It was a matter of time before it was announced and here is the sad news. The competitive multiplayer title Concord It was one of the most notorious failures of the year and since it was announced that the game would stop working —just a few days after its release— we were sure that the closure of the studio that developed it, Firewalk Studios, could not be far away.
The always accurate Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier broke the news through your account on the social network Twitter. Minutes later it was confirmed by an official publication of Sony Interactive Entertainment.
The statement also reveals that Sony closed the Neon Koi studio, which was working on an action mobile game that was not officially announced.
The closure of Firewalk Studios by Sony occurred, clearly, due to the failure of Concord. Although the studio had said that it was “determining the best path forward for the game,” there was little hope that it could be revived as a free-to-play title or under another model.
The truth is that the studio is not to blame for what happened and it is quite unfair that they end up paying for it, because The idea of putting them to work for more than five years on a game belonging to a terribly competitive genre and outside the dominant models came from Sony..
Why did it fail? Concord?
The reasons why the game failed are multiple and could be seen from the launch of the trailer, which received many more “dislikes” than “likes.”
- It’s a game for another time: Planning for Concord supposedly began in 2016, when Overwatch It was the biggest game in the world and everyone tried to imitate it. Eight years later, there is no longer as much desire for games like this.
- Its price: It’s true that many gamers say they prefer a ‘premium’ game to a free one full of microtransactions, but that doesn’t represent the general public. Although it had a reduced price, it simply couldn’t compete against established free games that offer similar experiences, including the justly criticized Overwatch 2.
- The ‘games as a service’ landscape has changed: The entrepreneurs of the video game companies saw in these eternally updated titles and with elements always for sale a gold mine, but the players are already tired of the abuse they commit. It is true that Concord It was going to offer all of its big updates for free, but it was presented as a game as a service anyway.
- There is no room in the market for a game like this: The world of multiplayer team-based shooting games is taken over. All those interested in titles of this genre are already playing Counter-Strike 2, Overwatch 2, Valuing or other similar titles. Titles coming like Marvel Rivals are offering more different ideas that can open up a niche.
- Mal marketing: Sony did not know how to sell the game to its potential players. It just seemed “another” Overwatch» and there is already one of those. It is true that it offered good ideas at a playable level, but it never presented them in a way that made them seem attractive.
- Outdated visual design: The first image he gave Concord to the ‘gaming’ community was terrible and the biggest sign that it was going to be a failure, some even correctly guessed that it was going to be removed from stores quickly. Its “space adventure” aesthetic in the style of Guardians of the Galaxy It made sense in 2016 when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was on top of the world, now people are a little tired of it.
- The vicious cycle of failure– Multiplayer titles like this rely on a healthy number of active players to be playable. It’s not just that the game started with a low number of players at launch, but the sheer coverage of those numbers caused more players to shy away, fearing paying money for a game they wouldn’t be able to play.
