With only 660 concurrent players on Steam, the hero shooter Concord is a flop for Sony. But even worse than the low player numbers is the ridicule the project is facing. In particular, the characters are described as ugly – with Overwatch 2 and Valorant, the €40 title also faces strong free-to-play competition. The flop could jeopardize Sony’s big MMO plans that aimed to build on the success of Destiny.
What kind of game is this?
- Concord is a hero shooter that was released for PS5 and on Steam on August 23. It currently costs €40 and has received quite decent reviews with 72% positive ratings on Steam. However, with only 2.87 out of 5 stars, the shooter performs rather poorly in the PS5 store.
- The shooter was harshly criticized for the design of the characters back in June.
- On Steam, Concord is now a total flop, peaking at just 660 players. In the last 24 hours, there were at most 395 players online. For a “AAA game,” this is a catastrophe.
The origins of Concord lie in a bad year for Destiny
Where does the game come from? The origins of the game lie with Destiny – in 2016, there apparently was trouble behind the scenes because the planned Destiny 2 for 2016 had to be postponed.
It’s not known for sure, but probably this is why longtime Bungie head Harold Ryan had to leave. The now also highly controversial Pete Parsons took over.
Ryan, along with some Bungie employees, founded a new company called “Probably Monsters” and wanted to establish independent teams to create MMO games. One of the studios, Firewalk, was sold to Sony in April 2023 – and they brought Concord to market, which they have been working on since 2018.
Concord was supposed to be a forerunner of Sony’s new strategy
This was Sony’s plan: Sony’s plan was to develop 10 new “live-service games” by March 2026 with exactly such teams and acquisitions, which were set to be released for PS5 and PC. Concord was to become one of 10 “original AAA multiplayer games.”
To realize this plan and ensure more expertise in live-service games, Sony also acquired Bungie. But the plan to release 10 new live-service games now seems to be facing a setback.
“Ugliest characters of all time”
What is the reaction now? On social media, the characters are repeatedly mentioned as a point of criticism, apparently seen as “unattractive.”
Concord is seen by Twitch streamers as Sony’s “100 million $ flop.” Streamers like Asmongold publicly mock the flop.
Asmongold mocks a tweet from a disappointed developer with low reach. His video on the subject has 770,000 views:
“It has more pronouns than players”
It fits into Asmongold’s current narrative that studios that purposely focus on diversity are unsuccessful and develop contrary to the wishes of the players.
Asmongold reads a scathing tweet: “Concord has more pronouns than players.”
The “Battleborn/Evolve” effect
What’s behind this: Apart from the character design, the “Battleborn/Evolve” phenomenon strikes Concord. A game that clearly looks like a free-to-play game and competes against free-to-play rivals is sold for €40, and hardly anyone sees the point in paying for such a game when established games like Overwatch 2 or Valorant can be played for free.
Battleborn (2016) and Evolve (2015) are considered the biggest flops in modern gaming, with many units produced that ended up as shelf warmers.
Just as Concord suffers under Overwatch 2 now, the hero shooter Battleborn faced doom from Overwatch 1 eight years ago. Hero shooters must have been the genre that caused the costliest flops in gaming in recent years: Amazon had a huge shooter flop in 2020 – a former developer now says: “That was obvious.”
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