On May 23, 2023, PlayStation Studios announced Concord, its newest competitive title. Firewalk Studios, one of its recent acquisitions, was responsible for the game’s development. Just over a year later, Concord arrived on PlayStation and PC, where it was only available for 14 days. Why was that? Because PlayStation Studios canceled the game and pulled it from the market. Here are the reasons.
Games as a service. Let’s start at the beginning. Some time ago, Sony confirmed its plans to bet heavily on games as a service (GaaS). That’s why it bought Bungie, creators of the original Halo and Destiny 2, one of the most popular GaaS companies. Essentially, GaaS receive regular updates to achieve constant monetization. Some examples are Fortnite, League of Legends, and Pokémon GO.
Many of the most profitable games today are GaaS. For obvious reasons, PlayStation Studios wanted to launch 12 of those. The math is simple: more games, more revenue—in theory, of course. It was an ambitious plan, so ambitious that the company reduced the number from 12 to six. One of those games designed to attract players and generate sustainable revenue over time was Concord, the so-called “Overwatch of PlayStation.”
What happened to Concord? PlayStation Studios made decisions that triggered a series of catastrophic misfortunes. Starting with the PSN account, continuing with the price, and ending with the genre, the truth is that Concord didn’t have the necessary ingredients to work today. The open beta already anticipated it, only attracting 2,500 simultaneous players. But let’s go by parts.
PlayStation Network. PlayStation Studios started with the same decision that dealt a fatal blow to Helldivers 2: forcing players to link their PlayStation Network account in order to access the game. The company said this was to make cross-play work, but that left out all PC users who don’t have or want a PlayStation Network ID and all countries where PSN isn’t available.
Concord. Image | Xataka On
A genre in decline. On the other hand, it was a game that had been in development for eight years. What game was the hit eight years ago, and what genre was in vogue? Overwatch and hero shooters. Now, in 2024, that genre isn’t the most popular. Except for Valorant, hero shooters are in the doldrums, and that’s why everyone is watching Deadlock, Valve’s hero shooter and MOBA proposal. Concord has arrived late and has nothing new to offer to a declining genre.
The clearest and most recent example is xDefiant, Ubisoft’s latest shooter. Although it’s a more classic shooter, the title falls into the hero shooter category, as it has agents with special abilities that ideally must work together to achieve a goal. After a huge initial boom, recent reports suggest that the game isn’t at its best and is in the doldrums.
A paid game. That was undoubtedly the biggest hurdle in Concord’s launch. If you take Call of Duty and Rainbow Six: Siege out of the equation, all competitive games are free. Warzone, Overwatch 2, the upcoming Delta Force, Valorant, Counter-Strike 2, Paladins, Apex Legends... all free-to-play and monetized through micropayments. Concord, however, launched with a $40 price tag.
Moreover, it came after Black Myth Wukong and Star Wars: Outlaws, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 just around the corner and a challenging (and free) competitor like Overwatch 2. So, its arrival in the market was lethal. Also, being an online payment game on PlayStation means an additional payment: PlayStation Plus. It’s the same on PC, but playing a paid game online on PlayStation requires a subscription. And all gamers are willing to spend more for it.
In short, Concord arrived late to a declining genre with an offering that isn’t bad but doesn’t stand out enough to justify its business model based on a $40 fee plus a PlayStation subscription.
Printing money. That’s not what GaaS does. This modality isn’t wrong (just look at League of Legends and Valorant). These are free-to-play games where players who want cosmetics, dances, and gestures pay an extra fee, and those who don’t want anything keep their wallets closed. The fact that a game is a service isn’t synonymous with generating revenue from day one. It has to offer something different, or at least attractive enough to compete with the titans of the industry. Concord clearly wasn’t up to par.
Images | Xataka On | PlayStation
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