Concord remains at #40+ in the PlayStation Store in terms of sales just after opening weekend. It remains in perpetual decline from its already shocking lows on Steam, opening at under 700, now peaking at under 250 players a night.
So, let’s be real, Concord going free-to-play is inevitable. While it may be working for now, a continued lack of interest will soon create problems in the game ranging from matchmaking (some modes already have issues) to justification for continued support. Fundamentally it needs more players, and free-to-play, the model every other game in the genre has, is a way to get more players.
This raises a number of questions and issues, however.
- How soon? – Keep in mind that this is a game that did sell at least some amount of copies to players for $40, or more for special additions. Going free-to-play too quickly would not be perceived well by those who had supported the game and lord knows they don’t want to do actual refunds. So the timing of this is tricky and may have to be pushed for many months as a result, all while the game loses players.
- F2P or PS Plus? – There is a difference here, namely that full F2P would allow it to be free on Steam as well, while putting into PS Plus instead would not cover that. Given that the Steam playerbase is so anemic, you could choose to either A) write it off completely at this point and just do PS Plus or B) try to boost it a bit with F2P, but that raises an additional concern.
- Monetization changes? – It’s not just as simple as flicking a switch. The whole point of Concord was this premise that they could charge an up-front cost and therefore shed things like pricey skins and battle passes that plague most live service games. But even if that’s what everyone says they want, reality does not bear that out. And then if you go F2P you essentially then have to do that other stuff to make the game sustainable for ongoing content. Converting that on the fly shortly after launch here would be a mess.
- We’ve already seen the problem here – The problem with the idea that F2P would significantly change the fortunes of Concord is that we’ve already seen a trial balloon for this, and that did not go well either. Just weeks before launch, Concord had a free open beta that drew just 2,300 players on Steam at max. Then, it launched with under a third of that and now is under 10% of it. That indicates that while the $40 asking price may not have been a good idea, there is no indication simply being free would make the game attractive to those who already have had no interest in playing from the start. Or that the game has the ability to retain players once they do show up.
This is one instance where I think moving from paid to free-to-play is both more trouble than its worth and would almost certainly not change the trajectory of the game. You would upset players who paid for it and have to revamp the entire monetization model. And you would potentially be doing this to triple or quadruple an incredibly small playerbase which would still remain incredibly small even after that. The game is unrecoverable on Steam. PS5 may be faring a bit better but there is no indication that it’s doing anywhere close to “well” there.
I still think they will try this, eventually. I do not think it will matter. It’s over.
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