After weeks and months of bad publicity, Sony has admitted that live service game Concord ‘didn’t land the way we’d intended.’
It’s been obvious since launch that Sony’s live service game Concord has been a flop, with a pitifully small number of players on Steam and reports that the game has sold a mere 25,000 copies worldwide.
And now, barely a week after it first launched, Sony has officially confirmed the game’s problems, by shutting it down completely on PlayStation 5 and PC, in one of the most embarrassing failures in the company’s history.
Many live service games, even expensive ones, only last a few months but this is unprecedented, especially given the game was in development for eight years and unconfirmed reports suggested it cost upwards of $100 million to make.
‘While many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognise that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended,’ wrote game director Ryan Ellis on the PlayStation Blog.
‘Therefore, at this time, we have decided to take the game offline beginning September 6, 2024, and explore options, including those that will better reach our players.’
Ellis leaves it unclear as to whether the game will ever return (relaunching it as a free-to-play game seems one obvious route) but as of now it’s unavailable to buy on either PlayStation 5 or PC, almost as if it never existed.
‘While we determine the best path ahead, Concord sales will cease immediately and we will begin to offer a full refund for all gamers who have purchased the game for PS5 or PC,’ adds Ellis.
Refunds will be issued to the original payment method used, if you bought the game via the PlayStation Store, while the blog lists how the process will work with other storefronts – although it warns refunds could take up to 60 days.
Although Concord was by no means a terrible game it was an extremely generic and uninspiring one, with the initial reveal creating unfavourable comparisons to Overwatch and Guardians Of The Galaxy.
The game never recovered from that bad publicity and the beta did nothing to improve its reputation, with the terrible Steam numbers underlining the fact that nobody seemed interested.
Many will be applauding its failure though, if not because of the game itself but because it puts a massive question mark over Sony’s future live service plans.
Originally, they boasted of releasing 12 first party titles, later reduced to six, by 2026 but Concord is the first (Helldivers 2 was not developed internally) and stablemate Fairgame$ has not been heard of for several months.
There’s been intense speculation of a civil war within Sony, as to whether they should refocus on live service games or continue with their traditional single-player portfolio.
It’s unclear what side former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan took but his exit only weeks before Naughty Dog canned their The Last Of Us multiplayer project is highly suspicious, although his replacements have yet to make any kind of public statement – or indeed any public appearance at all.
With similar questions also hanging over the competence of senior management at Xbox this has not been a good year for Sony and Microsoft, neither of which seem to have a firm grasp on the future of the industry or their own specific brands.
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