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EDIT:

An important update on Concord

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. Your support and the passionate community that has grown around the game has meant the world to us...

blog.playstation.com

It truly is the end.

Redfall
Sega's Hyenas
Square's Foamstars
Ubisoft's Skull and Bones
Suicide Squad

And now Concord.

With Concord being an even harder flop than even the most staunchest of haters could have imagined. It sends a clear signal to the gaming industry that live service trend chasing will no longer work.

Similar to past trends from: military shooters, to tacked on multiplayer, to plastic peripherals, to everything being a battle royale.

With Black Myth being such a blow out success with about 80% of players being in China. I suspect the new trend will be single player games chasing the Chinese market.

What do you think the next trend will be?

EDIT:
I corrected Foamstar with Square instead of Ubisoft.

 

[tmlDan]

Concord thread number 5,000. For a game that flopped people can’t help but make weird threads about it lol

No, one more failing live service won’t end this trend of potentially making massive amounts of money

 

[Generic]

The most profitable games are live service.

 

[adamsapple]

With Concord being an even harder flop than even the most staunchest of haters could have imagined. It sends a clear signal to the gaming industry that live service trend chasing will no longer work.

As long as a game like Fortnite will continue to have 3 million daily players and multi billion annual revenue, other companies will keep trying to be the next success story like that.

 

[Success]

Concord thread number 5,000. For a game that flopped people can’t help but make weird threads about it lol

There are so many threads about it because future historians will point to this game being the pivotal point of the end of the live service trend chasing.

Concord is significant to gaming history precisely because it was such a hard flop.

 

[Fabieter]

Would hope so still voted no

 

[ViciousAgenda]

I dont think live service games are terrible per se. I love Helldivers, GT7 and I think Delta Force is promising.

The games listed were just shit.

 

[Humdinger]

No. Failures are an expected part of this game. You keep trying until you hit it big. You expect some games to flop. This won't even slow the trend, much less stop it.

 

[killatopak]

No, I don’t gaas will end.

I think pandering to a hyper specific audience and expecting everybody else will be enticed will be put to an end.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Concord thread number 5,000. For a game that flopped people can’t help but make weird threads about it lol

 

[STARSBarry]

I think we need a "God I hope so" option

its essentially this meme



but they keep fucking doing it, like I thought we where done 3 failures ago, but they just keep fucking doing it.

stop.

 

[Xyphie]

We have another trend chasing hero shooter in Marvel Rivals coming up soon which is shaping up to be decently successful if interest in the beta is anything to go by. Sony and Firewalk cluelessness just resulted in a failure to execute with Concord.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Don't forget HellDivers 2 was a pretty big hit so its not the live service trend in trouble

Its the Hero Shooter with agendas shoved down our throats by Professor wannabes that should die in a fire

 

[Robb]

Too much potential money not to take the gamble.

 

[kikii]

isnt that Foamstars SE's game and not ubis ?

 

[thegame983]

Trend chasing will never end because it requires so little talent.

 

[lughnasadh123]

Not even for mid/bad ones same with single player games.

 

[Fabieter]

isnt that Foamstars SE's game and not ubis ?

It is

 

[MiguelItUp]

People want it to be the end, but of course it won't be. So many service games are still coming from other developers and studios, doubt they're changing their minds at all.

If anything, maybe Sony will be a bit more cautious, but that's about it.

 

[Miles708]

The most profitable games are live service.

All three of them

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Gaas is going nowhere and will co-exist with singleplayer for the foreseeable future.
Games just need to resonate with the gaming community.

BM Wukong did, Concord didn't.
Dustborn didn't, Helldivers 2 did.

It's all part of gaming.

 

[Moriarty1889]

It wont end but hopefully this will make Sony realize they are much better off crafting AAA SP games as they have always done so well. One can hope.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Unfortunately no. They expect most to fail. They’re going to keep striking out til they hit gold.

 

[T4keD0wN]

None of these have failed because theyre live service, they have all failed either because they suck or because theyre unoriginal, or both.

This is not the end, there will be many more projects and many more flops, some brand new creative idea ones might even do well, but the ones that seek to "steal" the playerbase from Fortnite/Destiny/Overwatch or whatever game theyre trying to replace are doomed to fail since theyd have to make a game thats better than those in every single aspect and nobody is capable of that.

 

[LazyParrot]

I doubt they'll drop the live service thing entirely, it's way too profitable to ignore. They might just pivot to games with smaller budgets and shorter development times instead.

Sony could probably have made three Helldivers 2's with the time and money they spent on Concord.

 

[lh032]

live service games are stagnant it seems, looks like the same few old GaaS franchise like fortnite, COD is the only one surviving.

New GaaS IP most likely would fail and in need of miracles to survive.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Any "lesson" Sony would learn from Concord would only show itself 7 years in the future. That is the problem with such lag time with game development.

 

[Elios83]

And Helldivers2 was a huge hit that has generated far more profits than expected.
GaaS chase won't end because if you get a major hit you are showered with easy money for years and for publishers chasing that kind of success is worth having a few botched attempts.
It's a risky market though, so it's important to strike a balance and not put all the eggs in a single basket.

 

[Holammer]

Nah, they'll keep on doing them. Said it before, GaaS games can be Wonka's Golden lottery ticket. Offering riches beyond your wildest dreams.
Concord's problem is that whomever funded it and Sony buying the studio is a fucking comedy of errors. If they did a good old fashioned focus group test the money people would have noticed the obvious glaring problems.

What we need in the GaaS space are games with a strong PVE/Single player component so it's not a worthless brick when player populations dry up. Like Nintendo does with Splatoon. You can play them for the story mode alone and get your money's worth. Side Order DLC is immaculate! So good.

 

[whyman]

Redfall
Sega's Hyenas
Ubisoft's Foamstars
Ubisoft's Skull and Bones
Suicide Squad

And now Concord.

With Concord being an even harder flop than even the most staunchest of haters could have imagined. It sends a clear signal to the gaming industry that live service trend chasing will no longer work.

Similar to past trends from: military shooters, to tacked on multiplayer, to plastic peripherals, to everything being a battle royale.

With Black Myth being such a blow out success with about 80% of players being in China. I suspect the new trend will be single player games chasing the Chinese market.

What do you think the next trend will be?

Did WB not announce that they would be going SAAS after the success with single-player Harry Potter. These are some of the greediest people in the world, any single-player game that does well is seen as an opportunity to do even better as a SAAS. Black Myth might be different, but it is also from oppressive communist China, and I would never spend a single euro to support that.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Why did you put Yes and No as options?

Anyways, it will be over once COD, Fortnite, GTA, Minecraft would stop being cultural phenomenon.

 

[ByWatterson]

Few people are playing Helldivers 2 right now.

But that one game made Sony way more money than they lost on Concord. They will continue to believe they just need to crack one major success.

 

[justiceiro]

Literally the beginning, at least for Sony.

 

[Tomi]

Yep, they will stop developing so many čive service games because people dont like them anymore

 

[clarky]

GAAS are not a trend, they are just another format.

Its like saying is the trend in single player games over now xx flopped.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

It might put an end to, or at least diminish DEI activist devs ruining games (Concord being a prime example that's on the radar of the whole industry now), but GaaS is here to stay.

 

[clarky]

Yep, they will stop developing so many čive service games because people dont like them anymore

Yeah because nobody likes Fortnite,COD APEX etc anymore right.

Dont be silly.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

The most profitable games are live service.

And they've been made already. The rest is detritus.

 

[Fake]

Hope GAAS and live service end for good.

 

[Topher]

Nah....it ain't going anywhere.

 

[P:axMagellanic]

Sony are cheeky cunts to even attempt this 'strategy'. As platform holder every one else subsidises their shit through the license fee. This gives them the freedom to be more experimental with their games, not chasing trends like everyone else.

More bombs please.

 

[PeteBull]

We need at least 20 to 30 more big budget AAA Gaas games to flop before pubs feel it big time where it hurts aka in their wallet, so it will take at least till the end of current gen, likely even couple of years into next gen too

 

[hemo memo]

I hope so.

 

[Shubh_C63]

multiple GaaS can co-exists with each other easily.

People who do play GaaS run out of content fast and mostly opt to play 2 GaaS games together casually.
It's not going anywhere.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

I doubt it will do much to buck that trend. What I do hope for is that it will at least make Bungie rethink that boneheaded idea of turning Marathon into a ”hero” game.

 

[Skifi28]

historians will point to this game being the pivotal point of the end of the live service trend chasing.

Why Concord specifically and not all the other live service games that fail anually? I'd say Valve's new hero shooter failing could potentially be even bigger.

 

[Ronin_7]

Keep dreaming, mate.

As a software engineer, I can tell you that they’ll keep pushing, no matter how pointless the project seems.

I’ve worked on several projects where everyone knew it was a waste of time, but the higher-ups insisted on moving forward.

Most of those projects never saw the light of day, but I still got paid and couldn’t care less.It’s the same with game development.

 

[PeteBull]

I doubt it will do much to buck that trend. What I do hope for is that it will at least make Bungie rethink that boneheaded idea of turning Marathon into a ”hero” game.

Nah bro, bungie already brainwashed to the teeth with that ez GAAS money and DEI, they are lost case, and so is their upcoming Marathon game, gotta let it bomb hard too so next dev team/another publisher doesnt get any funny ideas.
It took solid few years before companies stopped making "wow-killer", "call of duty-killer", "halo-killer", etc games, we gotta be patient and stay on course as community, let that monster eat itself from inside

 

[Kerotan]

Sony have Helldivers and GT7. if they'd any brains the concord studio will focus on content for Helldivers.

There's room for one more GAAS from Sony I'm just shocked they didn't back the Last of Us to be the one.

 

[ReBurn]

Live service isn't going to end because a game like Concord flops. Games are going to remain online, connected, and MTX funded. There's obviously a market for live service but that market can currently only support just so many of the same type of game. To succeed a game needs to be better at something than the games people are currently playing and Concord just isn't that game.