For the last week, there\u2019s been a lot of online discussion on Sony\u2019s newly-launched multiplayer shooter, Concord. But it\u2019s not because everyone\u2019s playing it \u2013 it\u2019s because seemingly no one is.<\/p>\n
Plenty of games don\u2019t sell well at launch, but observers have latched onto Concord\u2019s dramatic failure due to its high-profile nature as a Sony first-party game, and its shockingly low Steam concurrent player numbers<\/a> at launch. Upon its August 23 debut, Concord only had 697 Steam concurrent players, and it hasn\u2019t risen any higher since. At the time I\u2019m writing this, 130 entire people are playing Sony\u2019s brand new, first-party game on Steam. That\u2019s real, real low, even for a game with middling critical reviews<\/a> (we gave it a 7\/10<\/a>, which at IGN means it\u2019s \u201cgood\u201d).<\/p>\n So, what happened? Why did a big Sony first-party game get sent out to die immediately? Is it actually<\/em> selling badly, or are we just reading the numbers wrong? As usual when questions of this nature crop up, I asked a bunch of professional industry analysts to explain it to me.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for Sony\u2026yeah.<\/p>\n While historically low numbers like the ones being experienced by Concord have a tendency to be used to drive narratives that don\u2019t always paint a full picture, that\u2019s not what\u2019s happening here. Liam Deane, principal analyst at Omdia, said, \u201cThe Steam numbers are so bad that even without the exact data on the PS5 side we can be pretty certain that the game is doing very badly.\u201d<\/p>\n Other analysts were able to share a bit of insight on the PlayStation side with me. Per Circana analyst Mat Piscatella citing Circana\u2019s Player Engagement Tracker, on Monday August 26, \u201cConcord ranked 147th in US PS5 daily active players across all titles, with fewer than 0.2% of Monday’s active PS5 players playing the game.\u201d And analyst Simon Carless, who authors the GameDiscover.co newsletter<\/a>, estimated that Concord\u2019s total sales are sitting around 10,000 units on Steam, and around 15,000 on PlayStation (he responded to my email Wednesday, August 28, 2024).<\/p>\n Sadly, making a fun, high-quality shooter is not enough in the oversaturated live-service space these days.<\/p>\n Many of the analysts I spoke to lamented the reality. As they pointed out, Concord has been in development for years now<\/a>, a substantial financial and time investment for Sony. And incredibly talented people worked on it: it\u2019s well-produced, and as Midia Research analyst Rhys Elliott specifically notes, it\u2019s fun to play. But, Elliott continued, \u201csadly, making a fun, high-quality shooter is not enough in the oversaturated live-service space these days.\u201d<\/p>\n Usually, when I reach out to analysts for comment on a piece like this, they largely have similar assessments of the big picture but can offer differing perspectives on certain details. In the case of Concord, everyone I spoke to agreed on the reasons it had failed. Concord suffered from poor marketing, a high price point, and most critically, a lack of differentiation in an oversaturated genre.<\/p>\n Start with the marketing. According to Piscatella, Sony dropped the ball on this front, badly damaging its ability to build momentum ahead of release. He said it suffered from \u201clow awareness and purchase intent among video game players\u201d and indicated that Circana\u2019s PlayerPulse was showing that as of July, only a very small percentage of players were even aware Concord existed to begin with. Retail promotion was limited, \u201cwith just a handful of web placements across GameStop, Best Buy, Target, Walmart and the PlayStation Store.\u201d Joost van Dreunen, NYU Stern professor and author of the SuperJoost newsletter<\/a>, agreed, saying that \u201cwhile there has been trailers and some gameplay reveals for Concord, pre-launch promotion for the game appears to have been relatively limited.\u201d <\/p>\n At $40, Concord also suffered from what was considered to be an overly high price point given that its main competitors are free-to-play. As Carless pointed out, high-skill multiplayer shooters can struggle to gain traction, because players will only \u201cshift\u201d their preferred game if all their friends also agree to do so. Even then, players may be reluctant due to sunk cost fallacy around the various cosmetics and other perks they\u2019ve picked up on their preferred game over time. This is also a problem, he says, for content creators, who won\u2019t know in advance if their audiences will be interested in a new game they\u2019re considering switching to.<\/p>\n For free-to-play games, players can at least jump in, try something out, and see if it sticks without a high commitment cost. But with Concord, the $40 price makes players unlikely to give it a shot in the first place, and van Dreunen adds that this is even less likely near the end of a console cycle when players are more reluctant than usual to take a chance on new games.<\/p>\n Overall the hero shooter market is already well served.<\/p>\n \u201cA tight-knit group of players might be willing to take a chance on a new game for free, but paying $40 is a big ask in today\u2019s macroeconomic climate,\u201d Elliott observed. \u201cLaunching Concord as a premium game limited its audience numbers and user acquisition. The more people who play a game, the more appealing it is. Network effects are crucial for building a healthy, engaged ecosystem. <\/p>\n \u201cConcord should have launched free-to-play \u2013 or at least as part of the PlayStation Plus subscription \u2013 to have a fighting chance in its overcrowded genre. It is not too late for this to happen, of course, but the damage might have already been done. First impressions matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Every analyst I spoke to also hammered home what may be Concord\u2019s biggest problem: lack of differentiation. Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis noted that when Concord started development, Sony was banking on the then-hot trend of multiplayer shooters such as Overwatch. But in the years since, other studios made the same bet, many to great success.<\/p>\n \u201cSince then, we\u2019ve had a few more big budget hero shooters come to market \u2013 Apex Legends, Valorant and Overwatch 2 \u2013 each with their unique gameplay attributes,\u201d said Harding-Rolls. \u201cAll three of these games are played by millions of gamers every month and dominate this category. Concord\u2019s gunplay compares most closely to Overwatch 2 and overall the hero shooter market is already well served with a collection of very strong free-to-play titles.\u201d<\/p>\n It also doesn\u2019t help that Concord released on August 23, 2024, just three days after Black Myth: Wukong. Though the two games are significantly different, it\u2019s hard to deny that the launch of the former overshadowed the latter in terms of marketing, hype, and sales. For what it\u2019s worth, Concord\u2019s release date<\/a> was announced five months after Black Myth: Wukong\u2019s<\/a>. For one reason or another, Sony did not opt to nudge the game out of its wake.<\/p>\n I asked all the analysts I spoke to if this means live service is over, especially for Sony. Hardly, they all say \u2013 but this should serve as a reality check.<\/p>\n \u201cLive service games have a high failure rate,\u201d Deane said. \u201cThere are many reasons for that but the main one is because they rely on network effects. Sometimes a single-player game can have a slow launch but eventually find its way to success. But the clock is now ticking on Concord in a big way because unless the player counts pick up soon there\u2019ll be nobody to play against. So even if you personally would like to give it a try, there\u2019ll be nothing to play. But while the risks are big, so are the rewards. It\u2019s no secret that many of the highest-earning games in the market today are live service games. According to our data, only about 16% of the total revenue of the games market now comes from traditional full-game sales. Publishers are going to keep chasing that 84%.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Sony itself, Deane expects it will continue chasing live service. Helldivers 2, after all, was a huge hit earlier this year. \u201cThough clearly they won\u2019t want any more Concord-level disasters, if half of their forthcoming slate of live service games over the next few years succeed, that won\u2019t be a bad result.\u201d<\/p>\n Elliott agreed. \u201cIt only takes one big live-service win to generate billions upon billions in revenue and unlock new audiences \u2013 two things PlayStation very much wants right now, as the console business is facing growth challenges and reaching saturation. That said, I also expect some resources to be redirected to strategies that are working better for the company: PC launches and cross-media\/transmedia, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, analysts suggested that Concord is a perfect example of the dangers of AAA companies chasing trends, especially with how long game development cycles have become. Elliott pointed out a growing list of failures in the space, even from major companies: BioWare\u2019s Anthem, Crystal Dynamics\u2019 Marvel\u2019s Avengers, PlatinumGames\u2019 Babylon\u2019s fall. Some developers, he notes, have even canceled projects in advance, such as Sega with Hyenas or PlayStation\u2019s The Last of Us Online.<\/p>\n Sometimes everything that can go wrong does go wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cPivoting to live services is high-risk, high-reward venture, and the risk is heightening to levels that might not be worth it for many AAA console\/PC publishers that aren\u2019t already active in the space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Concord\u2019s failure has attracted attention due to the contrast between its status as a Sony first-party title in a popular genre with high production value, and the overwhelming cricket sounds that accompanied its launch. But the story of its failure is mundane. Sony, for whatever reason, chose not to market the game heavily enough to ensure players were aware of it. It chose to sell it at a premium price point despite all its serious competition going free-to-play. Had these factors been different, Concord might have stood a chance despite its relative lack of standout characteristics in an oversaturated genre. But even then, Concord was always fighting a difficult battle \u2013 a battle that will only get more fierce the more multiplayer shooters go to market in future years.<\/p>\n As Mat Piscatella summed up, \u201cSometimes everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Although it’s quite rare to see everything go this wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the last week, there\u2019s been a lot of online discussion on Sony\u2019s newly-launched multiplayer shooter, Concord. But it\u2019s not because everyone\u2019s playing it \u2013 it\u2019s because seemingly no one is. Plenty of games don\u2019t sell well at launch, but observers have latched onto Concord\u2019s dramatic failure due to its high-profile nature as a Sony […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Concord actually selling that badly?<\/h2>\n
Why Isn\u2019t Concord Selling?<\/h2>\n
What does this mean for Sony and live service games?<\/h2>\n