Sony Discusses What Lessons Can be Learned from the Failure of Concord - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 04 January 2025 / 4,702 Views
Sony president Hiroki Totoki in a Q&A session with investors was asked about the failure of Concord, which was shut down less than two weeks after it released.
"Currently, we are still in the process of learning," said Totoki (via VideoGamesChronicle). "And basically, with regards to new IP, of course, you don’t know the result until you actually try it.
"So for us, for our reflection, we probably need to have a lot of gates, including user testing or internal evaluation, and the timing of such gates. And then we need to bring them forward, and we should have done those gates much earlier than we did.
"Also, we have a siloed organisation, so going beyond the boundaries of those organisations in terms of development, and also sales, I think that could have been much smoother.
"And then going forward, in our own titles and in third-party titles, we do have many different windows. And we want to be able to select the right and optimal window so that we can deploy them on our own platform without cannibalization, so that we can maximize our performance in terms of title launches. That’s all I have."
Sony senior vice president for finance and IR Sadahiko Hayakawa discussed the success of Helldivers 2 and the failure of Concord.
"We launched two live-service games this year," he said. "Helldivers 2 was a huge hit, while Concord ended up being shut down. We gained a lot of experience and learned a lot from both.
"We intend to share the lessons learned from our successes and failures across our studios, including in the areas of title development management as well as the process of continually adding expanded content and scaling the service after its release so as to strengthen our development management system.
"We intend to build on an optimum title portfolio during the current mid-range plan period that combines single-player games – which are our strengths and which have a higher predictability of becoming hits due to our proven IP – with live-service games that pursue upside while taking on a certain amount of risk upon release."
Concord released for the PlayStation 5 and PC on August 23, and it was shut down on September 6.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Not making games for the "Modern audience" would be a start. They didn't buy the game.
Didn't the modern audience purchase HellDivers 2. What was the difference between that game and Concord. Is HD2 so much unique in its systems, gameplay setting or service mechanics. While I see a lot of snark remarks within the comments there definitely is a correlations between what was successful in the service game market and what isn't. I believe one of the biggest issue with Concord was the setting. It did not separate itself from games already on the market which gave it a lackluster reception.
I'd say no. Infact it was the traditional gamers looking for something fun to play with friends that did. The idea of "modern audience" concept is to appeal to a greater audience but catering to a diverse group of people with modern sensibilities... basically everyone. This means adapting the game to fit what many seem to think people want, an inclusive experience because apparently non-gamers weren't buying games because the main character wasn't a female or non-white guy or wasn't sexualised.
But everyone don't buy games, gamers do. Gamers don't give a flying shit about who or what you are as long as the game is fun and narrative good (the latter being depending on the game obviously).
Oddly with Concord, I would actually say the setting was the only thing they got right, 1980s space adventure aesthetic? Amazing music and game art/menus? That side of it was top notch.
What it's issue was was it's concept. Generic hero shooter, the modes were just PvP, TDM, domination etc, plus quite frankly, bad character designs that don't stand out. If it was like a hero adventure game, then it might have done something.
Hmmm but gamers do care about who or what you are because we have seen it multiple times, where gamers complain a character is this or that. Its non while or a woman or gay, you name it. Or are you just talking about a subset of gamers because what is the definition of a gamer.
The thing is there are other generic hero shooters that are doing fine. Could it be charging for the game instead of going the free to play model was the biggest issue. Are not all of these hero shooters games free to play. Sony for some reason expected to charge a premium price up front to play the game which goes against other games in the genre.
The character designs are fine, nothing special but from many people that played in the beta, they said the game was fun. The real issue is that it was not fun enough to separate itself from other hero shooters when its charging a premium price to play.
You are right, I should not generalise. Many gamers are out there not buying games simply because it has a certain type of character at the forefront. I'm not sure how many people from the 2000s early 2010s era remember about articles where it actually took effort for some studios to approve games with female leads (I think it was raised around the time/release of Remember Me), which for many of us that grew up in the Tomb Raider era didn't make sense. A subset of "dude bro" gamers coming through that didn't want to play as a girl when they could play as a burly man instead (of course my millennial nature always made me wonder, why they needed to play as a burly man as I grew up in an era of playing hedgehogs and bandicoots).
Anyway, which other generic hero shooters do you mean? I did mention in my post below about focus. Valorant is succeeding as a F2P but mainly because it knows what it wanted to be. Apex and Overwatch too.
But as you mention, these are all F2P... well now. Overwatch wasn't, which is why Concord's concept was late to the party. The time of the paid for online only PvP game has gone. It's either free or you add a campaign and charge full whack.
I played the beta, it was fun but uninspired. Like I mentioned, it was just generic game modes. I think The Finals did things better as a team based game, ignoring it had far better movement, by focusing on certain game modes as part of it's theme. Concord had none of that. Well, we could discuss this to death (of the game!!!) but in the end we all know it just didn't work.
Would you agree if the game was free to play and on all platforms it probably would still be going right now instead of canceled. This is my main point is that failure was much higher for a game like this only being available on the PS5 charging a premium price. I also agree with you that not having a main campaign charging a premium price was a big miss as well. I do agree that the game definitely did not separate itself from the field of other hero shooters and the developer played it way to safe but then again 200 million to make a game you either go full hog on being inventive in the field or go full platform agnostic and hope for a larger player base to whether a slow start.
No, because the open beta was free to play and garnered little interest. 2500 concurrent players IIRC
Focus more on appealing to your core audience rather than activists
Sony already does that. They have enough studios that do exactly that.
Machiavellian, this page is about what they can learn from Concord. If the lesson is stop appealing to activists, then even if they don't make that mistake elsewhere, if concord did it and failed then it's a valid point and Sony not making that mistake elsewhere is beside the point.
How does that make my reply any less relevant. Really, what the heck are you on about, appealing to activists. When did this become some political issue with the game itself. Actually never mind. You can keep that BS out of the thread because I can assure you I will not tolerate that crap here. While I am usually tolerant of differing opinions, what I am not tolerant of is derailing the thread with BS.
Sexier characters have better chance of success.
Yea crazy right! Man i wish we could plat with ugly chars more
Stop making gaas shit should be lesson
That's the thing, they don't often print money. Most of GaaS titles fail miserably. There are few GaaS that do well and multitude of them that fail trying to emulate the successful ones.
Well, Sony seems to think they're a lucrative opportunity anyway. I'm sure they've done their research instead of jumping in blindly, and now they're just trying to nail the formula (which is probably the hard part).
Going all in on GaaS shows that they haven't done their research. Even if you release a quality title, the sunk cost fallacy makes it hard to get gamers to leave their existing GaaS title. That's what these publishers, not just Sony, fail to realize. There are only so many hours in the day and most players, even hardcores, can only play a couple of these live service games at time. Most casual players just to stick to one.
There isn't this huge market out there these games. Moreover, these games require a massive investment both upfront and ongoing. Sony, given their prior experince in the MMO space should know this already. It's high risk proposition that I'm surprised these skittish publishers keep taking.
I'd be surprised if Sony didn't realize that, but sadly I don't think we have visibility in Sony's decision-making process and what research they've actually done.
Sony's current GaaS stance is a result of Jim Ryan's initiatives. From the outside looking in, it seems Jim Ryan saw where thing were heading and go the hell out of dodge.
This should really be the biggest lesson they should get out of this gigantic blunder. They already have a hit live service game HD2 why do we need to get 10 more that nobody is asking for, wake TF up Sony!
There's absolutely no way Sony would've known HD2 would've been the hit it was. Honestly, the vast majority of the internet are eating crow on HD2s success.
The current live service titles that we know of also hit different audiences. HD2 is PvE, Concord was a hero shooter, the upcoming Fairgames will be PvPvE and is a heist title: the audience for these 3 titles are clearly not the same even if some players will overlap.
That is pretty much my opinion. First making the game for only Sony audience was a big miss. Live service games should never be tied down to just one platform. The chances of a miss is huge. The second is that the setting did not separate the game from what is already on the market. The game did not feel any different than playing any other hero shooter game.
When you look at HD2, would that game have been as big of a hit if it was only on Sony console. Hell, if the game came out of Xbox as well, how big would it have been. The thing is if you are not making a service game for all the platforms and spending huge amounts of money, the risk of a miss in the market is huge and we see the results.
Don't make hero shooter pvp games? market is overcrowded?
Just the mention of the syllables “ Live Service” in any article makes my stomach turn.
Not going crazy for crazy"modern" western standarts thar only a tiny % actually likes.
HD2 was a massive success, is GaaS and well, it's fun. Concord was uninspired shit 7 years too late, lacked focus and was just by the numbers game designed to "fit", which is ironic as it didn't fit anything. Making less shit is the key there.
Less gaas shit? Considering they made for all intents and purposes one of the GotY and it apparently only sold 1.5mil, while some GaaS shit on the market make more money in mtx in the same or less timeframe, you know why they and many other companies chance that.
In the end, my own taking? Less risk on unproven studios and more focus on smaller games from their existing IPs.
Give me a new Jumping Flash!
What about its failure with Bungie?
$4B you'll never get back lol
The entire industry threw away money over the last 4-5 years. Rich getting richer while we as gamers have nothing new to show for it.
I don't know how profitable Bungie has been, but I wouldn't be surprised if the investment paid for itself on some timescale. Also, Bungie's expertise could help increase the likelyhood of success for future GaaS titles, and perhaps even Concord's failure could've been avoided had Bungie been around longer. At least my impression is that Sony is also interested in Bungie's GaaS expertise to help Sony's other studios.
Bungie are the reason the acquired Firewalk. They approved of Concord. In fact that might be the main issue. Firewalk included former bungie devs and was overtly based on destiny's mechanics. Bungie was not impartial there.
I'm going to guess that getting involved in the last two years of development of a long-developed game probably allows for relatively little intervention anymore, since all the big design choices have already been made and changing them is very expensive. Beyond that, I think I'll refrain from commenting due to my lack of knowledge about the details. Perhaps Bungie failed with Concord, or perhaps they did the best they realistically could given the situation.
They overpaid for Bungie, obviously. Everybody overpaid for everything during that time. But, I don't think that makes Bungie a failure. Bungie is bringing much needed expertise to Sony. They also have one of the most successful, long-running, money printing series' in Destiny. I assume that Sony also felt good about the upcoming games from Bungie. And the success of those remains to be seen.
They have learned absolutely nothing from this. The higher ups are still complete looney tunes with dollar signs in their eyes.
A nice hooking gameplay and player incentives to make the player actually keep playing the game over and over is what makes gaas a success,
If u release an average Joe it's bound to self destruct
Understanding audiences, their values, their expectations, what games SHOULD BE, understand game mechanics (comfort of people playing a fighting game/maining other aspects of a game it's not just comfort it's just what suits a situation as well in the flow of the game).
Ah live services and being too late these days or wanting that same money other companies have, yeah keep trying and reading the room better. Not just of audiences but in HOW you make one to compete just not see money and go 'but but how do they do it' well think about it and how large audiences are/if they will pull away too. They aren't brainwashed people audiences they have their minds set on a purchase that's worth it for games that really appeal to them.
Modern gaming is ok not my thing that much but I'm researching old games for their mechanics not their worlds/story/graphics so I wants differ from others and that's fine everyone has their preferences they seek a product for.
The $40 was one thing for sure for some people ,wasn't others. I'm not sure what to think about it really versus free to play of quality, extra money entrance or so.
I mean Destruction Allstars to me (besides the prices entry there too) even if comparing to Blur isn't the same let alone DA, but DA was just well, a vehicular game with artstyle elements to an audience that has no interest in a vehicular game. What idiot at Lucid (like Playground had ex Bizarre Creations staff) or Sony didn't put 2 and 2 together there of what generation they are targeting the one that didn't play vehicular combat games like Twisted Metal, that didn't play Blur or others of arcade eras dropping off. Like duh context that isn't that hard to look back on or compare audiences/generations they have as a target demographic at all for DA. Let alone Concord and who is playing it versus who is actually buying it/watching it instead.
While Concord was a game in a genre/trend following that makes sense for audiences unlike DA, timing, execution and more matter a lot to people. Streamers aren't everything either but content coverage does help and word of mouth/messaging/people's own opinions besides what others say/what they see does determine a game.
I mean who wants a Spyro Enter The Dragonfly remake, exactly? It could be salvaged but who really cares either.
First impressions do it why we don't see unsuccessful games get a remake. They could to give a second chance but players go 'yeah I'd be fine with that' or nope, first impressions have set in. Company just don't offer them even if could give them a second chance. I'd take a Under The Skin from Capcom in the modern era the disguises and RE3 content are ripe for a modern port and streamers playing it but nope we won't see that at all. Yet Exoprimal over Dino Crisis......................... uh huh............ Either way.
The ideas were 'ok' but not good in the slightest. The staff communication seemed very strange. The budget they had then a purchase was also strange.
The development was very messy. They needed to step in more not be an overseer and go 'we oversee this' yeah and......... that really helped them out didn't it.
Its the new word for everything I hate.
