Despite Some Positive Sentiments, Beta For Sony’s Online Shooter ‘Concord’ Isn’t Doing So Well On Steam

Concord is not doing well on Steam. The multiplayer cross-platform shooter entered beta recently and the best numbers it’s managed so far, according to Steam DB, is 2,363. At the time of this writing the current player count is 1,572. In the discussions regarding beta, there are players pointing out some very positive aspects of the title. However, this type of game lives and dies with player counts.

The game is Sony’s latest attempt at a live service game and, for a genre that relies on players, those numbers have to be disappointing. That said, the game is also available on PlayStation and we don’t have those numbers to look at. It could be doing just fine there. If Sony was going for the PC crowd, it seems they’ve missed the mark. Many players are providing feedback that Concord needs to seriously rethink its proposed $40 price tag and just launch as a F2P title.

As for why the game is doing poorly, one could speculate that players just don’t want another Overwatch-like hero shooter – at least unless it does something incredibly unique. That said, I’m also willing to bet that players looking for new games on Steam might be turned off by a couple of things not related to the game.

First, the company decided to put the beta “Request Access” button below the two Pre-Purchase buttons for the game. Before players ever see the beta information – which still says players will be “notified when the developer is ready for more participants” rather than just indicating the game can be downloaded now – there are two price tags.

Second, there’s a notice right at the top that Concord does require a PlayStation Network Account. Now, I’m pretty sure we all went through this with another game. I thought we concluded that PC players don’t want to have to log into a PSN account to play a game on Steam. Some PC players don’t even have a PSN account because they don’t own a PlayStation. We realize the game is published by PlayStation Publishing, but this isn’t helping attract PC players. For the developer’s sake, I hope it’s doing better on the console.