Sony has one of the biggest gaming flops in recent memory on its hands with multiplayer shooter Concord, which is being removed from digital stores less than two weeks after the Playstation and PC exclusive’s 23 August launch.
Sony purportedly spent eight years developing the title in collaboration with Firewalk Studios only for it to release to average reviews and embarrassingly low sales.
Updating the small pool of “Concord fans” on Sony’s official blog, Firewalk Studios’ game director Ryan Ellis said: “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.
“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.”
All customers are entitled to a refund, meaning Sony’s return on investment in the project is non-existent.
Live out-of-service gaming
Concord represented a rare foray for Sony into the controversial world of live service gaming.
Popularised by Epic Games’ global smash hit Fortnite, live service gaming requires players to purchase regular ‘season passes’ to experience a title.
While some live service games, including Fortnite, are free to buy, others, including Concord, come with an initial price tag.
The sales model has become increasingly popular among major gaming developers, particularly Ubisoft and Electronic Arts.
But the model is often criticised as greedy since it often requires multiple outlays of cash to enjoy.
In Concord’s case, gamers had to fork out $40 (around £30) for the privilege of paying for a season pass.
IGN estimates that Concord sold just 25,000 copies, which if true, means it brought in just $1 million. Or $0, if all refunds are executed.
It is not known how much Sony spent on the game, but given its eight-year development cycle, it is likely to be many multitudes more than the sales it briefly accrued.
Concord will be removed from digital stores on 6 September.
Sunk costs
While an unmitigated disaster for Sony, it is far from the worst commercial flop to share the Concord(e) name.
Such was the immense economic failure of the Franco-British Concorde aircraft project that it gave rise to the ‘Concorde fallacy’, a term immortalised in the Cambridge Business English Dictionary.
Synonymous with the ‘sunk-cost fallacy’, the Concorde fallacy refers to the tendency to continue with a project that is destined to fail, simply because of the time and money already invested into the project.
For the British and French governments, that amounted to billions of pounds and francs wasted.
For Sony, it possibly means rethinking its tentative steps into the world of live service gaming.