Thursday, September 5th 2024
Concord Suffers Disastrous Launch, Gets Pulled off the Market by Sony and Refunded
Corcord, Firewalk Studios' hero shooter, released on August 23 for PS5 and Windows, was pulled from sale on Tuesday and will be taken offline later this week, all thanks to its disastrous launch. Sony announced on its Playstation blog Players who purchased Concord would be refunded as it "explores options" for the game, and "determines the best path ahead."
Game director at Firewalk Studios, Ryan Ellis, announced Concord's fate in a message to players, saying, "Aspects of the game and our initial launch didn't land the way we intended." He continues, "Concord fans—we've been listening closely to your feedback since the launch of Concord on PlayStation 5 and PC and want to thank everyone who has joined the journey aboard the Northstar." Ellis added,"Your support and the passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us."
"However, while many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn't land the way we'd intended. Therefore, at this time, we have decided to take the game offline beginning September 6, 2024, and explore options, including those that will better reach our players."
Sony is issuing refunds to the original payment methods for players on PS5, whether the game was bought from the PS store via Playstation Direct, or players who purchased the game on PC.
Concord was received last month to an unfavorable response. The game's concurrent players on Steam were surprisingly low, less than 700 players during launch weekend and even lower in the coming weeks. And reaching 30 players on Tuesday, even though the game has sold 25,000 copies since launch (as reported by IGN), indicating poor health.
Reviews of Concord from critics, lamented the game's lack of features that would make it standout, the game's $40 price tag in a sea of free-to-play competitors, and its bland cast of characters. Concord allows the players to take control of 16 Freegunners, a diverse group of aliens, robots, and space mercenaries, each with special abilities, in 5v5 multiplayer matches. Concord was the debut title of Firewalk, although later acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2023.
An option for Sony and Firewalk to bring Concord back to life would be to remove the games price tag, making it a free-to-play title. If monetization is what they're after, they'll have to rework Concord, because it wasn't built as a free-to-play title, as Concord doesn't feature a battle pass or other microtransactions, but instead, Concord promised free updates to those who purchased it.
Source:
Playstation blog
Game director at Firewalk Studios, Ryan Ellis, announced Concord's fate in a message to players, saying, "Aspects of the game and our initial launch didn't land the way we intended." He continues, "Concord fans—we've been listening closely to your feedback since the launch of Concord on PlayStation 5 and PC and want to thank everyone who has joined the journey aboard the Northstar." Ellis added,"Your support and the passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us."
Sony is issuing refunds to the original payment methods for players on PS5, whether the game was bought from the PS store via Playstation Direct, or players who purchased the game on PC.
Concord was received last month to an unfavorable response. The game's concurrent players on Steam were surprisingly low, less than 700 players during launch weekend and even lower in the coming weeks. And reaching 30 players on Tuesday, even though the game has sold 25,000 copies since launch (as reported by IGN), indicating poor health.
Reviews of Concord from critics, lamented the game's lack of features that would make it standout, the game's $40 price tag in a sea of free-to-play competitors, and its bland cast of characters. Concord allows the players to take control of 16 Freegunners, a diverse group of aliens, robots, and space mercenaries, each with special abilities, in 5v5 multiplayer matches. Concord was the debut title of Firewalk, although later acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2023.
An option for Sony and Firewalk to bring Concord back to life would be to remove the games price tag, making it a free-to-play title. If monetization is what they're after, they'll have to rework Concord, because it wasn't built as a free-to-play title, as Concord doesn't feature a battle pass or other microtransactions, but instead, Concord promised free updates to those who purchased it.
38 Comments on Concord Suffers Disastrous Launch, Gets Pulled off the Market by Sony and Refunded
As asked previously i'm not going to delve into details, and i do know the list of ""triggers""(saying they're triggers it's pretty dumb that's why the quotes) and i do want to hear all about it but not the place here.
Now all we have to see is what's going to be the next AAA flop and when will companies stop the "live service" BS and simply maintain and provide the servers/mm so that players can simply play.
Or ditch all that and we're back to dedicated private/public servers with no matchmaking like good old bf 1942/cs beta and countless other "early" multiplayer games.
You either a.) know your argument is bogus, in which case this is not a debate worth having or b.) don't, which is frankly even worse.
IIRC it was a fps with horror/puzzles/maps/story
The whole first one was a dystopian critique of Libertarianism.
The second applied the same fun rulebook to communist ideologies.
What made Concord a dumpster fire according to you? As far as I know it failed because they wanted 40 euros for an uninspired, boring and quite frankly ugly game in an oversaturated genre which mostly changed to a free-to-play model buoyed by character skins-focused microtransactions years ago, and how exactly that has any bearing on Fairgame you are free to enlighten me.
If you think the social messaging and political preaching of the game didn't have anything to do with it's downfall, you're kidding yourself. Boring, uninspired game design coupled with someone ramming their politics down your throat doesn't equate to sales and equates to a dumpster fire. Just ask Dustborn. If it had just been tired game design, it would have at least found an audience for a time simply for being something new. The fact that even less people showed up for launch over the beta coupled with the online response specifically highlighting the game's politics and the developers attacking the customer base shows how much of a dumpster fire this game was from start.
People want a fun and challenging game, not to be force fed someone's political beliefs. Fairgame$ has the same smell about it as Concord did, but time will tell.