Because it launched the discourse surrounding Harmony has nearly all been about its extremely low-player numbers. On its launch day it failed to attract in even a 1,000 concurrent gamers on Steam, and as I write this its 24-hour peak concurrent participant depend is a meagre 151 individuals.
All hope rested on the PlayStation 5 model. Individuals said that in-game they had been seeing lots of people with the PS5 brand subsequent to their title, suggesting Harmony was doing much better on Sony’s machine.
However a brand new report by IGN claims that Harmony is failing miserably on console, too. In accordance with analyst Simon Carless of GameDiscover.co, Harmony is at the moment estimated to have offered ” round 10,000 items on Steam, and round 15,000 on PlayStation.”
That’s a grand complete of 25,000 copies. Primarily based on the sport’s RRP of £34.99 (and never counting the pricier Deluxe Version) that’s round £874,750. Be mindful, Harmony has been in improvement for 5-8 years.
Circana analyst Mat Piscatella additionally spoke to IGN, stating that “Harmony ranked 147th in US PS5 each day lively gamers throughout all titles, with fewer than 0.2% of Monday’s lively PS5 gamers taking part in the sport.”
When requested about why Harmony has carried out so badly, Mat Piscatella pointed a finger on the advertising. Primarily based on Circana’s PlayerPulse, it was estimated that solely a tiny share of potential clients even new about Harmony’s existence.
Different analysts chimed in with numerous different causes, touching upon it being a live-service shooter getting into a crowded market of nice video games which are additionally free-to-play. Additionally they addressed the concept individuals have restricted time and are already invested closely in different video games, each when it comes to money and time, and thus may solely be keen to check out a brand new sport if their mates will be persuaded to attempt it as effectively, which is a troublesome job. Oddly, none of them talked about the art-style which has been nearly universally panned and was what initially turned individuals off within the sport’s debut trailer.
As one analyst mentioned, “Harmony ought to have launched free-to-play – or a minimum of as a part of the PlayStation Plus subscription – to have a combating probability in its overcrowded style.”
Only in the near past it was introduced that one other live-service title, Foamstars, goes free-to-play in October. Maybe that’s what Harmony does must do with the intention to a minimum of have some small probability of discovering redemption. Actually, if the gross sales numbers are true and so little cash has been recouped, perhaps Sony ought to pull a drastic transfer by refunding everybody who has purchased it and instantly shifting over to a free-to-play mannequin. After all, it isn’t fairly that straightforward.
The sport is meant to have a minimum of just a few seasons’ value of content material within the pipeline, however with such low numbers, will Harmony final lengthy sufficient to ship them?