Did the woke agenda kill Sony’s $200mn game?

In video games, as in any line of business, there are trends that come and go. Many companies that are too slow to react to them, or stick to them for too long, often pay the price. Sony, it seems, is the latest to join that list with its recent release, Concord. 

It’s not the first time we’ve seen such a high-profile flop. In 2018, Konami released Metal Gear Survive, a multiplayer survival game, as the craze around survival/crafting games was dying down. Expectations were low, and Komani had just parted ways with the series’ legendary creator, Hideo Kojima. MGS Survive looked rushed, unpolished, and lacked any resemblance to the Metal Gear series, except for its general atmosphere and some NPC models. As a result, it became an industry laughing stock and a lesson for every developer not to rub salt in the wounds of your fans.

Six years later, a similarly high-profile flop is happening. Sony, a massive force in both gaming hardware and software, looks like it can’t hold anything together with its new releases.

Concord, a first-person multiplayer hero shooter that was in development for eight years and cost up to $200 million, opened to less than a thousand players on PC. No one wanted to play it. There could be several answers as to why. First, the market is not exactly hot for a new hero shooter – we already have established games like Overwatch, Valorant, and even the upcoming Marvel Rivals. Not to mention that Concord was a full-price game, while others in the genre have already moved to a free-to-play model. From the start it had an enormous uphill battle to fight. It had to poach players from these games with something unique, something new, and something worth paying money for – which it clearly failed to do.

Instead, Concord offered bizarre character designs that looked like they were copied straight from some DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) handbook – characters that lacked any outstanding, memorable identity, except for echoing every diversity talking point we hear on a daily basis. They even made a killer robot look like an unfit, unappealing yellow barrel! It’s small wonder that players didn’t even give the game a chance to show off its gameplay – if the heroes don’t spark your desire to play as them, which is kind of the whole point of a hero shooter, why would you begin playing?

What followed was ridicule and general confusion as to why this had happened. People have blamed the dreaded DEI requirements for all entertainment nowadays, complete mismanagement of the game design, or basic misunderstanding that games should be made for everyone, and not just activists on X (formerly Twitter). The number of Concord players dropped ever lower, proving that even the publicity it was receiving couldn’t help. After the player count descended into double digits, Sony pulled the plug, delisting Concord from stores and refunding all purchases.

Games flop all the time – there’s nothing new in that. But what makes this flop stand out is that it was Sony and not some small activist studio; that it was extremely expensive for what we received; and what was wrong with it. In recent months, people have started pushing back against entertainment for ‘modern audiences’ – Star Wars Acolyte, Rings of Power, and now Concord. There are no protests, no petitions, just people refusing to interact, watch, or buy any of it. Which has already led to Acolyte’s cancelation and Concord shutting down.

We will never know what exactly made Concord flop as hard as it did. There are several things that ruined it. It was a grave mistake to make it a full-price game when all the competition is free to play. Concord was a fresh IP, and not part of an established universe, so it couldn’t rely on interest from existing fans with disposable income. Sony is somewhat late to the whole hero shooter scene, as demand for these kinds of games is calming down. On the other hand, the upcoming Marvel Rivals and Valve’s Deadlock, which is raking in 100,000 players non-stop in the invite-only beta stage. With a well-made game, it’s possible to push through and make a statement. 

And lastly, people are getting tired of activism and DEI quotas in their games. No one wants to look at poorly designed characters, whose only purpose is not to offend anyone with their race, body type, and color palette. There’s nothing wrong with making your characters truly inclusive – to highlight lesser-known cultures, identities, or appearances. But if the race or identity of your character is its only noticeable trait, no one will want to associate with it or look at it on their screen for hours at a time.

Concord isn’t alone in drawing negative attention. Another absurdly woke game, Dustborn, never broke 100 consecutive players in all its three weeks since being released. Its gameplay even features a mechanic of getting triggered to defeat racist cops. If this game was a parody on the woke movement, it did too good a job because nobody can tell the difference. Another upcoming Sony game, Fairgame$, released its trailer a few days ago. And by the looks of it, it’s set on the same path as Concord.

The controversy around Concord, Dustborn, and other games will hopefully make game studio executives scramble to change their approach to what they are making. After all, you can’t sustain your business of making games while there are no players willing to buy them, no matter how many DEI points you get.