).
@RoomWithaMoose ''So the Lead Character Designer made some comments, and now the game as a whole is woke?''
Meh. Welcome to the social media age. If you do not want your politics to affect your game then keep your politics off Twitter. It really is that simple - just shut up about your politics. Keep it zipped, keep it buttoned up, keep it to yourself. Why is this a lesson that so many need to learn the hard way?
@Shokwave2 Is boring gameplay woke now? I don't know why diversity and inclusivity would ever be bad, but I'm especially confused by how it would be to the detriment of a hero shooter with presumably 10+ characters. Wouldn't it be boring if they weren't diverse in this context?
As for the pronouns and anti-white agendas — AGAIN — are those things even in Concord? Because I haven't seen any indication of the sort. And I don't think it's crazy of me to ask you to support your claim that the game's woke with some actual evidence. No need to get so frustrated about it...
@kuu_nousee
Clear point is if you are desperate enough to want to try it, buy it on pc and refund it as soon as you have made your mind up... but do not buy it on playstation. Simple solution.
@LifeGirl I mean, the creator of Ren & Stimpy is an ACTUAL creep, that doesn't really force us to reappraise Ren & Stimpy in retrospect.
There can be specific cases where this might not apply, but, for the most part, the art isn't defined by the irrelevant beliefs and/or actions of the artist. Especially when they're only 1 in a team of 100.
@WanderWhere has anybody done that?
@RoomWithaMoose "As for the pronouns... are those things even in Concord?"
I don't have a horse in this race, but yes, they are. Every character has their pronouns listed on their profile/customisation page - she/her, undecided, etc.
Ignoring the other part of the claim which was umm... yeah, not so evidence based on their part, I imagine.
The fact that it couldn't even hit 700 players probably makes it one of if not the biggest flop for Sony. If we all knew this was the outcome why didn't Sony? The should have changed course in some way, at minimum they should have made it F2P.
As someone who used to play nothing but multiplayers and in recent years predominantly played single player games. I'm having a lot of fun playing Concord. It reminds me of older shooter where gameplay was only way to progress.
I despise games where you have to pay money to level up quicker, subscribe to season passes and all that nonsense. It's main reason I stopped playing multiplayers so much because they're all like this now but this one is refreshing change.
At same time in needs more content. Considering number of years it was apparently in development I feel it was missed opportunity to not have pve content as well.
I can see the game joining PS Plus Extra in October, I think then more will try the game and enjoy it.
@Isis_Script mountain out of a molehill comes to mind here
@Artois2
Steams refund policy states:
What can I request a refund for? Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any title that is requested within 14 days of purchase and has been played for less than 2 hours (this includes online, offline and shared library playtime).
@WanderWhere sorry thought you meant from the ps store
@crossbit All right. See that's something. I'd still say it's stupid to be mad about that. Or call the whole game woke because of it. Or assert that characters having listed pronouns compromises sales. But the other guy could've really said that if he cared about making his case whatsoever.
Also of those 697 players that bought the game how many will or have ask for refunds because they didn't like it or they can't find players? If I was Sony I would just tell Firewalk to begin working on a patch to turn it F2P, what do you have to lose?
@Tecinthebrain
If I had just paid to buy it and it went f2p, I wouldn't be a happy bunny.
@WanderWhere Yeah those 697 people would be pretty upset! You're right though a F2P move now would potentially hurt the games reputation and effect it's sales ✨
Factions would have had Helldivers numbers. It would have fallen significantly… like Helldivers… but that’s fine. Sony would have made a bundle while it was popular and they could have moved on when the players did. Trying to make these “appeal to everyone forever” games will continue to not work out 99% of the time. The space is to crowded and no one is leaving their current live service dopamine drip for a new version.
There are people that are attacking Concord and there are people that are defending Concord. Two distinctly different groups of people. They do have something in common though. They aren't playing Concord.
Wonderful news!
@Isis_Script yeah...you're going well over the top over this game.
@RoomWithaMoose If an exec at McDonalds came out and called me a fat pig for eating Big Mac's and that exec was not punished in some way for saying it then I wouldn't go to McDonalds anymore. Simple as that. This is exactly the same scenario as a dev insulting me and expecting me to still play their game.
Sorry but I'm going to agree to disagree with you here.
Just looked like a bland game, I'm impressed they got the rights to Thanos or Yakub or whoever that big head guy is though.
We know it was going to be bad but the peak was just 10% of Redfall’s peak!? 💀
@TrickyDicky99
Astros playroom - deleted for space like everyone else
Ratchet & clank - got ps+ for a month to try it, played 20 minutes
Spiderman 2 best thing about this was buying an unbundled ps5 so it was cheaper without it
Concord - I cancelled ps+ and it goes off soon, cost of living and all that, so even if I wanted to play it, no point
At least Warframe and the first descendant work without ps+. And both of these have vastly more content and story and quality than all of the above.
It does seem very churlish. This game has been a victim of a clear campaign. Either way I’m not bothered about the game but more about the devs who’s livelihood probably depend on it having a decent amount of players
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@get2sammyb it should at least been F2P, that’s one of the most glaring issues which I believe puts a lot of people off.
@colonelkilgore There is new leadership at Sony and I'm sure they know this. The live service push was Jim Ryan's initiative. Herman Hulst came from a studio that created the most successful new single player IP of the last 10 years. We are going to see a refocus on SP games. Personally, I wish Concord had a SP campaign. As it stands, I don't like mp games and won't pick this one up.
Generally I like sonys games for single player and Xboxs for multiplayer
@Artois2 Sure, whatever dude... it matters to who it matters to... if it doesn't to you, carry on.
@get2sammyb
In the article it states that there are significantly higher numbers of PS5 players of this game, which is in contrast of the steam counts. You would think as a cross platform release it would be more balanced, otherwise why release the game cross platform in the first place. As we have no way to see this, surely this should have been shown to support the claim in the article. Can this be produced as I'm sure not just myself but other people would like to see the evidence to confirm the figures. If this is stated in the article, then Push square must have access to the statistics and it should not be difficult to produce and was more likely an oversight at the time.
The steamdb was quoted for those numbers but no source given for the PS5 numbers.
I'm sorry to say but looks like this game is DOA. I would be really surprised if it can sell as much as Gravity Rush, PSABR, Returnal, Freedom Wars, Soul Sacrifice, Patapon, or even Driveclub.
And I don't know what will happen to Firewalk but i'm not surprised if next year Sony put them in the chopping block. I mean, Driveclub managed to sell 2 million copies but for Sony it's a commercial flop which they closed down Evolution Studios. And Japan Studio also got closed down despite Freedom Wars sold 500K copies, Soul Sacrifice + Delta sold 200K copies, and Gravity Rush 1 + 2 sold 300K copies.
But eh, we'll see...
I miss the days when a game came out with a full single player campaign and then also had a fun multiplayer mode at no extra cost. Ghost of Tsushima had no reason to release a multiplayer mode, but it appeared just in time for many to have completed the campaign, and it was fully fleshed out and fun.
I mean I'm sure it didn't help when websites, like this one, where ***** on the game before even playing it. Which is quite unprofessional.
@Czar_Khastik you are joking, right? A classic?
I really fell bad for Firewalk, gotta be honest. The game is not so bad e you can clearly see talent of the studio by just looking at the UI, style, cutscenes, etc.
Concord is a good game that came out in the wrong way and time: it this game came out with no-woke things, F2P and in the right time it could have built a stronger community.
People hate Concord not because they don't want this game, but because Sony is giving it too much importance: if it had come out as a "secondary" game, maybe between Death Stranding 2 and Wolverine (I took two random PS games as an example) it would have been received better in my opinions.
Still, I must admit: I bought the game and having a lot of fun
I love that it's failing. Makes me excited to see Fairgame$ get the same treatment. Sonys been so disconnected from its fans this gen. I hope all it's live service games fail. They don't want to communicate, and try and force games that the majority of it's audience doesn't want, then well...I guess maybe they'll listen when it hits them in the pockets.
@TrickyDicky99 That right there is precisely the problem.
I doubt the GaaS titles would be getting nearly this level of hate if not for the fact it's obvious resources have been moved away from single-player experiences to chase that trend.
Gamers see development resources as a zero-sum game, and rightfully so given the output this generation, and they're vocally against shifting so many of those resources/teams to GaaS. Luckily Sony has course corrected to some extent by now, however we won't see the fruits of that until either the end of PS5 or early-gen PS6.
@UltimateOtaku91 Not a nice feeling is it? Now think on that when all you guys dunk on every Xbox game unless it comes to PS then suddenly it's a "masterpiece" like what's been done for years, this game failed not because it's a multiplayer game it failed because it's another game made to not appeal to the majority of "gamers" it's a game made for people who hate gamers.
It's a mystery why it fail, why don't people want to play hero shooter with characters such as granny, mushroom woman, template black woman with template afro hair, and lastly, a pronoun thrash robot. Surely it's a mystery I tell you.
I think more than anything it just needed something more effective at actually introducing the characters. The vignette idea just isn't a good one. It assumes people already like these characters, which simply is not the case.
I know we unfortunately live in an age where we can't have shooters with a campaign and multiplayer (outside of COD anyway) but I really think one would have gone a long way towards getting this game more interest. Plus it would have really let them properly get people attached to the characters as opposed to the useless vignettes.
I know people will point to Overwatch as the counter to my argument but that has the Blizzard name attached to it. Firewalk is an unknown new studio so they were never going to get the leniency Blizzard got. Plus I also just gotta say Blizzard made just far more attractive characters. Concord's cast just looks kinda...well I'll say it ugly.😄
It is sad though, the core gameplay is there but the meat on the bone is just not in good enough shape.
more cartoony crap
@Artois2 clearly there’s very few people that “like different things” on pc. In fact it seems there’s several million that like familiar souls-like things in the form of wukong.
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Those that plan on playing it later down the line are hopeful unless that later is before the end of this year.
@Isis_Script each to their own I guess. Just think there is a hell of a lot more going on in this world that we should be worried about than games. Which is a hobby. Guess what if you don’t like this hobby find something else
@Zeldorf he is the king of sarcasm
Can't really feel sorry for Sony. They should have predicted way earlier than us, that this won't take off. The artstyle alone is a major red flag (for me).
I would be very interested to see the PS5 numbers for Concord. I wasn't expecting more than a few thousand on Steam, but 697?!
@colonelkilgore Don't forget we still have Astro Bot next month! I'm sure it will be a success!
I see this psplus for free and refunds being a thing
Amazing news, let’s have the numbers sink even lower, send a message to Sony with your wallets people!
@get2sammyb because this isn't about them just making a multiplayer game. It's about them making a live service game at the expense of single-player story-focused games that they're actually known and loved for. This game isn't a passion project; it's shallow, ininspired trend-chasing. I've never groaned so hard in my life than when I watched that reveal trailer and all that wasted story was just for another 5v5 hero shooter. What an absolute waste of everyone's time.
To be fair, I played the beta and I actually enjoyed it. It felt good, looked great, had a nice range of characters and skills, but it's worth remembering that a couple of years ago Sony disrupted their entire strategy to focus on live service gamed, due to certain ones doing so well and making so much money, but we don't need every game to be a live service multiplayer game. Sony are at their best when creating single-player story-focused games, and the failure of Concord (and success of Black Muth Wukong), will be a wonderful reminder to Sony that they shouldn't divert so much resource to live service games that nobody wants at the expense of their core audience.
That being said, absolutely nobody would be mad about a new Killzone or Resistance game.
@RoomWithaMoose Sony tried making those smaller games but guess what? They didn't sell either. Just because there smaller games and apparently have more "creativity" doesn't guarantee the kind of profits that Sony are needing. HI-FI Rush was a perfect example of that last year, fit the mold of a "smaller" game but it still took 4 years and a near AAA budget.
@jrt87 FM 2015 what a game!
Another Jim Ryan disaster. I’m not a Jim Ryan hater, but it’s quite interesting to see the delayed, slow trickling of some major failures resulting from his decisions. Although, I wonder what portion of blame is owed to Herman Hulst.
The store rating on PSN is really low as well. Might be the biggest flop this year.
@Hal_9Million Miss those days? BO4 aside CoD does this every single year.
With more advertising to a wider modern audience I’m sure it can bring more players haha. Funny seeing this game on my FB ads and people roasting it. It is what it is.
Seriously, the F2P market being crowded isn’t the full reason that this game has failed.
@Markatron84 when I checked yesterday there were 7.4K reviews on PSN. You need to own the game to leave a star rating on PSN, so there were at least that many purchasers.
This should have been free to play title from the start
No one wanted Concord. This game is cooked. 🍳
EDIT: Sep 3 Nailed it! XD
@AdamNovice Hi-Fi Rush's marketing was horrible. And the contemporary Xbox playerbase doesn't seem to be a good fit for that type of game. It's just not a good example of why smaller, creative games don't work.
Looking at Nintendo, who has fostered a fanbase that cares when they come out with a random whatever, there seems to clearly be a way to sustainably allow experimentation.
And I'm not saying Nintendo's methodology is perfect. Nor am I saying PlayStation needs to design their business around Nintendo. But Nintendo shows putting out AA games at a regular pace can work. And PlayStation, frankly, used to be THE BEST at this. I get that none of them were evergreen bestsellers. But it's just as feasible that the problem was Sony's marketing rather than the games themselves. So they should keep trying, market then differently, and see how they can make it work.
Unless Concord makes more money than Astro Bot, I think it's clear this GaaS direction wasn't a good business move.
Just checked the store, standing at 7.7k reviews, 2.81 score, spread over very few 2,3s or 4s. Rank 5 is about a quarter, longest bar is the 1 star climbing towards the 50% mark. Even if I'm generous and count that 1 bar as 45% of the score, that's around 3465 people that bought this game and rated it 1 star and are stuck with it at £35 a pop. Feel sorry for all those 1 star reviewers that can't get refunds.
Judging from the comments from the gaming media, it's very likely all those 5 stars come from that direction.
@get2sammyb multiplayer does not equal GaaS
@DeadnBuried exactly, if we ever get a new Killzone or Resistance, it better be straight up Multiplayer and no GaaS crap. Along with a single player campaign of course
My online multiplayer days are long behind me so it was never going to interest me no matter how good it was much like helldivers 2 didn't even though i really liked the first one so i'm not the target audience for this but Concords impending failure might end up having severe adverse effects on future titles. If they're providing a fully complete game with no pay to win garbage, providing free updates and supporting it long term and it spectacular bombs as predicted, Sony are probably going to rethink that approach in the future and any multi-player game afterwards may see it flooded with micro transactions and pay to win mechanics instead.
Jesus christ, that's a lot of comments.
Anyways, compare Concord with Helldivers 2, both are live service but one was well received.
Sony NEEDS more games like Helldivers 2 and less games like Concord. I for one would like to see something like a fighting game from Sony, or maybe a MMO.
Bottom line is there are better alternatives to enter the live service market, hero shooters aren't hot right now.
@get2sammyb
A good question to pose (the comment on C. Kilgore).
The premise of your argument is that these games offer diversity and the opportunity for growth in player base, and could end up being a cash cow.
The other side of the argument is: there isn't a market for it. It will flop and thus take away from from Playstation rather than add to it. The big question for proponents of this belief is what could have been if Sony didn't put a lot of effort into the Glass basket.
Frankly, both sides are legimate and have sound logic and known fallacies to their argument in my humble opinion. It is up to the new leadership to see how they walk that line.
@LifeGirl For what it’s worth, I think Freya is a video game character circa 2003 that came out in 2023 game. She was whiny and vulgar, but hey, Forspoken was a fun game with some solid aspects to it. It wasn’t a 10/10 by any means, but it was new and took risks and had very fun combat and traversal. This decade we’ve had games release broken that were forgiven, but the internet hated Forspoken (and Concord) a full year before it released and most detractors, I’ve found, haven’t played the game before trashing it. I totally respect anyone that played it and didn’t like it, but gaming culture needs to try new things or else this vacuum of remakes, remasters, and live service F2P will persist.
@Artois2 I've played the game too and know what I saw. Unless they've gone into damage control and patched the game.
I'm guessing you like playing crap games. Look at the reviews (besides this sites "keep every one happy equality" review), look at the comments, look at the player numbers, look at the stats. It's a game no one asked for and it will soon be on sale and forgotten about.
I know plenty of words, but some of them would get my comments removed (again), or my account banned if said them to you, because I don't agree with the admins views or I'm not going along with the crowd and have my own thoughts on gaming.
Thank God for X (Twitter) and even Reddit, where people can comment and speak freely without offending the soft crowd.
@Czar_Khastik thank you for showing up as expected. This comment section was getting pretty intense.
Concorders unite.
@DennisReynolds that is a fair point, though COD is the exception to the rule, I think because it's been so popular for so long. I don't think I worded what I meant properly before. GoT was just the last game that wasn't Halo or COD which I remember having both modes. Almost no other single player games these days have multiplayer modes. It used to be pretty common, I think back to the days of PS3 when a lot of games had both modes out of the box.
@colonelkilgore they shouldn't have released this in the same timeframe as Black Myth Wokong killed any momentum if any Concord could have had if any
It's hard to say that it's poor timing with regards to going up against Black Myth, as I don't think anyone expected Black Myth to come out this strong, meaning it may not have seemed like an issue. That aside, I'd expect the PC/Steam sales to be low, because honestly, every PC gamer I talk to plays other games like Valorant, Counter Strike, Overwatch, Apex Legends... They're thoroughly entrenched in those games, so a $40 game that does near enough the same as what they're already playing just isn't appealing to them, and I (as a PS5 gamer) am along with them - if I want to play an object based hero shooter I have OverWatch and Valorant. I don't need to drop $40 to try another hero shooter.
I feel like this is to the surprise of essentially nobody? The writing wasn't even on the wall with this game; it was written in big bold letters across a gigantic flag.
I don't even know how you successfully break into a market like this with the competition being so fierce. It always struck me as odd that Sony would go so hard into the live service area with so many games.
Many of which are bound to fail, or be canceled most likely.
@Yousef- Concorders, nice one 😂
@Frmknst Overly negative reception to aspects like character design, general lack of interest and attempting to thrive in a market that's already crowded as is.
There really was no way this game was succeeding.
@Frmknst A traitor to a corporation? What are you talking about?
It seems to be a good game, but with a bad marketing strategy / angle.
Maybe it should have been given away with PS+, day one, to attract new players, I don't know.
The game seems to be so hated right now that I almost want to play it, you know, to be the kind one, in a weird way. The one that brings comfort.
But if I did it for Suicide Squad - and Anthem before that - (which I loved to death, I played them solo entirely and it was just FUN), this particular kind of game (multiplayer only) is simply not for me...
I wish it good luck, thought.
Fugly character designs in a game genre which characters are half of the game.
I really don't know who the game is for.
Just bring on the Astro Bot, not long now.
Feel bit sorry for the dev team, this could genuinely be the biggest flop of all time after 8 years dev time.
People are just tired of live service shooters, man… it is what it is
@UltimateOtaku91
It not really that there are more multiplayer players than single, just that you need to measure differently. Single player game players are not locked into one game. They’ll play numerous unique single player games in the same span a multiplayer person will spend in just one. So you have to add together all the single player game’s sales for that person, within the same period, to get a fair comparison.
Comes at a time when we are lucky to see 1 new single player from a 1st party studio in a generation and sony had been seemingly trying to turn more of their teams into live service games. Seriously though if they havent already fire the character designer
I think it will take a long time for Sony to make the cost of this one back on skins, maybe 8 years or so. Given the number of players, one server slice should do it.
They could always speed this up by cost-cutting, prerecording some voice lines and closing the studio, wonder how likely that will be?
@get2sammyb the difference with the titles you mentioned and this is that they had pretty good singleplayer campaigns... This isn't really about Concord specifically it's that all we know of coming from Sony at the moment is MP trend chasing, something the majority of PS owners don't buy PlayStations for.
We know in a vague way that the first party studios are working on "stuff" other than multiplayer/live service titles but there isn't anything specific to rally behind and be excited about.
The more we have live service and multiplayer titles marketed at us the harder it is to believe the Big Event Single Player Games are cooking.
Concord is a good game and I’m playing it right now. It’s polished, it’s well balanced, the servers are solid. I’ve been looking for something to play since I dropped Overwatch, and it’s just what I’m after. The lack of a battle pass and microtransactions is also quite refreshing. I want to see more of that.
The marketing of the game is what failed this game.
The first trailer was a cheeseburger?
The 2nd trailer we got was a pretty solid and interesting cgi trailer about a group of misfits, stealing loot and escaping.
Setting up what one would presume was a goofy but solid adventure game.
What we got was a 5v5 hero shooter, with some how 16 playable characters, no one knows with tact on cgi clips to push a story each week, which don't really fit, the gameplay.
If they had promoted it as a new type of hero shooter and took time to develop the actual reason you some how end up fighting each other in a 5v5 then maybe it stood a chance.
But they promoted it as a great adventure with a group of misfits.
@Shokwave2 if you know expressing your thoughts would get you banned, maybe it's time to re-evaluate them.
But then again, you're praising X which is literally and factually proven to be the most biased and partisan social media platform, especially since Musk took over. The statistics are all there for everyone to see.
@clvr that is a joke isn't it? Every platform holder colluded with the US government to restrict free speech, a protected activity. Even if you're right about X, social media companies are fundementally compromised. There is no unbiased platform.
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@mkr What politics are those?
@UltimateOtaku91 Fairgame$ and Concord suffer from the same symptom: cringy, wannabe marvel dialogue that was outdated years ago, an overly colourful setting for which the market is saturated and very poor character design. I think if Sony would have made a gritty, mature live service shooter that’s badass instead of ‘quirky’ it would have fared a lot better
Wow, 204 comments so far. It’s more than the maximum number of players in Suicide Squad!
A $40 price tag, a non existent player count, and a high chance of Sony hitting the kill switch early, I am staying far away from this one.
It didn't look particularly appealing to me to begin with but it quickly went from a maybe to a heck no.
They made a game for the free to play crowd then priced them out of the launch. The players happy about there being no battlepass/microtransaction are not the audience this gameplay loop was intended for. Now neither audience wants anything to do with this.
(Since reports are putting crazy statistics like 90% of black myth wukong players are in China, I don't know if that game is really the sole issue harming concord.)
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@StrickenBiged - 7.4k store ratings does not mean 7.4k game purchases. Anyone that added the PS+ early trial version could leave a rating. You can rate anything added to your library whether you played it or not.
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@UltimateOtaku91 I agree people scream hard and in the end don't buy it. But the last Killzone was really disappointing I played Killzone 3 so much I even platinumed it. Fun gameplay cool classes, cool maps, cool finishers and really fun modes.
@ashipaw It is? Think you may be reaching there. The game has flopped because nobody wanted it. Not because of some stupid American culture war nonsense.
@ashipaw Baldur's Gate 3 has all of those things and it ruled 2023 completely, it wasn't even close. If the game is great people will buy it regardless of the "woke" stuff, Concord is generic crap that would have flopped even if they took all those things away.
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The GaaS shooter well is tapped out mostly by Microsoft & EA, there's just not much space for more shooters like this outside the PS crowd.
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@Shigurui oh really? Ouch.
Hrmm. How about this to estimate the total number of PSN sales. On PSN profiles, 97.58% of players have the easiest trophy (for getting 1 kill). The trophy has 89.9% PSN rarity. So that’s a ratio of 1.085. PSN profiles is tracking 908 game owners. 908*1.085=985. So barring people who have purchased and are yet to get a single kill, there are conservatively only ~985 PSN owners in total.
Does that work?
Seems like there's nothing Sony can do to save this game now, they can't make it free to play as they would have to refund all buyers plus there's no MTX for them to make money off even if it was free to play.
Theres also no point in putting it into Playstation plus as without MTX there's no real benefit of having a player boost.
Only real option is to abandon any future updates and not spend any more resources on the game, just leave the servers up for 12 months (or more) for those that have bought the game.
But hopefully this doesn't mean the closure of firewalk as obviously they have talent, maybe use them as a studio that helps on other playstation projects or allow them to get working on their next game and give them another chance.
People obsess over steam player numbers too much. I turned cross play off and have no problem finding matches.
Only people playing this are the developers lol
@Nepp67 Speak for yourself mate.
Well, you win some, you lose some.
Expect this to go free to play very, very soon. Don't know who thought charging £35 for a hero shooter was a good idea
@UltimateOtaku91 Absolutely could go f2p. They just give everyone who bought the game £35 worth of currency. Cosmetics were planned for the game anyway.
CSGO, TF2, PUBG, Destiny 2, Rocket League, Fall Guys, all went paid to f2p. Main difference was they already had a playerbase though
@UltimateOtaku91 "they can't make it free to play as they would have to refund all buyers plus there's no MTX for them to make money off even if it was free to play."
If they don't want to throw the towel in just yet then making it f2p is their only available option, no point in adding mtx when there's not many people playing it.
Of course they would have to do refunds so they could potentially lose even more money. I'm with you though I say just call it a loss and move one, use this experience to ensure that the same doesn't happen to Fairgame$ (a name change is a good start 🤞)
@Cikajovazmaj Best comment, and it had to be said - the artistic aesthetics of a game are highly underappreciated as a factor for gamers' interest - far too much is spent talking about 'story' and 'frames per second' and so on.
They could have spent this money on games people keep asking for like Bloodborne. Talk about not caring about money anymore. That's what happens when you are on top.
From reading these comments I’ve come to the conclusion that if I don’t like a game I have to HATE it and hope for its failure. 😒
@Lavishturtle here you are talking about how Sony doesn’t care about money anymore. While the constant bicker around here is how Sony ONLY cares about money lol.
Should have been F2P, they were crazy charging for it.
I would feel sorry for the Devs but nah this was mostly on them, they were the ones jumping on the already full live service hero shooter train long before Sony got involved. No sympathy from me for either the Devs or Sony.
@Lavishturtle If we got Bloodborne 2 then Elden Ring wouldn't exist. You understand From might not want to do BB2 right?
@UltimateOtaku91 Plenty of games go F2P with Destiny 2 being the big one and MTX are coming to the game.
@DennisReynolds I think they meant a PS5 remake of bloodborne rather than a sequel. People have been wanting that game to be in 60 fps since the PS4 pro got announced
@Drago201 woke vs. anti-woke? In this game? How so?
The free-to-play business model utilizer by competing games is mostly to blame, not Concord's quality. It's hard to compete with "free" and gamers' expectations that have been influenced by so many games being free-to-play.
@DennisReynolds Yeah but not less than a month after release, Destiny 2 was out years before it went f2p. Also the MTX getting added are just cosmetics, they need battle passes as well but with such low player numbers I can't see adding Cosmetics ot Battle passes making a difference.
Theres no doubt that this game flopped, my only hope is that sony doesn't shut down firewalk
@get2sammyb As much as I do like Concord, is this potentially the highest profile commercial flop of a game in history?
I honestly can’t believe the number are THAT bad. Even more baffling is that the game is actually fairly solid, certainly better than the majority of games in its genre. While I think the industry deserves “the message” that games are tired of live service bs, I don’t think Concord deserves worse than Suicide Squad.
If you are going to spend 8 years developing an online-only game, it better be something that is completely different and not something that is chasing a trend.
I do feel bad for those who put a lot of hard work into the game. I am sure there was passion there. But this was just not the game to make when so many others don't cost anything to download and play (and can continue to cost nothing).
While I hate Battle Passes and MTX, at least knowing the game didn't cost anything up front and you can kind of "pay what you want (if anything)" is a nice formula when you're a cheapskate.
Plus, the PS5 version ends up costing EVEN MORE since it requires PS+ to fully enjoy.
Sony story first party studios are still making those. If Sony wants to try a few of these, I have no problem with it. at least one of the potential 5-6 they launch will resonate with me, I'm sure. This one wasn't it. But who knows, it might grow on me.
@somnambulance It’s bafflingly bad, even some streamers were questioning if the Steam numbers were actually accurate but the lengthy matchmaking gives away those are the real numbers.
DOA would’ve been Redfall numbers at 6,000 peak, but the fact that it couldn’t even get close to 1,000 means the game isn’t even ‘born’ to be dead…
Right now roughly 250 players on Concord. That’s still twice than Suicide Squad, so it’s not yet an epic fail.
@AdamNovice I am speaking for myself dx
Wonder win Sony is just going to cut their losses and be done with game. They have a couple options in trying to save it, add it to plus or make it free to play, but even then I don't know if that would draw an audience.
Can't believe they released this game but closed pixelopus who's game was a lot cheap to make and would have definitely sold more than concord.
I see people saying it should have been f2p. No, it being f2p would not have saved it. People were turned off as soon as they saw what it was. The character designs/the world etc and all the extra stuff that went along with it is the first thing people notice and if you can't pass that part, your gameplay better look hella tight to make up for it to at least keep their interest up. When it comes to this game, the latter doesn't. So the game was doomed from the start.
The funny thing is, the whole hiding till is practically done thing PlayStation likes to do now days may have bit them in the ass this time. Because if they had shown this off years back, they likely would have gotten the same reaction possibly leading to some other action. What action I don't know but you would have had time for more action instead of sticking your head in the sand because it's already too late.
@get2sammyb what I've been saying as well. Most of the criticisms are easily understandable- people don't want another hero shooter, maybe it looks uninspired, gameplay is too slow for some people, etc.
But the unrelenting dogpile of memes, and in my opinion, unwarranted hate, is just quite sad to see. I quite like the beta, and while I know this game shouldn't be $40 and I too would rather it be single player, I can think of other games that are far more deserving to be made an example of than Concord.
Oh and another thing. This is far from anything new on the internet, but the narrative surrounding this game and woke culture is both cringy and embarrassing.
The game has pronouns on the character select screen, and what's intended to be a diverse cast. That's all I've seen. Make no mistake, I know a hero shooter is only as good as its gameplay and a likable hero list. But I personally don't see an agenda
Well anyway, I hope Firewalk can salvage something here, but more importantly, they rebound with whatever they do next
Market oversaturation. Too. Many. Shooters.
@get2sammyb Do you think it's fair to say this might be the biggest first-party financial flop in the company's history? There have been worse PlayStation games released than Concord, but for how much money they've sunk into it, I can't think of another PS game that has performed this abysmally. Even if PS5 had 20 times as many concurrent players as PC this weekend, that's still an awful turnout for a first-party title.
At this point it looks quite likely that the Steam sales won't even be enough to recoup the work hours and wages spent on the PC port, QA and testing, etc.
That must sting. As much as I expected the game to fail by merit of being... well, just a bit too boring compared to the competition before you even get to the price, that it is so much worse than I expected.
And with another looming competitor officially confirmed in Deadlock, I doubt they have any way back from this on the PC front.
Keep in mind that the majority of the world cannot buy it on steam since Sony put the self-ban in place. Though it probably wouldn't have helped much anyways to be fair.
@IOI I would imagine that, given these numbers and slow matchmaking, it won’t be long before Steam users start to drop off even more as a result of a lack of other players. It’s really sad. Concord doesn’t deserve this. Suicide Squad deserved to bomb. Skull and Bones also did. Redfall even deserved it. These were all 4/10 tier experiences (well… Suicide Squad is maybe a 3/10). Concord is a flat 7/10 experience and it directly addresses a lot of people’s complaints about the GAAS format, multiplayer shooters, etc. It’s actually a little bit different. If it’s a 200-300 million dollar loss for Sony, it’s a shame that it was this one rather than one that was trying to be another prong in the whale market. Also, I doubt this one flopping will stop the other doomed projects from releasing to similarly catastrophic results. I doubt Fairgame$ has a sunnier fate than Concord.
@B0udoir " Right now roughly 250 players on Concord. That’s still twice than Suicide Squad, so it’s not yet an epic fail."
Why you keep comparing a game released at the beginning of the year which started with 13,459 players (still awful) and slowly evaporated to nothing to Concord which died within minutes of release?
Yes Suicide Squad is a bomb but nothing has bombed harder than Concord in recent memory (not because of the quality because it looks solid). The game could not get past 697 people playing it and it looks like 200+ of those already refunded 😐
I'm guessing 200+ refunded the game so yeah this is soul crushing for the studio,
@Randinator123 Big chance Sony will put Firewalk in the chopping block. I mean looking at Sony 1st party studios history:
So i don't think there's no exception for Firewalk. With just 300-600 players on PC and who knows how much on PS5, it's impossible for Concord to break even or get profit considering the game has 8 years in development and a potential of $100+ million budget.
@Tecinthebrain I know, I was just sarcastic. I cannot believe this game took 8 years to develop. It looks so generic that it seems to be a low effort mobile game. As always, the management chain is clearly questionable.
Pc day and date apparently doesnt bring in the cheddar.
@Jakebrake1895
Sadly we live in a world where a minority of loud, intolerant people like to push their political agenda by using any game/other media which includes any diversity whatsoever, and which has not done amazingly well (it need not have even flopped), just to try and prove their narrative of "go woke, go broke" (makes me sick writing it, even in context).
@Rich33 if that makes you sick, I can't imagine you do well on rollercoasters.
Ultimately, Concord flopped because no one asked for a 40 Dollar hero shooter featuring the Temu versions of the Guardians of the Galaxy in 2024.
I'm beyond tired of the GaaS nonsense, so I'm glad that it's failing while concurrently a single player game is ruling the world. Get the hint, Sony. Sure, a tiny handful of those games reach the level of Fortnite, PUBG, Apex, but they're the outliers, the ones in a million. And I've never even played those games either. GaaS BS is also why the new Dragon Age has taken a decade.
I don't see how Haven studios isn't panicking a bit, Fairgame$ debut trailer was received even worse than Concord. Is never a good idea to just power through the release day and while ignoring all the negative noise believing it will justb go away.
also one hand they prefer story driven games, but on the other if sony was making live service games, they would prefer to be a ip they would like if on brand recognition and ideas alone, of course they wouldn’t like to pay for full price or play a generic hero shooter, so i understand the dislike, but you shouldn’t be too angry for long.
if you hate sony and playstation that much right now, you might as well jump over to nintendo, pc or heck, xbox, because not everyone want to hear you rage and whine about this game, just wait on astro bot, then you can jump back you pansys, let sony worry about business
@get2sammyb Because these people want to rage and complain thinking it could get sony to listen, sony is aware, and i know the game isn’t going to do well finically, but they’ll just raging, i’m sure as soon as astro bot releases, they’ll forget concord ever existed.
@StrickenBiged - I'm pretty sure that PSN profiles can only scrape the data of site members so it can't give the full picture.
Check the review scores on the store, the highest bar is one star and it has less score than foamstars. Not even sure if anyone is still playing that either. Effectively both games should have shown Sony already the writing on the wall.
Given that so many studios with significant success stories have been closed by Sony, and this game and Firewalk are now internationally a laughing stock, I expect Firewalk will be closed sooner rather than later and the whole thing under the rug to avoid any further brand damage. Every time you go into YouTube etc there's a Sony Concord advert in your face, they need to accept reality and save the advertising money at this stage instead of throwing good money after bad.
This has to now be the biggest gaming industry flop of all time surely. 8 years to peak at 600 players is beyond appalling. 10x less than Redfall.
I doubt this game even make back the money spent on employee lunches during development, nevermind anything else. Total disaster
we get it the game doa, stop talking about it, we are entitled to our own opinions but you have to accept reality and step out of that bubble that playstation can’t do no wrong, it’s just a game, you guys honestly need to relax
i’m not defending the game or anything, it’s not healthy being so angry at this, just make your complaints and move on
honestly, i’m sure most of you guys fully grown adults and you are acting like little kids
also don’t be mean to people who like this game, not everyone has to feel the same.
i’m honestly embarrassed to be a ps owner, if we do this every sony has a game we don’t like
you have to get used to this until either sony gets more or worse case scenario they quit making consoles, if you don’t like it i suggest either go over to xbox, ps, pc or nintendo, just don’t flip flop back to playstation when they do something good, it makes look like a hypocrite
@Rich33 if it was a minority of people this game would be doing really well. Sorry dude but you're the loud minority
I'm amazed people actually paid for it, so many better games like it for free out there
My expectations for the game were low but geez this is an abject failure of catastrophic proportions.
If I worked at the studio, I'd be brushing up my CV right about now.
The numbers on steam are rapidly declining, to a point that this article has twice the amount of comments than the game currently has playing it right now (136).
@somnambulance you say all those games deserved to fail but their fans would say otherwise. Just because you like Concord doesn’t mean it deserves to be a success. In fact all those games you listed have a bigger fan base than Concord does. The Suicide Squad subreddit has 10x more members than the concord subreddit. The truth is that Concord released in a heavily populated genre and not only did nothing different than the existing hero shooters but also does nothing better, and in some design choices not as good. When your competition is objectively better than your game and free while your game is even just half the price of a normal game these days then it was sent out to fail.
@UltimateOtaku91
It gets worse once you see Deadlock's concurrent players right now. That game isn't even out yet mind you.
We all need to go out and buy Astrobot on day 1 to really stick it to Sony and to show them that they should have been more focused on single player games this gen.
At this rate I'm expecting the PS5pro to come out bundling Concord with it that way Sony can claim the bundles as game sales and try to force engagement with Concord.
Alot of us voiced our concerns on the official PS Blog post at the launch of Concord.
https://blog.playstation.com/2024/08/23/concord-launches-on-ps5-pc-today-5v5-action-training-mode-time-trials-and-more-awaits/
Funny thing there is also a physical copy. You will soon be able to get it for a tenner and maybe the game lives with the bare minimum gas in the engine.
I'd bet that a fighting game and a MMO would also fare better than Concord and Fairgame$ too, Playstation as a brand is already familiar with both genres and there's a good track record from other games like that since the PS3 era.
When it comes to GAAS, instead of chasing whatever is in vogue, they should focus on games that fit their current playerbase or at least on games that could fill a gap in their current lineup.
Helldivers 2 is literally a good example of a GAAS that works well for Sony, there's a lack of PvE coop games.
@Blaze215 no, he's perfectly right.
The game is wildly underperforming because of several factors such as price, generic looks, trite gameplay etc, not because of some made up culture war only Americans care about.
And if you think only one factor was decisive in the downfall of this game, I'm sorry but the world is a very complex system where nothing can be attributed to one single variable in most cases, and certainly not one as vague and meaningless as "wokeness".
Sony needs to abandon this failed game before it's too late. Buy Arrowhead and Leave Firewalk as a support studio for them, and start investing more in Helldivers 2, so the game can finally be played without bugs, improve performance and add more content at a faster pace. (And shake the higher ups so they stop nerfing weapons just because).
@Czar_Khastik oh my..
Umm no it won’t.
The comments are quite amusing here, Sony should stick to single player games…not even a thought even once for many not interested in this game.
Sony being involved…again not even a consideration.
Terrible art, even worse characters…very high on the list of ewwww what is that.
So yeah…a classic for all the wrong reasons.
@Shepard93n7 no, if they add to hell divers what they did to concord then you will see a mass exodus of the remaining players.
@Ptolomy1299 not if they just take away any creative decision from Firewalk, as a support studio they can only do what Arrowhead dictates. The main goal is to improve AH work force so HD2 can regain people's trust and be popular again.
Of course, another live service shoot, defend or loot. Top that with bland characters you get this mess
Folks on the reddit are already complaining about the inability to get into a match, unprecedented downfall 😂
Problem is there are a lot of similar games on the market, which are well established and aren't locked behind an initial paywall.
If you're going to charge for a game like this (rather than start free and make money through micro transactions) it needs to do several things:
a. Stand out enough that people want to buy it. eg a reason why people should spend £40 on this rather game than play Apex Legends or Fortnite etc.
b. Stand out enough that people will choose it over another paid for game. eg if someone can only afford to buy one game this month why should they choose Concorde and not something like Star Wars Outlaws or Black Myth?
I was holding off for reviews because I wasn't a fan in the Beta, a shame though.
@Blaze215
It failed because a lot of people did not want another GaaS game, wasnt anywhere near good/interesting enough in terms of gameplay and content/originality to pull those who do like this type of game away from their favourite titles that they have already invested a lot of time and money into, and probably because of the decision to charge for it rather than follow a ftp model.
It did not fail because millions who were going to buy it, decided it contained "too much" diversity, or some political agenda.
For comparison, Valve's unannounced (and invite-only) game Deadlock hit over 81k concurrent players during the same period.
Especially of note is it is also a multiplayer only competitive shooter (obviously with a few different things also going on).
Concord is dead on PC. No way around it. I don't even think going free will save it on PC.
Sad, they could have taken the risk spending on a PSVR2 exclusive.
Oh jeez, the update! This has got to be Sony's biggest commercial failure, ever? I'd love to know how many bottles of ketchup are hitting the walls behind the scenes
@get2sammyb Sony can make what they want. It's a business though, they should focus on products people want to buy.
At this moment, on Steam at least, Concord has just over twice the players Suicide Squad does, and that released about 6 months ago. That is beyond embarrassing. Give this 6 months it will be lucky to even come close to triple figures.
@jrt87 i remember sony japan studios and the fact that people bashed their last game so much , and it sold awful. even though it wasn't even that bad of a game the ps4 was just dated , and played much better on the ps5.
the biggest problem with games as a service is every one clearly thinks its a mulitplayer only game thats like overwatch or fortnite , even though games as a service can also be single player , like street fighter , or assassins creed.
There are lessons to be learned here for the industry, and failures like this will continue to happen until those lessons are understood and accepted.
@MFTWrecks Not even just dead on PC but PS5 too. On the PS store on the best selling filter it is currently #44 on the list just a few days after release. For context game like COD Black Ops 3 which came out 9 years ago are higher up on the list. There isn't any recovering from this awful launch. I really didn't think there would be a worse game launch this year than Suicide Squad but here we are.
The only people who seem to be genuinely shocked by this are the Sony suits and the people who run this blog. This would be a totally different story if the game were F2P. A $40 price tag coupled with PSN requirement was never going to move the needle on Steam. I feel bad for the devs who are probably going to take the brunt of upper management's poor decision making
@8bitOG Just want to point out that this game was in development for over 5 years while Firewalk was a completely independent studio and there was no "upper management" to tell them what to do. Sony acquired the studio with a bit over a year of development left before release. I doubt in the last year Sony suits forced the devs to make drastic changes to the game that made it so unpopular. This one is all on the devs
@PloverNutter they most certainly would have a say in the price point and psn requirement. That's just silly to say otherwise. Gameplay, I'm sure you're mostly right
@PloverNutter The question then remains as to why Sony would buy a studio with only a year left in development on this game, when this is what they saw to purchase? It's like walking into the supermarket, going to the bread aisle, and grabbing the bag that says it expired yesterday with a few green bits starting to form and putting that one in your cart. Sure, the buyer didn't make it moldy. But why did they pay for it at all?
@Pushsquarian
Its a type of grape.
I am playing it, and it feels like the servers are already dead. I tried searching for a match in the Rivalry playlist and it took over 9 minutes and timed out. I get matched with the same players, and the regular playlists take 2+ minutes to find matches.
I feel that they should reverse course and give all preorders the purchasing price worth of in-game currency, make it F2P, and quickly implement the store and season pass planned for October. It's week one, but it feels like the game will be dead on both platforms by the end of September.
Sony saw the writing on the wall for the last several months and wasted a bunch of money on animated ads that don't look like the game.
They should have moved to f2p before announcing the price and rethought the monetization. Where was Bungie and their "centre of excellence" advice?
@clvr Just gonna throw it out there that 99% of Americans don’t care about the “culture war.” As far as I can tell it only exists in online comments and twitter. Never once have I heard it mentioned in real life other than people making fun of it.
The poll by my math is at 101%, interesting. Surely if the last option is going up something else needs to go down?
If Firewalk doesn't add game modes that need less players per match then this game dies even faster. Foamstars was the Lusitania, Concord is the Titanic and Helldivers 2 is taking water and there's not enough lifeboats.
Yet The First Descendant, only just released, totally free to play, attractive characters, fully coop online that has no PS+ or Xbox online play restrictions is thriving and giving a ten year plus rival Warframe a run for its money.
If you are making online multiplayer games to justify PS+ online multiplayer then you need to compete and exceed the First Descendants, Warframes, Fortnites and Valorants because it is a PAID service. If you can't do that, your multiplayer online component will continue its journey to the ocean floor.
I have been saying for years that SONY is falling to make good decisions.
Here's what needs to happen:
Too many hero shooters going on. They would have 100% had a better chance if they decided to use this game, but add a small campaign along with it - i.e Titanfall 2, the first was just MP, but they expanded it and it had more substance. Surely by now, these companies have realised that the majority do not want Gaas...
@get2sammyb I've never played SOCOM but Killzone and Resistance had solid single player campaigns with a multiplayer mode. And Resistance did some really interesting things with their weapons and such.
Concord just doesn't seem too, and it's built as not just a multiplayer game but a game-as-a-service (or GaaS) first and foremost. Which is really what people have an issue with.
It's a saturated market and it can be quite aggressive with it's "micro"-transactions and battle passes (the genre, not Concord specifically), it's one that everywhere is currently chasing trying to be the new Fortnite and it's that hollow cash over creative drive that is upsetting people. And yeah there is space for innovation in that genre but from what everyone has seen...this doesn't seem to have it.
I think for many the main frustration is Playstation was at one point a bastion for both creativity and variety and that was what made them stand out and feel special. So when they announced basically everything was going to be a GaaS it was really disappointing to hear. What happened to the publisher that funded The Unfinished Swan and Journey and Flower? Who made games like Patapon, Loco Roco and Vib Ribbon alongside blockbuster titles like Uncharted and God of War? They used to make creatives risks rather than follow trends and they made and funded some of the best and most iconic games in gaming history as a result. So of course people are upset to hear their plans now are to throw that all away and chase the golden goose, and more so to see the results not even panning out for them.
@Shigurui It scrapes the data of people who sign up, but they also have the PSN rarity for trophies (i.e. all players), hence my trying to do something with the ratio of PSNProfiles v Actual rarity with the easiest trophy in the game. My estimate would necessarily exclude people who have bought the game and not booted it yet - whether on PSNProfiles or not PSN would not have generated a trophy list associated with their accounts - so would have to be the low end of the estimate.
Concord, the game that has more comments than players.
I just can’t believe anyone looked at the current market and thought another GAAS was what was required, then published a generic looking one that isn’t even F2P
This game is not for me as hero shooters are not my thing but
I feel bad for the entire development team. What was it? 8 years in development (probably a few of them coming up with the main concept) and this is the response they get.
When I checked the numbers this morning, it was less than 100!
Outside of Marathon and Fairgames (feeling like that’s been cancelled), this was the last of the live service initiative wasn’t it? So hopefully they at least can ensure there won’t be more wasted investment and time for something no one wants. No shade at the devs, barring the one guy who is being obnoxious and unprofessional. The game obviously had passionate people, but their talent would have been better spent elsewhere.
@StrickenBiged - Well I guess in that case your ad hoc maths paints an even bleaker picture.
Players evaporating,comments flourishing🤩
Skull and bones has 8x the 24 hour peak. Suddenly that game looks pretty good.
@EfYI no to all of that , you're welcome
@mkr heres the problem with that , i see people keep bringing up games like killzone , or resistance , and wanting to bring those games back , but in all reality those games sold really poorly back then , and as much as we loved those games , we ignore that part. also games cost way more now then they did in the ps3 era, whats crazy is horrizon zero dawn alone outsold the whole killzone series at least tripple and thats just one game.
There's more people here commenting about it than people playing lol
Take off and nuke the [game] from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
@Mintie The ones that just cost Sony 200,000,000 and eight years and you're wasting my time, trying to pretend don't exist.
Removed - flaming/arguing
Removed - flaming/arguing
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