Biggest flop on the game industry?

[xpldrox]

100m budget, less than 5k players peak at launch.

What can we as consumers learn about this?

A few economic tips to the devs (actually the publisher too) on how no to put your money in things that "research marketing" companies tells you to do, afterall, they don't play games.

First of all, a game like this, are usually played by people who can't afford it for themselves. (I mean teenagers overall)

So if you have a talented studio with a big sum of cash to make a product, make sure that the people who will consume the product are the same that will pay for it.

Don't take too long to develop something, it will look outdated, and avoid cartoonished art, they works better in 15$ titles, and that is space the indies rules.

Dont' try to copy styles, copy features, but also create your own, no only to fufill the game loop, but also to increase details that people expected in simmilar titles, hit where they miss.

Don't listen to "wokeness" when you are making design choices. Actually fire this kind of people, they will steal the energy of everyone who actually are passionate about the project.

Last, but no least, check your launch date, and if some big AAA releases at the same time window of your product, postpone it, beleieve me, history already proved that you must be aware of the timming when any kind of potencial big title releases, since players are players, they play other genre of games too, and your marketshare is not composed only by players of the same genre of your game.

That's it, not sweet lies, but not bitter truths either.
Good luck next time guys and keep up!

[NobleFeret]

Suicide Squad is a smash hit compared to Concord. It floped so hard Sony will never recover.

[spice_]

Lawbreakers
Battleborn
Anthem
EvolvE
Suicide Squad
Redfall
Skull & Bones
Concord

[Effex]

Originally posted by NobleFeret:

Suicide Squad is a smash hit compared to Concord. It floped so hard Sony will never recover.

sony is unfortunately fine, they've got enough money to take hits like these

not forever though👍

[The Neon Demon]

10k peak players is a bit of a stetch. It was 697 on launch according to steam charts. Generally consoles sell more of these types of games, maybe up to 5-6x, which would put the total sales (players) around 4182 at upper and generous estimates.

Meaning the company made around $167,280 USD for a $150 million budget.

[Jeff Sichoe]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana

Released in May 2000, Daikatana received generally negative reviews for its outdated graphics, gameplay, repetitive sound effects, and poor artificial intelligence. It also sold only 40,351 copies, becoming one of the biggest major commercial failures of the video game industry until the release of Concord by Sony in 2024.

[Master Chud]

This game hasn't even begun to peak yet.

[Xeon]

Originally posted by The Neon Demon:

10k peak players is a bit of a stetch. It was 697 on launch according to steam charts. Generally consoles sell more of these types of games, maybe up to 5-6x, which would put the total sales (players) around 4182 at upper and generous estimates.

Meaning the company made around $167,280 USD for a $150 million budget.

697 is the peak of players, not the buyers. if you buy a game but don't launch it or log off while the peak is happening, you are a paying customer but not included.
there is no certain way to say how many bought a game but same pages give estimates based on reviews, concurrent player numbers and other metrics.

Concord is:
~7.3 k by Gamalytic
~12.7 k by VG Insights
~13.1 k by PlayTracker

So something between those numbers is more accurate if you want to calculate something with the actual buyers. Still estimations.
If you say it's about x5-6 higher on PS (I would be interested in a source), than the actual sold copies are closer to 50000.

would be cool if someone could compare to other games that sold 10k on steam and how many concurrent players they had. that would show if this game is some kind of exception in the data set.

[Termix]

Originally posted by spice_:

Lawbreakers
Battleborn
Anthem
EvolvE
Suicide Squad
Redfall
Concord

Lawbreakers 7579 peak
Battleborn 12101 peak
Anthem - not on Steam
Evolve - 51127 peak
Suicide Squad - 13459 peak
Redfall - 6124 peak


Concord - 697 peak


ODD ONE OUT.

Sorry, but not even Babylon's Fall can compete, which reached 1188 peak CCU and got canned after a year.

Concord is the mother of all failures, it's like a black hole.

Thanks for reading,
The Professor™

[omgitsbees]

Originally posted by Termix:

Originally posted by spice_:

Lawbreakers
Battleborn
Anthem
EvolvE
Suicide Squad
Redfall
Concord

Lawbreakers 7579 peak
Battleborn 12101 peak
Anthem - not on Steam
Evolve - 51127 peak
Suicide Squad - 13459 peak
Redfall - 6124 peak


Concord - 697 peak


ODD ONE OUT.

Sorry, but not even Babylon's Fall can compete, which reached 1188 peak CCU and got canned after a year.

Concord is the mother of all failures, it's like a black hole.

Thanks for reading,
The Professor™

I actually enjoyed Babylon's Fall :(

[Hellsmoke]

Steam should make "flop of the year" awards like we have "game of the year" awards. That would be fun. This would probably win but it has some competition.

[Xeon]

Originally posted by Master Chud:

This game hasn't even begun to peak yet.

look up steamdb. it peaked the first day with 697 players.
second day peak: 473
third day peak: 402
todays peak: 276

it's going down really fast, brother. the player base got more than halved in 3 days and it didn't start very high to begin with.

not even a week left and you are going to play against a double digit player count in a triple a game

[Hellsmoke]

Originally posted by Xeon:

Originally posted by Master Chud:

This game hasn't even begun to peak yet.

look up steamdb. it peaked the first day with 697 players.
second day peak: 473
third day peak: 402
todays peak: 276

it's going down really fast, brother. the player base got more than halved in 3 days and it didn't start very high to begin with.

not even a week left and you are going to play against a double digit player count in a triple a game

There are 5 stages of grief, they are still on the denial stage. Gotta let them process it at their own pace.

[Termix]

Originally posted by Xeon:

not even a week left and you are going to play against a double digit player count in a triple a game

To be fair, at this point they probably wanted to call it a triple-day game, because that's how long it lasts!

Kill it with fire,
The Professor™

[ChickenMadness]

Originally posted by Master Chud:

This game hasn't even begun to peak yet.

It already peaked at 690 and it's going down now lol

[ChickenMadness]

Originally posted by Xeon:

Originally posted by Master Chud:

This game hasn't even begun to peak yet.

look up steamdb. it peaked the first day with 697 players.
second day peak: 473
third day peak: 402
todays peak: 276

it's going down really fast, brother. the player base got more than halved in 3 days and it didn't start very high to begin with.

not even a week left and you are going to play against a double digit player count in a triple a game

lmao this is so pathetic and sad for an AAA title it makes me so happy. This level of sales is the equivalent of an obscure asset flip $2 indie game in the depths of the steam store that no ones heard of.

And they spent 8 years. That's like GTAV level of investment and development time lmfao.