Is Concord the biggest live service failure of all time? Here’s how it stacks up next to other major flops
Concord will not get a second probability. The hero shooter that bombed in August is not going to be reworked and relaunched, Sony introduced this week, and the studio that spent years creating it is being closed for good.
It has been referred to as the biggest videogame flop of all time, and that may be true. It is exhausting to get precise funds and gross sales numbers for video games, so it’s a considerably subjective judgment, however even the notorious Atari 2600 E.T. sport offered a million-and-a-half copies. Concord cannot have come shut to that, we all know it was costly to produce, and it was playable for a mere two weeks.
The information that Concord is gone for good has as soon as once more enlivened dialogue about the pursuit of live service riches: Nice for publishers after they get an Apex Legends or Helldivers 2, however astonishingly wasteful after they miss. Here’s how Concord’s destiny compares to some of the other massive live service flops over the previous decade (although definitely not all of them).
Concord
(Picture credit score: Firewalk Studios)
What was it? A aggressive sci-fi hero shooter from ex-Bungie devs
How lengthy was it in growth? Over six years, however growth started with a small crew and solely two years have been spent in “full production,” according to Firewalk Studios
What was its funds? The overall funds is unknown, however Kotaku reports that it surpassed $200 million, and Sony additionally acquired Firewalk Studios for an unknown sum mid-development
How lengthy did it final? 11 days
What occurred?
After its announcement with a cinematic trailer at Sony’s State of Play livestream in Could—an odd selection for a multiplayer sport, I assumed—and a pair of underpopulated playtests, Concord launched on PlayStation and Steam in August for $40 and easily did not promote. It recorded a tragic all-time peak of simply 697 concurrent Steam gamers.
It has been instructed that Concord would possibly’ve had an opportunity as a free-to-play sport, however Helldivers 2 was additionally $40 and that did not cease it from being the breakout hit of the 12 months. Precisely why it failed so dramatically is tough to say, however my tough prognosis is that it was a handsome and fairly enjoyable shooter that for a quantity of design and advertising and marketing causes lacked the type of hook wanted to get aggressive shooter gamers to concentrate. The pleasant band of area rogues did not do it, and neither did the system of buffs that inspired mid-match character swaps. Concord’s downside wasn’t that it was unhealthy—tons of video games launch in worse form and get higher over time—however that hardly anybody cared whether or not it was good or unhealthy in the first place.
Sony halted gross sales simply 11 days after Concord launched, and some days later turned off the servers. It briefly appeared like the writer would possibly strive to save the shooter, however on October 29, Sony introduced that it will “permanently sunset the game and close the studio.” Years of work and a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} culminated in simply two weeks of live service taking pictures.
The Day Earlier than
(Picture credit score: Fntastic)
What was it? A hyped extraction shooter from a small studio
How lengthy was it in growth? Over three years
What was its funds? Unknown, however a lot lower than the other video games on this listing
How lengthy did it final? 4 days
What occurred?
Concord nosedived with stunning pace, however it would not maintain the file in that regard. The Day Earlier than and its developer lasted a mere 4 days after launch.
After a visually-impressive 2021 announcement trailer, some players optimistically imagined that The Day Earlier than might be one thing like a Final of Us MMO, however indie developer Fntastic, which had beforehand made a profitable prop hunt sport, didn’t have the expertise or funds to pull that off. When The Day Earlier than launched in December of 2023, it was instantly obvious that it was a useful, however not excellent zombie extraction shooter, and never the groundbreaking city survival MMO that some onlookers had (I feel considerably unseriously) constructed it up to be throughout two unusual years of spotty promotion and delays.
Fntastic shut The Day Earlier than down only a few days after it got here out, issued refunds, and closed, declaring the endeavor a monetary failure. The studio’s founders at the moment are trying a comeback, however their Kickstarter for a “physics-based multiplayer co-op escape game” predictably went unfunded, and one other effort to make a brand new prop hunt sport has already resorted to looking for volunteer work—one thing the studio was criticized for throughout The Day Earlier than’s growth—in the guise of a map design contest.
Crucible
(Picture credit score: Amazon Video games)
What was it? Amazon’s hero shooter
How lengthy was it in growth? At the least 4 years
What was its funds? Unknown, however in 2021 Bloomberg reported that Amazon was spending up to $500 million on its sport division that additionally included Crucible and its extra profitable MMO, New World
How lengthy did it final? 173 days
What occurred?
The sport was unhealthy. Like actually unhealthy. Crucible was designed round a PvPvE idea on big enviornment maps. It wasn’t fairly a battle royale or an enviornment shooter—it was extra like Overwatch in case you additionally had to shoot actually boring NPCs to improve your talents. It was free to play, however in a 12 months when Name of Responsibility: Warzone was blowing up and Fortnite was throwing live concert events, no person confirmed up for Amazon’s live service shooter with poor evaluations.
Its life cycle now appears nearly gracious in the wake of Concord, however dismal participant curiosity led developer Relentless Studios to take away Crucible from Steam in October 2020, simply 5 months after launch. Like Concord, the studio mentioned it would assess the state of affairs and decide if the sport was value retooling. It was decidedly not, and servers went offline a month later in November.
LawBreakers
What was it? A quick-paced enviornment shooter from Epic alums
How lengthy was it in growth? Round 3 years
What was its funds? Unknown, however it was made by a crew of over 60 folks with backing from Nexon, so this was no small undertaking
How lengthy did it final? One 12 months and 6 days
What occurred?
LawBreakers was the debut sport from Boss Key Productions, the studio Cliff Bleszinski based after leaving Epic Video games. Having spent years on the Gears sequence, Bleszinski needed his first sport again in the saddle to reignite the embers of enviornment shooters. That was LawBreakers: an especially fast-paced, aim-driven FPS with basic shooter modes, hero talents, and a ball voiced by Justin Roiland.
Truthfully, LawBreakers was nice, however it could not have launched into an surroundings much less prepared to embrace it. For one, the hottest new shooter in 2017 was nonetheless 2016’s Overwatch, an FPS that stands in stark opposition to LawBreakers’ entire schtick (each aesthetically and mechanically). Video games with healthful vibes and bubbly mascots have been on the rise, and LawBreakers was all-in on cringey mid-2000s one liners and meathead characters.
That top talent ceiling did not assist both: LawBreakers was inherently area of interest, and in the days earlier than crossplay was the norm, neither its PC or console participant swimming pools have been sufficiently big to simply discover matches. Boss Key up to date LawBreakers for a 12 months, and even tried a battle royale hail mary by launching Radical Heights, however the studio closed in Could 2018 and Lawbreakers servers went offline in September of that 12 months.
Babylon’s Fall
(Picture credit score: Sq. Enix)
What was it? A Sq. Enix-published live service motion RPG from PlatinumGames
How lengthy was it in growth? Round 5 years
What was its funds? Unknown, however a live service sport from Sq. Enix would not come low-cost
How lengthy did it final? 343 days
What occurred?
Properly, it fell. And it fell fairly exhausting.
Babylon’s Fall was PlatinumGames’ try at getting a live service hat in the ring, throughout the years the place it was kind of anticipated of each sport studio above a sure measurement. The pitch sounded respectable: A Platinum sport the place you are a prisoner-soldier pressured to hack-and-slash your means up the tower of Babel? Depend me in.
Sadly, Babylon’s Fall failed to live up to the premise when it arrived—years after it was introduced. Whereas it had glimmers of Platinum’s magnificently indulgent fight design, Babylon’s Fall’s shallow, repetitive development construction and heavy crust of monetization earned it a dour 45% in our evaluate. We weren’t the solely ones that Babylon’s Fall failed to seize: Simply two months after its launch, the live service sport’s participant rely had dwindled to the level the place there was generally just one lone soul enjoying on Steam.
In the meantime, writer Sq. Enix had begun to cull its catalogue of studios and properties in the wake of a chronic sequence of monetary failures. It got here as little shock when, a 12 months later, Babylon’s Fall obtained an replace with one depressing patch notice:
Artifact
What was it? A Dota 2-themed CCG designed my Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield
How lengthy was it in growth? 4 years, with extra growth time spent on the tried Artifact 2.0 reboot
What was its funds? Unknown; Valve’s a black field
How lengthy did it final? Nonetheless playable, however growth ended 827 days after preliminary launch
What occurred?
It is exhausting to think about how a Valve-developed, Dota-themed CCG from the creator of Magic: The Gathering may fail to land an viewers, however Artifact managed to discover a means.
Artifact was complicated, as you would possibly anticipate from a card sport making an attempt to evoke the near-incomprehensible depth of MOBA design. Nonetheless, that complexity may need earned a sustainable share of diehards if it wasn’t for Artifact’s value. The place other digital card video games like Hearthstone and MtG: Area are free-to-play to get you invested sufficient in the gameplay that you simply’re prepared to climb onto the booster pack treadmill, Artifact had an upfront value of $20 on prime of the extra value of booster packs.
Participant counts rapidly plummeted after Artifact’s launch, main Valve to start an tried overhaul with Artifact 2.0—a relaunch that reworked the sport’s three-lane deployment system and eliminated card purchases. When the Artifact 2.0 beta additionally failed to entice participant consideration, Valve canceled ongoing growth.
It wasn’t a complete loss, nevertheless. The bulk of failed live service video games merely evaporate, however Valve determined to preserve its work on Artifact playable, releasing two free variations: Artifact Basic, sustaining the unique Artifact design whereas making all playing cards out there to each participant, and Artifact Foundry, that includes the streamlined Artifact 2.0 gameplay and playing cards which might be unlockable solely by means of play. A sleek retirement.
Anthem
(Picture credit score: Digital Arts)
What was it? BioWare’s try at a Future-style live service shooter
How lengthy was it in growth? Seven years, however full manufacturing began late, and one developer mentioned it was successfully made in “15 months”
What was its funds? Many thousands and thousands, however now we have no precise quantity
How lengthy did it final? It is nonetheless out there, however growth ended after two years
What occurred?
Anthem offered round 5 million copies, which is sort of 5 million greater than Concord offered, however as spectacular as that sounds, it was the determine EA anticipated to hit in its first month, not over its lifetime. Many evaluations have been detrimental (we gave it a 55%) and a pair years after its 2019 launch, EA pulled the plug on a plan to overhaul Anthem and stopped growth. It’s nonetheless doable to purchase and play the sport, however it is extensively thought-about BioWare’s biggest miss. The RPG studio has since gone again to singleplayer RPGs, and the good-if-not-brilliant Dragon Age: The Veilguard is out this week.
As for why Anthem got here out in a state we referred to as “deeply flawed and frequently frustrating,” Kotaku printed an in-depth report on its turbulent growth, which concerned uncertainty about what the sport must be, last-minute pivots, and difficulties with the Frostbite engine.