The 23rd of May 2023 saw the announcement of ‘Concord‘, the new competitive offering from PlayStation Studios. The game was being developed by Firewalk Studios, one of the most recent acquisitions. Just over a year later, the game was released. ‘Concord’ launched on PlayStation and PC, where it has been available for exactly 14 days. Why? Because the game has been canceled and withdrawn. Here are the reasons.
Games as a service. Let’s start at the beginning. Some time ago, Sony confirmed its plans to strongly invest in games as a service. Precisely for that reason, it purchased Bungie, the creators of the original ‘Halo’ and ‘Destiny 2‘, one of the most popular GaaS (Games as a Service). Games as a service are essentially games that are periodically updated to achieve consistent monetization. Some evident examples are ‘Fortnite’, ‘League of Legends’, and ‘Pokémon GO’.
Many of the most profitable games today are games as a service. PlayStation planned to launch 12 GaaS for obvious reasons. The math is simple: more games, more revenue. In theory, of course. It was an ambitious plan, so much so that they had to reduce the number from 12 to six. One of those games intended to attract players and generate sustained revenue over time was ‘Concord’, dubbed the “Overwatch of PlayStation”.
What happened to ‘Concord’? It made decisions that triggered a series of unfortunate events. Starting with the PSN account requirement, followed by the price, and ending with the genre, the truth is that ‘Concord’ lacked the necessary ingredients to succeed in today’s market. The open beta already hinted at this: 2,500 simultaneous players. But let’s break it down.
PlayStation Network. PlayStation initially made the same decision that dealt a lethal blow to ‘Helldivers 2’: forcing players to link their PlayStation Network account. The reason, as PlayStation claimed, was for cross-play functionality, but this excluded all PC users who neither have nor want a PlayStation Network ID and users in countries where PSN is unavailable.
‘Concord’ | Image: Vida Extra
A declining genre. On the other hand, it was a game that had been in development for eight years. What game was all the rage eight years ago, and what genre was in style? Effectively, ‘Overwatch’ and hero shooters. Now, in 2024, this genre is not the most popular. Except for ‘Valorant’, hero shooters are on the decline, and that’s why everyone is keeping an eye on ‘Deadlock’, Valve’s upcoming hero shooter and MOBA. ‘Concord’ arrived late and with no novel proposal to a struggling genre.
The clearest and most recent example is ‘xDefiant’, Ubisoft’s most recent shooter. Although it’s a more classic shooter, the title falls within the hero shooter genre since it features agents with special abilities that ideally need to work together to achieve an objective. After an initial boom, recent reports suggest that the game is not doing well and is on shaky ground.
Paid. This has undoubtedly been the biggest obstacle in ‘Concord’s’ launch. Excluding ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Rainbow Six: Siege’ from the equation, all competitive games are free. ‘Warzone’, ‘Overwatch 2’, the upcoming ‘Delta Force’, ‘Valorant’, ‘Counter-Strike 2’, ‘Paladins’, ‘Apex Legends’… all of them are free and monetized via micropayments. ‘Concord’, however, was launched with a price tag of 40 euros.
This, having launched after ‘Black Myth Wukong’, ‘Star Wars: Outlaws’, with ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’ just around the corner, and facing a tough (and free) competitor like ‘Overwatch 2‘, has proven lethal. Not only that, but being a paid online game on PlayStation incurs an additional cost: that of PlayStation Plus. On PC it makes no difference, but on PlayStation, playing online in a paid game requires a subscription. This is a hurdle that not all players are willing to overcome.
Gameplay of ‘Concord’ | Image: 3DJuegos
In short, ‘Concord’ arrived late to a declining genre with a proposal that isn’t bad, but “also doesn’t stand out enough to justify its business model” (3DJuegos dixit) based on a payment of 40 euros plus the subscription on PlayStation.
Printing money. That’s what games as a service don’t do. This model isn’t bad per se; just ask ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Valorant’. They are free games that players pay for cosmetics, dances, and emotes if they want to, and if they don’t, they don’t. The fact that a game is a service does not equate to generating revenue from day one. It has to offer something different or at least attractive enough to compete against the titans of the industry. This has not been the case.
Image | PlayStation
In Xataka | I’ve played the last two big AAA games in the cloud. I wouldn’t trade it for anything