The launch of Apex Legends in 2019 surprised the gaming world by taking place without any prior marketing campaign. This strategy, although risky, proved successful, as it allowed the game to speak for itself, avoiding the anxiety that often accompanies the expectations of a launch. The developer Respawn Entertainment was able to bypass the usual resistance caused by excessive promotion, which ultimately favored the reception of the title. Geoff Keighley offered them his spot for free for nothing On the other hand, the recent announcement of Highguard has been received quite negatively. With 2,400 dislikes on YouTube […]
The launch of Apex Legends in 2019 surprised the gaming world by taking place without any prior marketing campaign. This strategy, although risky, proved successful, as it allowed the game to speak for itself, avoiding the anxiety that often accompanies the expectations of a launch. The developer Respawn Entertainment was able to bypass the usual resistance caused by excessive promotion, which ultimately favored the reception of the title.
Geoff Keighley offered them his position for free for nothing
On the other hand, the recent announcement of Highguard has been received quite negatively. With 2,400 dislikes on YouTube compared to just 500 likes, many viewers have expressed their frustration, comparing the game to previous failures like Concord. This reaction has been exacerbated by the high expectations generated by other impactful announcements, such as that of Monster Hunter Wilds. The similarities between Highguard and Concord have fueled the criticism, and some have suggested that the studio behind Highguard had paid for the showcase time at the event, which turned out to be untrue.
According to reports, showrunner Geoff Keighley decided to highlight Highguard due to his personal appreciation for the game, without any financial exchange for the space at the event. Although Highguard is not considered a bad game, it is perceived as common and uninnovative, contributing to its negative criticism. The lack of a distinctive aspect puts it in a complicated position, as players seem to be looking for fresher and more exciting experiences, thus reinforcing the overall sense of disappointment.
Highguard’s initial strategy to take advantage of a prominent promotional space may have been an advantage, but it now faces the challenge of earning the trust of an audience that feels let down. Meanwhile, the industry watches its development closely, considering whether the success of titles that were initially presented without prior commercial pressure will be repeated.
The Stop Killing Games movement, initiated by content creator Ross Scott, has gained relevance in the video game industry following Ubisoft’s decision to shut down the servers of The Crew. This movement seeks to question the legality and ethics of publishers who decide to close games that have already been sold to consumers. During a shareholders’ meeting, Ubisoft’s CEO, Yves Guillemot, was asked about the goals of the movement and stated that games are not meant to “last forever.” Statements that go against consumers Guillemot emphasized that “a service is provided, […]
The Stop Killing Games movement, initiated by content creator Ross Scott, has gained relevance in the video game industry following Ubisoft’s decision to shut down the servers of The Crew. This movement seeks to question the legality and ethics of publishers who decide to close games that have already been sold to consumers. During a shareholders’ meeting, Ubisoft’s CEO, Yves Guillemot, was asked about the goals of the movement and stated that games are not meant to “last forever.”
Statements that go against consumers
Guillemot emphasized that “a service is provided, but nothing is set in stone and, at some point, the service may be discontinued.” The CEO stated that the company is working to minimize the impact on players, but the reality is that “support for all games cannot last indefinitely.” These statements come in a context where Ubisoft is facing a lawsuit over the closure of The Crew servers.
The Stop Killing Games movement has also received criticism from the association Video Games Europe, which warns that proposals to keep older games alive could limit developers’ freedom and increase creation costs. This dilemma resonates throughout the industry, as it is not just Ubisoft that is closing titles. BioWare has announced the closure of Anthem for January 2026, and Sony’s Concord was discontinued shortly after its release.
These server shutdowns and the discussion about their legality and ethics reflect a shift in the perception of the value of video games, raising important questions about the relationship between publishers and consumers in a rapidly evolving market.
Wargaming has announced the definitive closure of the servers for Steel Hunters, its third-person PvPvE multiplayer shooter, scheduled for October 8. The title, launched in early access in April, failed to capture the interest of a broad audience, reaching a peak of only 4,479 simultaneous players, according to data from SteamDB. This situation has led the studio to acknowledge that continuing its development is no longer sustainable. Chronicle of an announced closure Steel Hunters, which promised intense futuristic battles with mechs, was presented at The Game Awards 2024, but its lack of differentiation in a […]
Wargaming has announced the definitive closure of the servers for Steel Hunters, its third-person PvPvE multiplayer shooter, scheduled for October 8. The title, launched in early access in April, failed to capture the interest of a broad audience, reaching a peak of only 4,479 concurrent players, according to data from SteamDB. This situation has led the studio to acknowledge that continuing its development is no longer sustainable.
Chronicle of an Announced Closure
Steel Hunters, which promised intense futuristic battles with mechs, was presented at The Game Awards 2024, but its lack of differentiation in a saturated shooter market has been its Achilles’ heel. Despite Wargaming’s experience, known for the success of World of Tanks, the proposal failed to stand out against other popular titles, leaving many wondering about the future of games as a service.
To close the Steel Hunters experience, Wargaming will offer special support for custom game modes, allowing users to play with friends, create community matches, and share “final memories” in a controlled environment. All hunters will be unlocked in this new mode, and players will be given the opportunity to access mechs that have never been presented before.
In addition, the study has scheduled a farewell tournament that will bring together the most regular players, a final opportunity to enjoy the game before the server is completely disconnected. The story of Steel Hunters is reminiscent of other recent failures in the genre, such as Concord, which closed just days after its launch, and XDefiant, a Ubisoft shooter that failed to establish itself alongside industry titans like Call of Duty.
Marvel Rivals is becoming the end-of-year game for many people. And it has good reasons. With gameplay reminiscent of classic Overwatch and very recognizable characters, there are few reasons not to dive into the trending game. Even its monetization is quite friendly. That’s why it’s no surprise that NetEase, its developing studio, is celebrating. Because the game is being more successful than we imagined. Marvel Rivals is being played harder than we imagined. According to their announcement on Twitter, Marvel Rivals has reached 20 million players. […]
Marvel Rivals is becoming the end-of-year game for many people. And it has good reasons. With gameplay reminiscent of classic Overwatch and very recognizable characters, there are few reasons not to dive into the trending game. Even its monetization is quite friendly. That’s why it’s no surprise that NetEase, its development studio, is celebrating. Because the game is being a success beyond what we imagined.
Marvel Rivals is being hit harder than we imagined
As announced on Twitter, Marvel Rivals has reached 20 million players. An astonishing figure that adds to the previous impressive numbers. Marvel Rivals had managed to reach 10 million players just three days after the game’s release on December 6th, taking just over a week to double that figure.
To celebrate, they have taken the opportunity to announce the update they have decided to call Christmas Celebration. Scheduled for December 20th, this update will add new skins with a Christmas touch, a game mode where the six players of each team will be the adorable shark Jeff, in addition to some other surprises they have not yet announced. Aiming to keep the spirit of these dates not only by giving gifts but also making them something surprising and unexpected.
All this comes, moreover, almost at the same time that the game’s director, Thaddeus Sasser, talked about the success of his game and the reasons for the failure of Concord. Sony’s big bet this year. Emphasizing that the difference between their games is that they had a big brand behind them with recognizable characters like Marvel, it wouldn’t be surprising if the surprises they have in store have something to do with that. And that could mean we’ll see a new character. Playable or in the form of a cameo.
While we wait for the Christmas Celebration update to arrive, we remind you that Marvel Rivals is completely free-to-play. And it is available to play on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.
Marvel Rivals is a thrilling, team-based PvP game that brings the expansive Marvel universe to life in a dynamic and engaging way. This action game allows players to assemble their dream teams from a wide array of beloved Marvel characters, including heroes and villains from the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men, and more.
Marvel’s Rival has taken the online shooter world by storm. Succeeding where many others have failed before, it has shown that there is room for another hero shooter. One that isn’t called Overwatch. This is surprising after the resounding failure of Concord. Something about which the game’s director has clear opinions, which also don’t seem far-fetched at all. In an interview with VideoGamer, the director of Marvel Rivals, Thaddeus Sasser, talked about why he believes Concord, Sony’s big hero shooter, failed. And he has a very clear idea of why that happened. It hasn’t […]
Marvels Rival has taken the online shooter world by storm. Succeeding where many others have failed before, it has proven that there is room for another hero shooter. One that is not called Overwatch. Something surprising after the resounding failure of Concord. Something on which the game’s director has clear opinions, which also do not seem at all far-fetched.
In an interview with VideoGamer, the director of Marvel Rivals, Thaddeus Sasser, discussed why he believes Concord, Sony’s major hero shooter, has failed. And he has a very clear idea of why that happened. It didn’t bring anything unique to the table. Because although the game is visually spectacular, neither in terms of character design nor in terms of mechanics did it offer anything that Overwatch 2 hadn’t already done. Additionally, there were no characters to whom players felt attached.
Specifically, he has emphasized the cost of switching games. Stating that he has 15 Pharah skins in Overwatch, moving away from the game is not something he considers: he has invested a lot of time and money in it. And in the case of Concord, it did not offer anything substantially new or interesting that would make him change games.
What does Marvel Rivals have that Concord didn’t? It’s in the name
In that sense, Sasser has also stated that he has always believed that the biggest asset of Marvel Rivals is its brand. Having Marvel characters. Trusting that the familiarity with its characters would be enough to get people to try something new, he and his team focused on making the best possible game. Something that, given the initial numbers after its launch, has worked for them. And not by a small margin.
Marvel Rivals, in its first three days, has managed to gather 10 million players. And while it is true that it is a free-to-play game with the financial muscle of NetEase behind it, that does not take away from the fact that there are reasons to analyze its success. Or the failure of others.
Marvel Rivals is a thrilling, team-based PvP game that brings the expansive Marvel universe to life in a dynamic and engaging way. This action game allows players to assemble their dream teams from a wide array of beloved Marvel characters, including heroes and villains from the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men, and more.
2024 will be remembered for many things within the video game industry, but perhaps the most important will be the stagnation of the industry, as seen in the failure of titles like Concord, which crashed from the very beginning and couldn’t take off, causing millions in losses. The game is one of the biggest flops in the history of entertainment, and in just two weeks, the servers were shut down. However, it still has a chance: to remake it as a free-to-play game and hope that revenue comes from other sources… although there is no news on that front at the moment […]
2024 will be remembered for many things within the video game industry, but perhaps the most important will be the stagnation of the industry, as seen in the failure of titles like Concord, which crashed from the very beginning and couldn’t take off, causing million-dollar losses. The game is one of the biggest flops in the history of entertainment, and in just two weeks, the servers were shut down. But it still has a chance: remake it as a free-to-play game and hope that revenue comes from elsewhere… although for now, there is no news on this from Sony. Or is there?
Concord sold only 25,000 copies and cost 400 million dollars. Do the math: it’s not like they’re exactly celebrating at Sony. However, something is happening on its Steam page, even though the game is not available and the servers are down. In fact, it had its last update on October 10. What does this mean?
Basically, someone, somewhere, is playing Concord. According to SteamDB data, on October 5th, five people were doing so, although it is overwhelmingly impossible… unless they are doing it from Firewalk Studios, the studio that developed the game and might be conducting tests for a relaunch. Who knows.
Obviously, this doesn’t mean anything nor is it official, but surely right now there are many people at Sony asking how on earth they are going to recover that huge amount of money, even if it’s desperately. Personally, I think that, indeed, they are starting to tweak things in the hope that their free relaunch will attract more interest and lose as little money as possible.
Because the alternative, what is it? Are they playing for fun, reminiscing about their own failure? Do they want to take one last stroll through their characters before forgetting that something called Concord ever existed? Are they getting inspired to create a new failure? Mark my words with gold: when they hope that no one will mock them anymore, Concord will return. And, who knows, maybe it will have a chance to survive. Remote, of course, let’s not fool ourselves.
Sony wanted to jump on the bandwagon of games as a service and hero shooters with Concord, failing miserably, but why?
Everyone wants their own Fortnite. Or they want to be Fortnite instead of Fortnite. Alternatively, for those who are aware that this is impossible, they want to be the new Overwatch. Now that Blizzard’s game has self-destructed without any ceremony or meaning, there is an obvious opportunity for other companies to take its place. That’s why we see so many games on the horizon that seem to aim to fill that void. Hero shooters that work as games as a service. But if Sony has taught us something with Concord, maybe this is not the right way to go.
Concord is an exciting new addition to the world of competitive first-person shooters (FPS), developed by a team of experienced veterans who previously worked on the immensely popular game Destiny.
Concord, the new Sony video game developed by Firewalk Studios, was released on August 20th. Only 14 days later, on September 6th, its servers were shut down. This game as a service aimed to compete in the Overwatch space, but it has ultimately cost both Sony and Firewalk years of work and a significant amount of money that could have funded a couple of games. But why has this happened? That is a very good question that we can try to answer.
The most obvious and immediate answer is that, obviously, there was no interest from the players. In addition to the lack of a solid marketing strategy from Sony and an initial price of 40 euros for a game whose biggest competitors are competitive, the game never managed to generate any kind of interest among the public. Resulting in a peak of 607 simultaneous players on Steam, although on PlayStation that number multiplied by ten or a hundred, the numbers show not a failure, but a catastrophe. A total lack of interest from the public.
What are the reasons for this lack of interest? The first one is the lack of personality of its characters. Despite the incredible production values of the game, with an estimated budget that exceeds 100 million dollars, the characters were uninspiring and uninteresting. They were very realistic, with a high polygon count, but their artistic design seemed like a poor copy of the characters from Guardians of the Galaxy. This made the audience feel a deep disinterest towards the game.
This was one of the first and probably the most serious of their problems. In video games, and particularly in games as a service, the most striking thing at first glance is their characters. If players don’t fall in love with them at first sight, it’s difficult for them to give them a second thought. And in the case of Concord, it was difficult for anyone to be interested in them, even though their production values were far superior to those of their rivals.
This led to another one of its main problems. It was a good game, but it didn’t have a particular hook. Something that made it appealing on its own. Without bringing any radically new mechanics to the table, what it offered was a very well polished version of the classic hero shooter mechanics. Something it did excellently, but it had a problem: to verify that, it is necessary for players to be interested in trying your game. Something difficult when neither your characters nor your mechanics have anything inherently appealing to make them interested in it. And being a game as a service, not being able to play the card of a deep narrative for that purpose either.
All these problems are exacerbated by another obvious one. Concord took about five years to develop. Around one hundred million dollars. Both in time and money, these are prohibitive figures that, even if it had worked well, would have made the game a failure. With those figures, Concord had to explode in popularity to be considered a success; it wasn’t enough for it to work, it had to be a success, which put it at a disadvantage from the beginning, making it very difficult to overcome.
Concord is an exciting new addition to the world of competitive first-person shooters (FPS), developed by a team of experienced veterans who previously worked on the immensely popular game Destiny.
If we add up all these factors, it seems evident that the story of Concord is that of a foretold death. Of course, it’s easy to say in hindsight. No one expected Helldivers 2 to be the success it has been. But Helldivers 2 has not cost neither the money nor the time that Concord has cost. Something that shows that Sony’s plan to switch to games as a service and prioritize them doesn’t seem to be a success.
Not when they have serious problems with Bungie. When Concord has been a failure. When their biggest success of the year is Astro Bot, a fiercely single-player game, with a moderate budget and a rational development time. And besides, it has the potential to become the game of the year.
Does this mean that Concord marks the end of games as a service? Far from it. For Asian studios, especially those in China and South Korea, things are going very well. It probably means a radical change of plans for Sony, who has discovered the cost of a failure of this magnitude. But one thing is clear: whether as a service or not, the future lies in shorter developments and games with a smaller budget. Games that can be released sooner and cost less to develop. Because if Concord has been a disaster, we don’t want to imagine what it will be like when a game with the budget and development of a Grand Theft Auto VI fails.
14 days. That’s all Concord lasted before being removed, possibly to be remodeled as a F2P game or given away with PS Plus. And, of course, although a small (and anecdotal) part of the audience believes it is due to the diversity of the characters, the truth is that the failure is due to a much more obvious reality: there are too many games understood as a service, and succeeding in an oversaturated market is practically impossible.
In 2023, Sony announced that PlayStation games were going to take a turn towards online, seasons, and “games as a service”, trying to catch up with Fortnite, Destiny 2, or even Pokémon Go. The idea was that by 2026 they would have released up to ten titles of this subgenre, but it seems they didn’t bother to conduct a small survey to check if there was enough interested audience. The total of 25,000 copies sold of Concord indicate that the direction was completely wrong.
What has happened to Sony, the same company that brought us fabulous gaming experiences like Uncharted, God of War or The Last of Us? Reinventing a recipe that already worked usually doesn’t lead to better dishes, but simply makes your consumers think it’s no longer for them. Fortunately, Sony still has time in this generation to abandon “games as a service” and focus on what it does best: entertaining its most loyal audience.
When the industry becomes obsessed with something, it’s hard to get it out of their heads unless it’s with a dose of reality. Neither AI, nor NFTs, nor games as a service: simply releasing good games like Baldur’s Gate 3 should be enough to make a good impression and earn a lot of money. But, of course, at Sony (and in all studios) they know that if they’re lucky enough to have a game with seasons and microtransactions succeed, it will compensate for several previous failures. And that’s why they keep insisting on it.
However, the reality is that it is becoming increasingly difficult because there is an absolute oversaturation. They hit the mark with Helldivers 2 (which is slowly sinking), but the market is still dominated by Fortnite, Roblox, Destiny 2, Diablo 4, and even classics like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV. There are dozens of games as a service that continue to generate tons of money monthly, but that doesn’t mean that the money and potential audience is unlimited: instead of chasing a potential treasure of Ali Baba, they would do well to reinforce what they already have secured if they don’t want to lose everything they have gained over the years.
Sony has confirmed that Concord, its new multiplayer hero shooter, will not have battle passes or microtransactions, to everyone’s delight.
Concord, despite extending its beta, does not seem to have been a great success. It has not had a great impact on social networks or streaming services. Although without knowing the internal numbers, it is difficult to say anything for sure. Only Sony knows what has happened. This leaves us with even more doubts than answers about what we can expect from this game. Something they have decided to solve as soon as possible.
From Sony, on the official game’s Twitter, they have decided to answer some of the most common questions they have been asked about the game. In this way, they have wanted to clarify some of the aspects that generate more doubts among users. Being especially pressing, as it could not be otherwise, the fact of whether there will be microtransactions.
This is a relevant question because Concord, in fact, is not a free-to-play game. With a starting cost of 40 euros, it is a full-priced game. That’s why the question is relevant. Now its developer studio, Firewalk Studios, has confirmed that it will not. It will not have microtransactions or battle passes. We will be able to unlock different cosmetic items by playing the game, but again, they are just cosmetics. And they can only be acquired through gameplay itself.
Among the other confirmed details, it is known which will be the starting numbers for the game. With 12 different maps for the launch, including the 5 maps from the beta, it will be released with 16 playable characters, which will also include multiple unlockable variables. In addition, they have emphasized the fact that this will only be the beginning and that, as time goes on, they will be adding more maps, playable characters, and cosmetics to increase and improve the gaming experience for players.
Concord will be released on August 23rd for PC and PlayStation 5. This is a 5 vs. 5 combat hero shooter and the developers’ idea is to expand it over time. Even though it won’t have a solo mode at launch, the plan is to introduce it in the near future. So, if you’re interested, you know that Concord’s summer is less than a month away.
Concord is an exciting new addition to the world of competitive first-person shooters (FPS), developed by a team of experienced veterans who previously worked on the immensely popular game Destiny.
