Another PS5 Live Service Title Does a Concord, Game and Dev to Close Two Weeks After PS5 Launch

The what now? I don't think I even HEARD of this game before today.
Not that I would have played it, but at least then I could could have ignored it on purpose.
Now I feel bad...

I have never heard of this game before today... not that I'd be interested in playing it but... yeah

Yup I’m another who has never even heard of this. Regardless of how good a game may be, if no one knows about it, it’s very unlikely it’ll get many players.

This one is funny and ironic. These days it feels like the masses only give games a chance if their favorite streamers say so, like a cult. This game was made under the supervision of one of the biggest shooters streamers out there "Shroud" and was also under his wing since launch, if we are going to compare it with Concord well ... Concord never had the luxury of being in the good eyes of any big streamer LOL.

It looks like being a big streamer doesn't necessarily mean they know what makes a game good.

Another live-service failure. It's almost as if the model doesn't guarantee success, and the industry is foolish to pump out so many.

I have never heard of this game but that 1 piece of concept art you used in the article explains why. Another generic attempt at a live service game

Literally the first time hearing/seeing anything about this game. Can also see Fairgame$ going this way too.

Though I'm not a fan of GaaS, I always feel bad when people lose their livelihood. Especially if they did their part well, but it didn't matter in the end. Hope they find a job somewhere else.

One issue with the live service market compared to other genres is it doesn't let players go. I'll use an example. You play Astrobot, you have a wonderful time with it, you finish with the game and you think "I'm going to see what other platformers are on PS5!"- that is, liking one platformer puts you in the market for more platformers. Similarly, liking Dark Souls puts you in the market for more soulslike games.
But live service games don't end- if you like one of them you keep playing that one game. You don't finish with it and start thinking "Oh, I really liked this live service game, I'm going to see what other ones I can play" because the live service game you liked didn't end. The game never lets you go and so you don't go looking for more games like it.
This means that it takes fewer games in this genre before the market is saturated and can't support more games in this genre.
It sucks as always that people are losing their jobs and I hope these folks can quickly get jobs elsewhere in the industry. I also hope that publishers stop trying to further saturate what is already a full market place because at this point it's just throwing away money and people's livelihoods.

Many will celebrate this and view such closers as a ‘win’ for the industry, hoping for it to rear itself back to more single player experiences. But I wonder: if it was their jobs on the line would people celebrate with suck glee?

@SolarSailor in 2020?

And will Sony learn from this?? In the words of Leo from Wolf of Wall Street; Absolutely f***ing not 🙂

@12AngryCats people online can be incredibly cynical.

@IronCrow86 all the GaaS games they cancelled would suggest otherwise.

Another one bites the dust but i honestly never heard about this game.

@naruball I'm sure there was a Push Square article not so long back, saying Sony would be "doubling down" ...🤔 I've not kept up to date, so maybe you're right and they've had a change of heart 🙂

Like others, this is the first I’ve ever heard or knowingly seen about this game.

It’s almost like live service success isn’t guaranteed and maaaaaaaaaybe isn’t a great place to start your developer journey these days.

At this point I've got zero sympathy for any developer who puts all their eggs in the Iive service basket. We've seen countless examples of this model being disastrous for its developer (far more so than the successes), yet here we are again

If you can't even give it away, that's God's way of telling you to shutter up. It sounds like this was the last throw of the dice after the PC launch.

A generic live-service game with a F2P business model. How could it possiby fail?

All of this is the fallout of low interest rates, a tech bubble and a scramble into gaming that is now unwinding. Too many projects being greenlit without a clear idea of who their customer is.

I was today years old when I learned about this game.

Shocked it failed.

Releasing a successfull GaaS is (was?) the holy grail (cash cow) every publisher aims for, just like MMORPG was before it. Sony had multiple in development wanting that GaaS money, but only Helldivers II succeeded, and that success came completely out of left field for Sony, as Helldivers II wasn't (severly) monetized. But gambling costs money ...

I like to think I'm fairly up to date with recent releases, but I've never heard a thing about this game,.wouldn't have been intrested anyway, but still talk about flying under the radar

Also have not heard of this one before today. (That I can remember, my memory is trash though)

B/c of it's seeming lack of any real marketing it feels wrong to compare this to Concorde. Concorde wasn't just about another failed GaaS game, we get 1 of those every month, it was about Sony buying the company for $200mil or whatever it was, and the CG trailers of basically the GotG w/o the license. It was years worth of news.

I see this as more of a failed indie title in so many people here didn't know about it. I'm sure regularly some small indie company releases a game on Steam or whatever, it doesn't sell, so they call it quits. Probably too many to keep track of them all. This seems more like that than Sony spending years and exorbitant amounts of money on Concorde.

But another failed GaaS does make the headlines I suppose. It's not going away though, no matter how many companies fold, the successful ones are still around.

@12AngryCats I won't celebrate people losing their jobs (unless they were incredibly bad at it to the point they hurt others) but I do think this is likely good for the gaming industry. The industry has gotten way to saturated with studios spending so many years and hundred of millions of dollars developing a single game that was chasing old trends. If the industry doesn't begin to shrink down on its own we could see another industry bubble burst like in the early 80s

I've heard of concord before release. But this the first time I've heard of this game. Why have they followed in concords steps?

@rjejr Yeah Concord was a failure on a catastrophic level. This is just some indie game from a new studio that didn't make the cut while still lasting 6 months from its launch. I feel like the comparison to Concord is to try to get some of the heat of Concord since this site praised that game for months before release only for it to have the life span of a May-fly with even worse player numbers

Never heard of the game or the studio im afraid. Which i guess lends itself to partially explaining why this failed to find an audience.

Fact is, unless a live service game does something really unique, there is no incentive for people to leave the community and spend they have already made on more established GaaS like a FFXIV, Fortnite etc. Literally zero point putting out live service titles that do what the established market leaders are already doing.

You have to imagine game devs are starting to wake up to this but until then this cycle is destined to continue

It's going to be increasing difficult to break into the current popular live service games and try to take players away from those is going to be near impossible unless your game is based of a mega IP like with Rivals.

@CutchuSlow you wouldnt know Concord was a failure until September 2024. You could think "that looks boring, I dont want to play that" but you wouldnt know it was a failure.

Games take years to make. Concords development started in 2018 and this game started around 2020.

There will be more of these to be added to the pile, just depends how many titles were greenlit. A lot of games were greenlit in 2020 during COVID when a lot of capital flooded the space as game dev and animation were two fields that were quite capable for entertainment spend for remote staff and back then, live service was making a lot of money. It still is technically!

Hindsight and that makes it seem obvious now, but back then they'd been funded and were just building something.

Try advertising. Nobody has ever heard of this game. That said, I dont play these type of games.

Maybe the marketing team should be the one packing things up instead of the devs. I've never even HEARD of this game 😅

I must be the odd man out here, because did I not only hear of this game, I downloaded and played it.

The art style always intrigued me so I kept an eye on it. When it dropped, I was excited and gave it a few rounds. Even got a friend to try it.

The issue was it just wasn't very good. It was a CS clone decades too late. What it brought to the genre was basically what I'd call a tangible in-game second life by way of the little clone/disc thing you could toss around. That was it. It did nothing else.

And the game wasn't well designed for that critical gameplay element. They severely limited where your little disc thing could place your spectre (or whatever they called it). You couldn't put it on walls or weird places to create the sort of dynamic scenarios and matches you'd need to stand out and have "oh *****" moments that created positive word of mouth and, most importantly, a fun time.

It was as basic as you could imagine. You'd just stash your little extra life in a corner until you died or wanted to change where you were on the map. It wasn't cool. It was meh.

But... BUT! You certainly could buy extremely over-priced skins! There was a battlepass! And premium currency aplenty! It was VERY clearly a cash grab first and foremost.

THAT'S the problem with GaaS. They aren't good GAMES first. They are, above all else, designed as pipelines from the dev to a player's wallet. Then they slap a game over top that is almost always not remotely unique nor better than half a dozen games you've played before.

GaaS simply don't stand out right now. Fun multiplayer games can make it. But they need to be cohesive, fun, unique and well made. A lot of these failed GaaS titles fail that sniff test and players can tell.

People don't want a Fortnite clone when Fortnite exists. They don't want a CS clone when CS exists. They need something that makes them go, "Wow, that looks fun." They don't want, "Wow, that skin is only $20."

There's some nuance to be had regarding certain failures, but that's usually the biggest issue that goes unsaid.

Never heard of it but realistically most games are commercial failures in no small part due to an ever more competitive marketplace. Not only are increasing numbers of games released yearly but there are lots of timesinks and/or games with long sales legs floating around.

Dancing on the bones of GAAS is what’s most popular online but guaranteed success is a very, very rare thing in games in particular and commercial art in general.

I hope the developers land on their feet.

Never heard of it and never likely to now.

Sad when an entire studio shuts down but hopefully some good will come out of this in that someone will finally notice that live service games don't go down well with the PS fraternity.
It has to do something different and brilliant to thrive.

@IronCrow86 they can say publicly whatever they want. Actions speak louder than words. And their action clearly show they learned a lesson.

As soon as I saw spectre divide and saw screenshots of it I knew it would not last long but I am surprised the studio behind it is shutting down. A damn shame.

@RolyTheBeerGeek Same. Was this a real game or is this just some made up nonsense?

I could never wrap my head around the mechanics of this one - it's 3vs3 but everyone has a spectre, a kind of second body, that they can switch to, parking their unused body on the map. Why? Why did we need that? What happens if someone else finds the parked body? Why not just have a second life?

Rather than those questions creating intrigue, they just caused confusion and a desire to play a simple, straight forward game.

Another misleading article, getting more and more frequent.

The game is simply on the platform but has nothing to do with Sony or Concord.

It says a lot that PushSquare even has no dedicated website for this game.

Add me to the pile of people that never heard of this game till this article although Concord wishes it hit 1/3 of those initial numbers.

@IronCrow86 Sony had nothing to do with this game

Comment 50: Never heard of this game!

@beltmenot they even had shroud who was a pro fps player consult for the game you’d think with his help it would have done decent

@Blauwe_Chimay it was a 3v3 pvp game backed by twitch streamer shroud

Shows the general apathy towards live service games by alot of the comments here mentioning they'd never heard of it.
Me neither!!

Feel a bit sorry for the Devs to see all the hard work get flushed away and forgotten about.

Nothing of value was lost.

Never heard of it either, but I'm not the target audience. And since this isn't a Sony studio the game probably was never mentioned on PS until now either.

Midas gold desperate chase is tough...

Literally never heard of it until this moment. The industry isn't in a tough spot right now it simply isn't an industry where mundane copycats offering nothing unique that require unprecedented success to survive can exist.

I spotted this on the PSN store a couple of days ago while browsing. And the art looked eye-catching. But then I saw "Free" and thought "ah, not for me then" and scanned my eyes elsewhere on the screen.

Never heard if the game and I still don't care

I hope studios start waking up to reality.

A popular (not necessarily good - POPULAR) live service game can rake in a ton of money, that's true. But an unpopular (same clarification) live service game will fail, and it will fail hard - shut down, remove from stores, not even a chance of being a cult classic later FAIL.

An unpopular single player game has a chance, however small, of finding an audience some day and becoming a cult classic that generates interest and even a little bit of revenue. There's no harm leaving it out on store fronts, bringing in a dollar here or there, maybe even getting some revenue from a bundle deal some day. Some quirk of luck and it might spur interest in someone financing a sequel.

The tails on these types of games are not the same. That live service game not unpopular enough to just kill still costs you money to keep up, and if your players aren't generating new revenue (ie, you're not bleeding them with new DLC regularly) then you're paying those service costs from past revenue.

Sigh, do any devs learn? I've never heard of it but I assume they fall into the same pitfalls and just it's silly. They see money hungry not creative types so we get garbage games, they don't understand players, go oh they will jump on away from other games, don't understand the market/how people think, casuals and how they treat games, hardcore and how they do, they seek gameplay or good enough worlds/modes/characters and things yet none of them actually put the effort in or are convincing.

Players are hard to impress but in some cases for fair reason because devs don't put the effort in/don't understand players, I do and I want better quality of gameplay not done to death and don't see it so my standards are higher of things I want to see, and to actually be going somewhere yet doesn't, but even still many still can't beat the expectations of players wants either. That's on them.

Learn the market, what to make people want to move their time onto.

They don't and deserve to fail if they can't understand the market better. How bought out it is as well. It's really not that hard.

Casual try it as time to pass, hardcore try it as a hobby, they want quality to be good enough in areas. Meet those expectations developers.

Vets do the same, are too passionate about their IPs and the worlds, characters, terms and gameplay are too repetitive and it's just a license difference, it's just boring. Very few made anything different, took on the risk and worked it out. Or spun things off well to be a worthy product not a copy paste.

I can understand the collector/second hand market demand by resellers, collectors, hear say of a game being similar to another or whatever limited copies, if that's easy how it is developers are brain dead to audiences or competition that's worthy on the shelves/digital store fronts to be convincing.

I can have ideas so distinct from others based on core mechanics and see where they lack/are boring, yet no one cares. It's always generic worlds/map design, done to death gameplay, nothing actually exciting to play. The creativity isn't there it's just copy paste boring.

Devs can't even do that and do the bare minimum, well the bare minimum is boring, needs a bit more to it to stand out as a product, people's impressions change or stay the same but tweaked slightly, try hard to be a make a more compelling product if that doesn't work, players don't care.

Standing out just doesn't happen anymore it's hilarious. XD It's always money this and that, make a product people WANT to give money to, not expect it magically. Idiots, read human beings and how they act, what they understand of fiction/entertainment. It's not that hard.

If the same can apply to story telling how people of certain types speak, stereotype/archtetype or not then how it is that hard to understand players wants in games. XD Devs are just stupid and need to learn in different areas.

I make my points known, journalists do, commenters in articles or social media/elsewhere. Pay attention to those that give feedback or responses, have better marketing, no matter how harsh and have value or explain a bit more then just the oh sucks/good, that's not helpful the ones that give genuine feedback do care.

I care I just find they don't put effort in but I say too much and people dont care. Fine by me. I don't care either but I will still say my bit more then oh good/bad, wow how effective/boring human beings can be.

@GymratAmarillo Yeah it is funny, casuals don't know their tastes (or if do it's for community or for every day things converted to games easy to understand or appealing enough worlds/action or whatever still easy to understand) only follow what streamers/peers say or treat it as a 'when I feel like it' .

If like the other said of a CS clone and they have reference for playing it. It just shows devs don't learn what players want or how to make a compelling product. They don't learn the market/understand audiences and what at the core needs to be there.

Hardcore know what they want and are passionate/hobby and insightful or like me form ideas and like the behind the scenes. Can be nostaglic but still have stanards on what they want to see in game worlds, gameplay (I seek more but that's just me), characters, etc.

Devs go lets be generic and seek money and let their creativity be the most dull thing ever made and go 'but why'. They don't understand the market or what players want and seek money. Idiots.

Destruction Allstars didn't understand it's audience and forget the audience into those types of games is old not young so spinning up something for an older audience genre to young people with not great style/ideas was stupid.

The dodgeball one wasn't much but was at least creative enough. Foamstars I had more modes to dream up for it in ideas then it had content/staying power. XD

The same here, make a generic game we win just doesn't work with how the market is of big ones or too many on the market they refuse to even learn how audiences think/how a game can stand out (who wants to stand out anymore and put effort in), especially with so many generic multiplayer shooters even the maps look generic and play generic, characters and their abilities are eh and worlds need a bit more.

Who'd want to play them, what they offer in the games, licensed characters, good gameplay, and other key aspects many of these lack.

I'm amazed there was even a single player. Did they forget to advertise it? That name doesn't ring a bell at all.

@GymratAmarillo most people never even heard of it though. me included

Whoooo? No seriously, who????

Ahh another live service fail and another " When are you going to learn old man" to thr video game industry