Sony bought Bungie partly to help with its once-ambitious live-service endeavor. The idea was that the original Halo developers would use their experience from making and developing the Destiny franchise to help Sony find the next GaaS giant. So, basically, the studio’s purpose is to prevent duds, but the exact opposite has just happened.
No more than a year after Sony canceled its multiplayer spin-off to The Last of Us because Bungie apparently thought it wasn’t good enough, Firesprite released its debut AAA title, Concord.
Launched in the same week as Black Myth: Wukong, a game that’s driving talks of the need for a PlayStation 5 Pro and pretty much changing public perception about console gaming in China overnight, the hero-shooter, which spent nearly a decade in development, fell flat on its face. Things are so bad that it’s worse than many of the bad AAA games that have come out in recent years.
Launched simultaneously on PS5 and PC to bring in as many players as possible at launch, Concord’s peak player count on Steam is a mere 697 players.
To put into context just how bad this number is, here’s a list of the peak player count of some of the “worst” games to come out in recent years:
- Marvel’s Avengers – 31,165
- Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League – 13,456
- Lawbreakers – 7,579
- Redfall – 6,124
- HYENAS Closed Beta – 2,261
- Godfall – 1,762
- Bleeding Edge – 1,464
- The Lord of the Rings: Gollum – 758
- Immortals of Aveum – 751
It’s no wonder then that Sony is backing away from its initially ambitious live-service endeavors, literally halving its initial projects. If Concord’s quality is anything to go by, fans shouldn’t expect anything game-changing from Marathon and Guerilla Games’ multiplayer Horizon title.
Although Helldivers 2 did well initially (and it’s still putting up respectable numbers), its success is starting to feel more like an outlier now.
While some may argue that Steam numbers don’t tell the whole story, especially for a PlayStation-published title, the reality is that even if the PlayStation player base were ten times larger, it would still represent a disastrous launch for a game of this scale and ambition.
What makes Concord’s situation particularly perplexing is that early reviews suggest it’s not a bad game in terms of quality. Instead, the issue seems to stem from a lack of appeal or market demand for yet another hero shooter in an already crowded if oversaturated genre. This raises serious questions about Sony’s market research and decision-making process in greenlighting and supporting the project over its years spent in development, considering that this isn’t the first time Sony has had a failed attempt at the same genre.
The game’s troubled launch is further complicated by its $40 price tag, which stands in stark contrast to many of its free-to-play competitors in the hero shooter space. This pricing strategy, combined with a lack of traditional live service monetization methods like battle passes or character sales, leaves ‘Concord’ in a precarious position when it comes to potential revenue generation.
A rapid pivot to a free-to-play model or inclusion in PlayStation Plus in an attempt to boost the player base could boost its player base. However, such moves would require a significant overhaul of the game’s economic model, which was initially touted as a selling point for players tired of aggressive microtransactions in other live service titles.
As the dust settles on Concord’s launch, it’s only fair to wonder how a project with such significant time and resource investment could miss the mark so dramatically. Is it a failure on Sony’s part? Is it the lack of focus testing, market analysis, oversight, and overall decision-making when it comes to greenlighting and supporting live service projects?
These questions haunt Concord and Firesprite as they wait for things to improve. If we’re being honest, given the way things are playing out, it’s starting to look like it will join the growing list of live service casualties.
