1 week Ago By Georgina Young
JUST because something is a multi-billion dollar company doesn’t mean it always makes the correct business decisions. PlayStation recently showed us its own poor decision making, when it released Concord and promptly took it offline. The huge live-service release was reportedly eight years in development before launch, and PlayStation gave Concord two weeks before shutting it down .
PlayStation hinted that Concord may make a comeback in a new form, but players were shocked as this is an astonishingly short time between launch and closure, even for a live-service game. Many have placed the finger of blame solely at Sony executives for a number of decisions made surrounding the game. Gamers feel that Sony didn’t market Concord appropriately, meaning many didn’t know when it was released.
Others think that it was launched at a time when people were already overloaded with live-service games, and a different launch window could have helped. However, one of the most controversial decisions was to require Concord players to have a PlayStation Network account, even when playing on PC. Not only does this add another barrier to people who want to play, but PSN isn’t available in over 170 regions.
The decision to require PSN accounts for PC games started with Helldivers 2, though Sony quickly reversed the requirement following player outrage. Ghost of Tsushima was the next game with the PSN requirement, which was added after pre-orders had begun. Instead of reversing the decision, Sony began automatically refunding players in regions where PSN is unavailable, and allowed others to request a refund with no strings attached.
Despite how unpopular the addition of the PSN requirement has been, Sony has stayed the course and continued the PSN requirement for other Sony games on PC. God of War Ragnarök is the latest game to fall victim to this, as players flood the Steam page with thousands of negative reviews. While the God of War sequel is well loved by gamers, PC players seemingly won’t stand for the additional PSN barrier.
Sony is also gearing up to release the remake of popular survival horror game Until Dawn, which will also have a PSN account requirement. It seems that going forward, PlayStation remains firm on the PSN requirement for PC players despite how many people have protested. If you want to read more about PlayStation, check out the PlayStation 30th anniversary consoles .
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