Sony avoids F2P as its live service model takes shape | Opinion
Sony's decision to devote around a third of the entire runtime of its State of Play event last week to upcoming hero shooter Concord was a fairly clear statement of intent – the company's desire to pivot towards live service games burns unabated, and while the high-quality singleplayer games upon which PlayStation's studios' reputation was built aren't going anywhere for now, they will at least have to share the spotlight with their upstart live service brethren from now on.
Beyond that headline grabbing strategy, though, Sony has also made one further statement of intent with regard to Concord, although this one, for some reason, was made about as quietly as the firm could manage. Concord isn't going to be a free-to-play game; following in the footsteps of Sony's earlier live service success, Helldivers 2, it's going to launch at a $40 price point.
Two games does not a strategy make, I suppose, but the fact that Sony has chosen to use this pricing for both a co-operative PvE game like Helldivers 2 and now a PvP hero shooter like Concord strongly suggests that this is a model the firm is at least somewhat committed to.
It's certainly not shouting about any such commitment from the rooftops, though. Concord's pricing details were released on its PlayStation Store listings without fanfare or announcement, which actually feels like something of a missed opportunity, since the corollary information that the game's future maps, characters, and story vignettes will all be available for free would probably have gone down very well with the State of Play audience, and might even have shifted the conversation about the game a little more positive.
If this is indeed Sony's emerging 'house style' for live service games, then it's a very interesting one. I'm sure there will be some latitude within the model for games that are more obviously suited to a different monetisation strategy – perhaps Sony will even fully embrace F2P for some titles – but thus far the shape of what Sony is
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