Sony Shuts Down 'Concord' After Just Two Weeks

In an unprecedented move, Sony has shut down the new hero-based shooter Concord only two weeks after its official launch. The high-profile disaster is the latest live service game to embarrassingly crash and burn, posing a huge question for publishers: why do they keep trying this format?

Concord Flops

Despite having only released in late August, Concord barely made a dent in any major sales charts. In a stinging show of how unpopular the title was, it never managed to crack 1,000 concurrent players on Steam, a popular PC gaming platform. Its PlayStation numbers were likely unimpressive, too.

What Was it Supposed to Be?

Concord, a game designed to appeal to lapsed Overwatch fans, was one of Sony’s many longshot attempts to break into the live service genre. Sony recently celebrated with the surprise success of Helldivers 2, but aside from this game the genre has mainly been relegated to punchlines about long development cycles and absurd costs for publishers.

Pulling the Plug

Sony announced plans to shut down Concord’s servers just two weeks after launch. This includes ceasing the sales of the game effective immediately and offering everyone who purchased it a full refund. That’s tantamount to canceling the game after launch, erasing it from the internet and acting like it never happened.

The Issues with Concord

The game had an uphill battle ahead of it. For one thing, it carried a premium price tag of $40 while many of its live service competitors are free to play (or, at least, free to start). Moreover, the game’s aesthetic doesn’t seem to have resonated with many players. In fact, some critics went as far as describing its characters as “ugly” and deriding it for bland artistic direction.

What’s Next?

Concord’s developers, Firewalk Studios, announced that they’d be pulling the plug on the servers on September 6. This is no surprise, given that the game may have only sold around 25,000 copies total. Firewalk hasn’t framed this as the end for the game, though, saying they’re going to “determine the best path ahead” and “explore options” regarding the game.

This One Stings

The high-profile failure of a major AAA-caliber Sony game is going to sting. Firewalk had been developing Concord for eight years, meaning it was being made back when Overwatch was the coolest new thing in gaming. In the years since, the industry has seen too many competitors enter the hero shooter genre and new, live-service-based games simply have too much of an uphill battle to fight.

Long Development Cycles

Was this failure the unavoidable consequence of ever-longer development cycles for major titles? Eight years is a long time to work on anything, so it’s a shame that Concord is going to end up a (downright embarrassing) footnote in the history of a maligned genre of games. Indeed, had it launched closer to the start of Overwatch’s dominance of the hero shooter genre, perhaps it could have fared better.

Chasing Trends

Sony’s been chasing the live service dragon for a few years now and still has plans for numerous major shooters with always-online elements. These titles, which are usually monetized with battle passes and cosmetics, are a big gamble for studios. They’re effectively free money if they stick—just look at winners like Valorant, Apex Legends, and Destiny. However, when they miss, they’re just glaring embarrassment for the studio, like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Crucible, and Anthem.

Games That Can Die

One of the saddest things about failed live service games is that they’re some of the only pieces of interactive entertainment that can simply cease to exist if it’s not being actively played by a large number of players. If a single player title underperforms, it doesn’t get removed from the internet. Concord, like so many failed live service shooters before it, won’t exist at all anymore.

Why Do Studios Do This?

So, if they’re such huge gambles, why are studios chasing this trend so hard? Well, it’s simple. A single win in the live service space can mean everything. Look no further than the behemoth success of Fortnite, Epic Games’ battle royale-turned metaverse. Fortnite is essentially a cosmetic store with a bonus game attached that turned Epic from a very successful developer into a ridiculously wealthy industry player that can force Apple to change its app store policies.

Do Players Want More Live Service Games?

Of course, there’s a lot that goes into making a successful game. As Concord shows, it’s not enough to be a competently-made, fast-paced multiplayer game. Live service games need to be electric, gripping, fresh, and bring something new to the table. They also, frankly, just need to get lucky. There’s only so much time in a player’s schedule, and many are loathe to leave behind an ecosystem they’ve been playing in for years. That’s a lot of cosmetic items and friend groups they’re leaving behind!

Live Service is Here to Stay

Players actually love live service titles, much to the chagrin of “core” gamers who clamor for original content and single player, story-based titles. By raw playtime, it’s clear that “forever” games like Destiny, Fortnite, and Grand Theft Auto Online are where players are spending the most of their time. And, indeed, those games rake in millions, if not billions, of dollars on recurring cosmetic purchases.

Why Keep Making Games if One Makes You Rich?

For studios, there’s some simple math here. Why make a bunch of expensive single player games that take nearly a decade to finish and get purchased once by a small number of players? You could just keep trying live service titles until one sticks and then treat it as a license to print money.

Acceptable Losses?

With this in mind, Sony might view Concord’s embarrassing demise as an acceptable loss. If they keep plugging away at the live service sector, something’s gotta stick eventually, right? And, when one does, Sony stands to get some of that sweet, sweet Fortnite money. Of course, there’s a drawback to these big-budget AAA live service titles failing with such frequency that Sony might not be heeding.

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Damaging the Brand

If your brand gets known for launching high-profile flops, people eventually tune out. Concord wasn’t even bad, per se, it just found itself at the nexus of a lot of unfortunate factors working against it. This noteworthy failure could color gamers’ impressions of Sony’s live service output and sour them on future titles. Eventually, people will just stop caring altogether.