When the game came out back in 2024 it barely surpassed 1000 players on steam, eventually the servers were shut down a fortnight after it was released: so the game didn’t even last that long. Development costs were not cheap either, since Sony invested $400,000,000 into the project for it to fall apart upon release, talk about a waste of investors money. Have you played it at the time? If so, what made it a shit game that’s forgotten?
That’s not really a reason to fail. Other genres have similar games in a crowded competition and still sell well, even if they are not very special different. And I even argue that there are not many hero shooters in the style and gameplay of Ovewatch. So I / we are in dire need of more alternatives. Compare this to other genres, where vast amount of different games are available. There are many reasons why Concord failed, one of them being ugly characters in example. Also it depends who makes those games. Nobody asked Sony to do this, as every Sony fan was expecting single player games. Having “too many” hero shooters in the type of Overwatch is not the reason the game failed (there aren’t many).
Other genres are different. These always-online pvp games have massive player buy-in. For something like Call of Duty, or StarCraft, there comes a point where most players will be mostly done with the game and are looking for something new. These games are constantly updating, releasing new content, and work incredibly hard to keep players locked in.
So, if you want to take market share in the newest soccer game, all you need to do is gather up the available players with something new, because they’re already looking. To get market share in this genre, you need to actively pry players away from their current game.
So even if you’re a bit better, you still need to beat the attachment players have to the other game, where they have a hundred levels, 62 special skins and 300 achievements. If your game is just as good, but people have no attachment, you’re going to lose.
And Concord was not remotely as good.
It’s a perfectly valid reason to fail, and that’s because Concord was an always-online multiplayer PvP title. Games in that genre are kept alive by the players. If they can’t maintain a critical mass of players to maintain the multiplayer playerbase, the game dies.
Concord entered a saturated market with nothing special to offer. Just being a good game today isn’t enough. You need something special to attract players from other games; their “home” games, where they have experience, friends, competitive ranks and prestige, and probably spent money on cosmetics. If you don’t have that something to raise interest, and then maintain a healthy playerbase, your multiplayer PvP game will not survive. Highguard at least had “we made Titanfall (allegedly)” to hype itself and it still ate shit once players realized they’d been handed a lemon. Compared to that, Concord has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and players had no reason to even consider it.