Concord |OT| 24 players - It's dead Jim.

[kitler53]

Not too many people posting on the Concord subreddit but it seems the game is dangerously close to not having enough people to play multiplayer. When Americans were asleep and steam was down to ~150 players, a guy on reddit was having to wait 8+ minutes between matches. In a few days it won't even reach 150 steam players at peak times.

What does Sony do? Rapidly release it on PS+, try to infuse more players? Rapidly implement bots, which could take too long to implement? Turn off the servers, unlaunch the game, and hope they can do something better in a few months? Just embrace the game is dead?

It's a tough cookie.

based on the open beta that wouldn't help at all.

DoA.   probably be cheaper to issue refunds to the 1,000 people that bought it than to do anything else.

[Legend]

based on the open beta that wouldn't help at all.

DoA.   probably be cheaper to issue refunds to the 1,000 people that bought it than to do anything else.

It could at least give it a few more weeks of life  

It's just unbelievable how bad its doing. There is just no failure that can compare to it. Babylon's Fall took a month to drop to the peak that Concord hit today. The PS5 release has to be doing at least a bit better.


Only game that actually might be a good comparison is the Atari ET game. Where's a landfill for all the physical Concord stuff?

[the-pi-guy]

It's gotta be insane how much this has lost.

Even if we assume that it "only" cost $100 million, add in advertising and other stuff.

Suicide Squad was "the biggest flop", and yet this is even worse.

Probably one of the biggest failures in media period.

It'd be like if one of Disney's premier movies, only made like $100k.


So where does Sony go from here?

- Try salvaging the game somehow? Free to play, redevelopment?
- Cut their losses with the game, and shut it down? Move Firewalk to something else?
- Cut their losses with the studio entirely?


Sony has never shut down a studio after a single failure, but they've never had a failure this big.

[Legend]

Yesterday was a high of 241 players and a low of 82. Pretty similar to Bleeding Edge's 3rd week. So today could peak ~228, tomorrow ~212, and Friday ~202.

I wondered if it would have stabilized by now since it already has so few players but nope.

It's gotta be insane how much this has lost.

Even if we assume that it "only" cost $100 million, add in advertising and other stuff.

Suicide Squad was "the biggest flop", and yet this is even worse.

Probably one of the biggest failures in media period.

It'd be like if one of Disney's premier movies, only made like $100k.


So where does Sony go from here?

- Try salvaging the game somehow? Free to play, redevelopment?
- Cut their losses with the game, and shut it down? Move Firewalk to something else?
- Cut their losses with the studio entirely?


Sony has never shut down a studio after a single failure, but they've never had a failure this big.

It is crazy. Other things have probably lost more just from being more expensive, but for $100 million+ products this is an unprecedented lack of sales.

Hopefully we can get a full breakdown of what went on internally in the coming months. PS5 sales are probably better than PC but they can't be that much better.


I think the only smart business move is shutting down Firewalk completely and reorganizing the Sony side of development too. It is hilarious in hindsight that Sony was so confident in this how this game was developing that they bought the studio last year.

The politics inside Sony might make it more complicated though. Will they find a scapegoat instead? Blame it all on Jim Ryan since he is retired? Blame it on something besides Firewalk since a current exec was responsible for the purchase? No clue.

I think they'll try salvaging it but only with cheap things, not full redevelopment. Would be impressive if Sony just fired/transferred everyone on Friday but I doubt they move that fast. Then the studio with only a skeleton crew remaining will be closed early next year.

[kitler53]

i don't think firewalk needs to be shut down.   concord should be abandoned yes but the studio made a solid game even if it wasn't well received.   time to work on a new project or help out on a project already in flight.  ...but despite the black-eye sony should just shut this down immediatly.    like i said before,.. probably cheaper to just issue refunds than to maintain this.   i mean, they could make it free to play too and just let servers run for a while to help out any reputational issues but i don't think anyone is going to blame sony for not working on "season 2" content.    

[Legend]

Yesterday was a high of 241 players and a low of 82. Pretty similar to Bleeding Edge's 3rd week. So today could peak ~228, tomorrow ~212, and Friday ~202.

So much for that. Concord peaked at 198 today.

i don't think firewalk needs to be shut down.   concord should be abandoned yes but the studio made a solid game even if it wasn't well received.   time to work on a new project or help out on a project already in flight.  ...but despite the black-eye sony should just shut this down immediatly.    like i said before,.. probably cheaper to just issue refunds than to maintain this.   i mean, they could make it free to play too and just let servers run for a while to help out any reputational issues but i don't think anyone is going to blame sony for not working on "season 2" content.    

Sony shut down Japan Studio and they made great games with at least some fans. Why would they give Firewalk another chance when almost everything went wrong?

Would be cool if Sony was less ruthless with studios. I worry for media molecule.

[the-pi-guy]

So much for that. Concord peaked at 198 today.
Sony shut down Japan Studio and they made great games with at least some fans. Why would they give Firewalk another chance when almost everything went wrong?

Sony has never closed a studio after a single failure (though they've never had one this big).


We are in uncharted territory!  

[Legend]

Sony has never closed a studio after a single failure (though they've never had one this big).


We are in uncharted territory!  

They've also never kept a studio open that has failed with their first game!

Very uncharted. Pixelopus is maybe the closest thing but they were such a small studio. Would Concrete Genie count as their Concord, or would Entwined?

"Sony studio is shut down after releasing game called Conc..."

Will be weird if it happens twice.

[BananaKing]

I think they would be shut down. But I hope not. At least let them be a support studio for Bungie or arrowhead, or even some single player studios.

They clearly have talent and are structured, they created what seems to be a good, polished AAA game. Don't throw that away

[kitler53]

I think they would be shut down. But I hope not. At least let them be a support studio for Bungie or arrowhead, or even some single player studios.

They clearly have talent and are structured, they created what seems to be a good, polished AAA game. Don't throw that away

yeah, exactly.  sony doesn't even have that many studios anymore and their 1st party line-up as been anemic.   they can't afford to shut down more studios.

[Legend]

Why are you guys under the impression that Concord is good? It has a 63 on metacritic and reviews mention plenty wrong with it beyond the lack of players. The closest thing I've seen to a consensus is that the gameplay is middle of the road, slow, and repetitive.

If Sony greenlights another game from them, Firewalk's structure needs to be completely overhauled or it'll just be the same result again.

[the-pi-guy]

Why are you guys under the impression that Concord is good? It has a 63 on metacritic and reviews mention plenty wrong with it beyond the lack of players. The closest thing I've seen to a consensus is that the gameplay is middle of the road, slow, and repetitive.

I don't know, even a lot of the lower reviews have positive words about the gameplay and the visuals.

Gameplay is fast and furious, again very much like a mashup of Halo and Overwatch, with sniping, special abilities and classic gun fun all coming together well for a frantic online shooter.

dailystar -6/10

Pros: The character designs are great, with a lot of clever and varied designs. Above average gunplay and excellent graphics.

Metro - 6/10

[Legend]

I don't know, even a lot of the lower reviews have positive words about the gameplay and the visuals.
dailystar -6/10

Metro - 6/10

Most reviews state the complete opposite of those two (except gamerant if I remember right also called gameplay fast). Otherwise the game would be doing better.

[kitler53]

because I played it?

I don't like fps PVP but the game was really solid.   great graphics despite the generic art design.  really tight movement and gunplay.   not a single technical issue with the net code.  

I think forcing one mode in the demo for the first few hours was a bad choice but it was a solid game.  

[Legend]

What made you not buy it? Just the genre?