Bryter's Huw Williams takes a look at the Concord launch (and subsequent shutdown), and the lessons to be learnt
In August this year, Netflix made the decision to cancel “The Brothers Sun” after just one season despite critical interest and audience favour. Despite an 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the show was cancelled owing to its viewership falling just short of that almighty Netflix threshold. This has been an issue with the service for some time now, cutting short promising new series on the basis that they did not quite hit the ground running – something sure to scare any producer pushing forward their new IP.
This isn’t exclusive to the streaming scene. Gamers this month will be familiar with the cancellation of Concord, a live-service hero shooter which was shut down 2 weeks after its launch due to poor sales and lukewarm reception from critics. After 8 years of development and millions of USD in production costs, its premature cancellation is unprecedented in the gaming ecosystem and something sure to worry not only future developers, but also buyers/players of games with potential.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the factors which led to the fall of Concord.
Where is the hype?
We’ll start with the most common thought that gamers had when first hearing about the cancellation:
“What the hell is Concord?”
Without a strong marketing push, Concord fell to the wayside and never quite established a fanbase from the start. For most games, this is by no means a death sentence – just look at Among Us, released in 2018 to minimal fanfare but rose to massive prominence through streamers and content creators in 2020 (with a little help from a global pandemic). However, for a live service title such as Concord, which hinges on an actively engaged player base, its lack of pre-release attention meant it was dead on arrival.
In terms of pre-release hype, the simple fact with Concord is that it didn’t build any. Little was shown of the game prior to release, save for a few trailers which were met with mixed reception by audiences (citing unoriginal gameplay and cringe-inducing humour). Where was the social media push before release? The content creator/influencer collaborations? Hooking your player base is, after all, pretty much impossible if nobody has even seen the product.
Missing the mark
Concord’s fall can also be put down to its placement in the hero shooter genre - missing the peak of genre popularity by almost a decade. In 2016, Overwatch took the world by storm for its intricate and addictive team-based FPS gameplay, shining the spotlight on a genre formerly helmed by the likes of Team Fortress 2 and Star Wars: Battlefront. Since then, the genre has become a crowded scene, dominated by the likes of Apex Legends and Valorant (the latter of which boasting over half a million players daily). However, the popularity of hero-shooters appears to be on the decline, with playerbases dropping rapidly for former titans such as Overwatch 2.
Overwatch 2 released to tremendous daily play rate, but has seen a steady decline over time
So where does Concord fit into all this? The subgenre is crowded enough as is, so without a clear hook to differentiate Concord from its contemporaries, perhaps it was doomed from the start. When diving between titles within a genre, gamers are for sure looking for those comfort features, consistencies across titles – however, they’re also searching for something original – gameplay that cannot be found elsewhere, fresh spins on tired genre tropes, a new story to immerse in, you name it.
It may also simply be too little too late. This is an unfortunate problem game developers can run into – long development cycles risk time spent on a game catered for a specific audience, when the ship may have already passed (The Duke Nukem Forever disaster comes to mind). So what can be done to avoid this, going forward?
Lessons to be learned
Clearly Concord faced many challenges before even hitting the air, but these issues are by no means insurmountable. What can we learn from this, and how can aspiring new developers mitigate these problems? To put my Bryter hat on for a moment, most of these issues can be resolved with a bit of market research:
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Test your marketing material – For a new game reveal, the trailer will often be people’s first point of contact with the game. This is an essential moment for grabbing their attention and will be imperative in driving early hype. But what happens when people don’t resonate with the trailer? Maybe there’s not enough gameplay. Maybe the cinematics are lacklustre. Maybe the humour doesn’t land.
In such cases, concept testing, both qualitatively and quantitatively, is invaluable for determining how appealing your marketing material will be – identify the issues early on through market research and adjust until you’re confident the game will appeal to the right audiences. -
Get your game name out there – The impact of influencers and content creators is not to be underestimated in the gaming scene. One successful stream or video can slingshot an obscure game right into the mainstream (just take a look at Content Warning and Lethal Company). It’s vital to understand the audience, their interests, the channels they engage with and the personalities they watch, trust or admire in order to have real impact – things to take into consideration when identifying appropriate streamers/content creators.
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Size your potential market – Not sure who your potential players are? Profiling research can be a vital tool for figuring out who you are going to target with your game, rather than throwing it out there and hoping for the best. Build a foundational knowledge of your players by identifying the genres/titles they enjoy, their demographics, their motivations – then you’ll know where and how to target the ideal players.
Identifying how many gamers your title is likely to reach is also pertinent before release. Through market sizing research, you can make rough predictions into how many gamers within a given population are likely to play your title – typically through research into the total addressable market of a game. Is your game unlikely to reach many players to begin with? Maybe it’s best to make some serious changes, or pull the plug. -
Keep up to date with audience trends – Prolonged development cycles are a whole other problem within the gaming industry, and one that cannot be so easily resolved. However, the damage this can cause to your audience prospects can perhaps be mitigated by keeping up with audience trends over time. For example, regular research into the current gaming market can give some invaluable steer to your game’s development (is nobody playing hero-shooters anymore? Best to know this as early as possible).
Utilise market research to understand player behaviours/preferences, understand strengths/weaknesses of competitors, identify gaps in the market and for category deep-dives.
Conclusion
Concord serves as a gruelling reminder to future game developers that not knowing your market and audiences can spell disaster for your product. Sitting within a popular genre or brand is not enough – it’s vital to build a picture of audiences early on, and understand what motivates them, what attracts them, how to build a strong identity. Factor this into your marketing campaign and who knows – the game may just survive.
Learn more
To learn more about market research and insights can help support game developers, read our 'Ultimate guide to market research for video game developers'
Get in touch directly
To find out more about how Bryter support developers and publishers throughout the game development lifecycle and beyond, get in touch with our Head of Gaming Insights: jenny.mcbean@bryter-global.com
