Concord’s rocky launch is less complicated than you think

Why wasn’t it free-to-play? Should Sony have offered it for free through PS Plus? Did a PlayStation login requirement kill it? Would it have somehow sold millions more copies if its characters didn’t have pronouns?

For the past week, gaming watercoolers have been abuzz with questions like this — ranging from the thoughtful to the nonsensical — regarding Sony’s latest release, Concord. The live-service shooter, which launched simultaneously on both PS5 and PC, has had an uncharacteristically rocky launch for a big-budget Sony game. While PS5 stats aren’t available, it’s struggling to find players on Steam. At its peak on launch day, Concord only had 697 concurrent players according to SteamDB. At the time of writing, around 5 p.m. ET on a Wednesday, it only has 171 players. By comparison, Ubisoft’s heavily criticized Skull and Bones has over 1,600 currently playing on Steam.

Even if it’s miraculously doing much better on PS5, it’s safe to say that Concord is struggling to find its audience. Everybody seems to have a different reason as to why, but perhaps it’s not as much of a puzzle as players think it is. Maybe Concord isn’t taking off because players just aren’t interested in it.

What happened?

Concord‘s launch data may sound shocking in a vacuum, but it makes perfect sense for anyone who has been paying attention to the shooter’s marketing history. The project is the debut from Firewalk Studios, a new first-party Sony studio. While it has several veteran multiplayer developers on its team, including those who worked on the Destiny series, it’s not the kind of studio that has name recognition or a track record to judge. With no history to go on, players would only be able to judge the game at face value. Its reveal would be crucial.

That key moment came earlier this May, when Sony rolled out the red carpet for Concord as part of a State of Play stream. Unfortunately, it started on the wrong foot. The stream made the puzzling choice to start by showing a long