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Windows Central

Technology

Richard Devine

Sony has a rare (and colossal) miss with a PlayStation game on PC, and there's only one thing that could try and save it

Sony PlayStation Concord Best Buy Dell Lenovo CDKeys

What you need to know

Concord is Sony's latest PlayStation title to launch on PC, following the same day-and-date launch as the PS5 that we saw earlier this year with Helldivers 2.
Alas, unlike Helldivers 2, it's been what can only be described as a catastrophe, with a peak player count not even breaking 1,000 concurrents.
Its position in the sales chart on PlayStation doesn't make much better reading, leaving the question of when it'll go free to play to try and rescue it.

Ah Concord, the game we didn't ask for, and it seems, nobody wants to play. I'll admit, I was initially interested when Sony first fired up its debut trailer, right until the point I learned it was another hero shooter. Then when I found out it had a $40 asking price, I turned off altogether.

But I'm rarely representative of gamers at large. However, since Concord launched simultaneously on PC and PS5, it's fair to say it's been a disaster. Not just bad, but catastrophic.

Forbes' Paul Tassi has been following it closely and as he's pointed out, the numbers for Concord, they are bleak.

Man. pic.twitter.com/64SPvzvDYMAugust 30, 2024

There are a few things to unpack from that singular post. First is a massive yikes that at that point there were less than 100 players in Concord on PC. The second is that even at its peak, Concord hasn't broken 1,000 concurrent players. The final stab in the heart is that it's doing about as bad as Suicide Squad, though that at least had a far greater number of players at its peak. The follow-up post from Tassi also points out Concord is only 56th on the sales chart on PS5, too. Holy moly.

But why is it so dire? I haven't played it, so I can't comment on the actual game, but let's be real. It's a $40 hero shooter in a world where we already have plenty of free to play games to choose from. Why would you buy a game like this when you can play Valorant, or Apex Legends, or Overwatch 2, or even the upcoming Marvel Rivals, all for free?

Surely Concord will go free to play?

You have to think that Concord will go free to play if it stands any chance of survival. (Image credit: PlayStation Publishing LLC)

I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of free to play models, but it's the sad reality we live in. Games which have no cost barrier to get started and then monetize with battle passes and cosmetics and the like just seem to work. I have no shame (ok, maybe a little shame), in the money I've dropped on The First Descendant so far, because I could at least experience the game and start to love it without being asked to pay anything up front. And that's not even a competitive game.

Unless you're the Call of Duty goliath, asking folks to pay up for a competitive game in the present day seems foolish. Concord could well be a lot of fun, but most of us clearly have no idea, and I'd wager a big part of that is its asking price.

It feels inevitable, then, to ask when Concord will go free to play rather than if. It's clearly not working out, and it's the people who made the game I feel most sorry for. Were it free, like Overwatch 2, I know I'd have at least downloaded it and given it a try. I also know I'm not alone.

It's just the market we live in. Competitive games are almost entirely dominated by free to play titles. The top 5 competitive multiplayer games on Steam as I write this are all free to play. Meanwhile, Concord is losing out heavily to Sony's other PC games. About 10x more people are playing Spider-Man Remastered right now than Concord, and that's been out for years.

Sony's games on PC have, to this point, been a hit. Helldivers 2 was a surprise smash, so the market is definitely there. But it looks like they've made a huge mistake with this one, and there's only one thing they can do to try and save it.