Summary
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Sony's move into live-service gaming has had mixed results.
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Concord's failure “shocked” Sony, according to Jeff Grubb.
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Sony still has a few live service games in production, but has also canceled a few.
A few years ago, sensing a ripe opportunity, Sony decided to aggressively expand into the live services space. This was confusing for fans, as most of the publisher's first-party studios are known for their single-player games.
Sony's decision to aggressively expand into the live services space was puzzling to fans, as most of the publisher's first-party studios are known for their single-player games. However, Sony has persevered in its live-action efforts and has occasionally found success, most notably with Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 .
However, the cracks began to show even before Concorde's costly failure. Naughty Dog was supposed to release a spin-off of The Last Of Us, but eventually canceled the project and focused on single-player games. The studio felt that if they continued to release the game with live services, they would be supporting it for years to come and would not have the resources to develop more games.
Dead service
However, the biggest shift in priorities came after the release of Concord, Firewalk Studios' debut title. Despite expensive cinematography and marketing from Sony, there never seemed to be much interest in Concord. It's a difficult market for a paid live service that uses a new IP address, and these factors ultimately caused Sony to shut down the game just weeks after release.
Yesterday, Bluepoint Games' God of War live service and an unknown Bend Studio live service were canceled by Sony. In total, six live service games have been canceled by Sony since its enforcement began. These include Spider-Man: The Great Web from Insomniac and an unknown live service from London Studio.
According to Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb, the recent cancellations of God of War and Bend Studio are a direct result of Concord's failure. In an episode of Game Mess Decides, Grubb commented on the recent cancellations, saying, “It happened because of Concord. That should be clear, that's what I was told. Sony was absolutely shocked by Concorde and now they're going into every studio and reassessing every single project, if it's a live service project, there's a lot of friction against it that prevents it from getting a chance to actually come out.”
Sony is still actively developing several live-action projects, but seems to have solidified a new strategy of releasing a triple-A single-player game a year. Live services projects in development are Fairgame$ (Haven Studios), Horizon Live Services (Guerilla), Marathon (Bungie), and Horizon MMO (NCSoft).
Concord is an upcoming FPS from Firewalk Studios, part of the PlayStation Studios family. A multiplayer PvP title, it's slated for release on PS5 and PC in 2024.
