Firewalk Studios announced it shut down Concord’s servers and will no longer be selling the game less than two weeks after it released.
In a blog post, Firewalk Studios Game Director Ryan Ellis announced, “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.”
He also shared that the company will be offering full refunds, “While we determine the best path ahead, Concord sales will cease immediately and we will begin to offer a full refund for all gamers who have purchased the game for PS5 or PC. If you purchased the game for PlayStation 5 from the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Direct, a refund will be issued back to your original payment method.”
The game was plagued with negative feedback from the onset with many players decrying the game for its ugly designs and promotion of transgender ideology with the inclusion of pronouns. Sweet Baby Inc. detected Steam curator list KabrutusRambo noted at the end of May, “so the F** ROBOT has pronouns in the next Sony game. ok.”
so the F** ROBOT has pronouns in the next Sony game.
ok. pic.twitter.com/B3OLPfpIG0
— Kabrutus (@kabrutusrambo) May 31, 2024
X user Mangalawyer also mocked, “Omg finally literally a Playable Tank!”
Omg finally literally a Playable Tank! 😆 pic.twitter.com/llhbcKzbsj
— LearningTheLaw (@Mangalawyer) May 31, 2024
Instead of addressing these concerns, Firewalk Studios chose to ignore them. Speaking with VGC, the company’s Director of IP Kim Kreines stated, “Yeah, that trailer. That moment is such a tiny slice of everything that we’ve been working on for years and years. We’re excited for the game and for the IP, [and] for the game to be in people’s hands, the IP to be in people’s minds.”
She continued, “I’m personally very excited for the IP for folks to delve into the galactic guide if that is something they choose to do, for these vignettes to come out on a weekly basis. You’ll start to fall in love with the depth of the characters. That’s something that you learn week to week. Their personalities will unfold, their relationships will unfold for you, their backstories. None of that is something that you can get in a tiny little slice of it.”
“But that’s a start,” Kreines added. “There’s something there. So I’m glad folks watched it. I’m glad they participated and I can’t wait for them to see more, to see everything that is there.”
When the game released its Early Access in July it only had a peak concurrent player count of just 1,124 players.
When the game went into Open Beta it barely improved with a peak concurrent of 2,388.
While the peak concurrent went up on Steam between the Early Access and Open Beta a report from True Trophies indicated that the player counts on PlayStation declined.
Kes Eylers Stephenson reported, “Using a gameplay data sample from over 3.1 million active PSN accounts (courtesy of our partnership with GameInsights), we can see that Concord has 8.1% fewer players in the second Open Beta than in the Early Access beta.”
He added, “In our PlayStation Chart that ranks the top 40 most popular games every week, Concord ranked in the #29 position both weeks.”
When the game released on August 23rd it only hit a peak concurrent of just 697 on Steam. In the past 24 hours it only hit a peak concurrent of 110 players.
On PlayStation it appeared to fare just as bad. PSNProfiles reported that only 1,303 individuals owned the game and that of those 1,303 only 1,264 achieved the most common trophy, “First Takedown,” which requires players to get their first elimination or first kill in the game.
True Trophies also reported the game bombed out of the gate, landing in the 147th most popular PlayStation game on its weekly chart when it first released.
In its second week, the game fell to 180th. As noted above when it was in Early Access and Open Beta it was in the 29th position.
What do you make of Firewalk Studios and PlayStation shutting down Concord and offering refunds?
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