Sony Calls It A Day on Concord, Promises Refunds To All Players

What might be the most expensive disaster in the gaming industry this decade has just occurred. After witnessing the feedback on their latest hero-shooter title, Sony’s Concord is shutting down for good.

Announced via an official PlayStation blog post, the game will soon go offline, starting September 6th, 2024. It will be removed from all storefronts, and players will be given a full refund through their original payment method.

To say the least, Concord’s release was underwhelming, and with less than 100 concurrent users playing the game, shutdown wasinevitable.

While 2024 has been a great year for gaming, the latter part of the year has not been good for Sony.

From the downfall of Helldivers 2 to the unaccounted failure of Concord serving as the standout fumbles, but thankfully, single-player titles such as Black Myth: Wukong have helped soften the blow.

Not to mention,Xbox is even more prone to a fumble than its console counterpart, meaning they haven’t been able to capitalize on these shortcomings.

Many factors contributed to Concord’s failure, starting with its launch at a price tag of $40, compared to competitors that are usually free-to-play.

From Hero To Zero In A Week

Concord’s chances against established titles such as Valorant and Overwatchwere demolished the moment it was decided that the game would not be a free experience for players.

However, what sealed Sony’s and Firewalk Studios’ fate is how their creation failed to provide any unique selling point for gamers to be attracted to, resulting in the atrocity of low concurrent players and the eventual shutdown of the project.

When Valorant by Riot Games was first introduced in 2020, it disrupted the existing market with unique mechanics and features.

Sony should have introduced something new instead of just copying an existing formula, in which case Concord might have been a hit instead, selling more than 25,000 copies.

The best-case scenario moving forward is for the studio to refocus on the game’s development and come back with a PvE experience, offering co-op features with a bit of existing PvP features as a side bonus.