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In brief: Sony's latest online shooter struggled to inspire confidence after its initial unveiling, and player interest never improved during the beta or following its official launch. Now, the company is pulling the plug after just two weeks on the market. Whether Sony will resurrect Concord as a free-to-play game or shelve the project remains unclear.
Concord players should begin seeing refunds for the game starting Tuesday. Sony has delisted its AAA online shooter and will shut down its servers on Friday following disastrously low sales.
Users who purchased the Overwatch-like team shooter through the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Direct will receive refunds through their payment providers. Meanwhile, Steam and the Epic Games Store will contact customers once they have processed the refunds. Those who bought physical copies must refer to their respective retailers.
Sony revealed the game with an expensive-looking CGI trailer in June and opened a free early-access beta on PlayStation 5 and PC the following month. However, player enthusiasm proved lukewarm, as Concord peaked at only 2,388 players on Steam and reached lows of under 500. No data for the PS5 version is available, but it likely didn't fare much better.
Unfortunately for Sony and developer Firewalk Studios, the beta's performance proved foretelling. Analysts estimate Concord sold only around 25,000 copies between PC and PS5 after its August 23 release.
The game is shaping up to be a significant loss for Sony, which purchased Firewalk in 2018 to help develop and publish Concord. Sony is reassessing the game's future, so it might drop its $40 price tag and resurface as a free-to-play title.
Observers will likely interpret Concord's failure as another example of the volatility of the live-service gaming model. The news follows the dismal commercial performance of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which resulted in deep layoffs for developer Rocksteady and a $200 million loss for Warner Bros.
Concord is only the latest sign of Sony's struggles with live-service games. The explosive success of Helldivers 2 was tempered by the company's decision to cancel a planned multiplayer spin-off of The Last of Us and pessimistic rumors surrounding an upcoming live-service revival of Bungie's Marathon series. The studio recently fired the game's director and laid off over 200 Bungie employees in early August.
Nonetheless, large publishers will likely continue funding ambitious live-service projects, as they now generate most of the video game industry's revenue. However, the most successful titles in that category were initially released at least four years ago, indicating that the market has solidified.