My argument is that a massive amount of people play GaaS titles every single day, at least as much as plays single player games and probably more, which indicates to me that millions of gamers want to play these games. 

Your argument is that that most gamers want GaaS to die but I haven't seen anything at all that validates that position.

The main issue here is that people are pretending Concord represents all GaaS titles when obviously it does not.  It's a copycat game with poor character designs and a terrible economic model that took far too long and far too much money to develop.  It's like using Forespoken to represent all single player games.

A select few huge titles are being played by a lot of players, that's true. And for every monster-hit, there are several utter failures, the type that closes studios. The model simply isn't viable long-term, it will only exasperate the issue with huge publishers and developers owning the market, consumers also have a finite amount of money, just like developers. If a growing tally of releases cost players constantly, they are less likely, and less capable of, spending their funds on other titles. One 60$ title a few times a year, or one title that costs the equal amount during the course of the year. Yes, single-player games and the few giant GaaS titles that make it do coexist now, but this is about to change as more studios rev up to release GaaS titles. Like I said; GaaS as a concept, should it take over the entire industry, is the shortcut to a more intermittent and risky developers landscape and industry. Higher cost for the gamer, less breadth, less creativity, this is not the direction I want the industry to take. Giants will remain giants, and even more mid-sized or smaller studios will perish.

And not to mention the creative issues, ownership issues, gambling aspects directed at children, early-access conundrums, and a host of other problems with the rising model. I would direct your attention to the above-posted link, where a recent poll suggests that about 70% of the involved developers saw issues with the GaaS model. Studio heads and publishers are seeing the rare mega-hits and want some of that sweet pie, but developers aren't really feeling it. About 25% of the polled developers were positive towards GaaS, as it stands.

To me, it all seems to boil down to "this is the future, accept it".

PS: Concord is just the latest in a long string of GaaS failures, it's not unique in any way. And it won't be the last.

Damn, so what the hell was the idea of following the GaaS train with the most generic affair. He could have taken established IP like he did with Horizon and had the studios make a GaaS game and had better luck or a Hero shooter with playstation characters. That'd have been more interesting than these generic, brand staining titles. Like I feel Playstation is a lesser brand now to have these titles releasing, who's to blame if Jim Ryan still understood the importance of titles like Astrobot...

You're completely right but streamers play shitty games all the time in between the titles that blow up so it's not a 100% kinda thing. There's a lot of factors that go into it and it's to obscure to bet on, you could sit down ten experts in game theory and I doubt they'd come up with a formula to make one of these games successful with dev times of 8 years. If you could make one of these games in six months you might have a chance of rising the tail end of a trend and being somewhat successful but you still won't get the lightning in a bottle secured. We can see certain features that make a game more likely to blow up, something that takes multiplayer co-operation for example or games that have building and survival mechanics as another but when there are so many of these that are sent out to no fan fair even with streamers playing them in masse it's impossible to create a solid blueprint. That said, these Sony GaaS are so far from what any normal gamer would consider a best guess, it's ridiculous they were approved or not shut down mid dev. 

Most of what you're saying is completely backwards.  If you want to see SMALLER STUDIOS that go toe-to-toe with the giant publishers then GaaS is actually where it happens and why so many indie developers are going that route.  Once again, you only need to look at the most played lists.  It's filled with studios who came out of nowhere with a new idea and because the model allows for a smaller initial investment, they're able to go viral.  Seriously, it's all right there on Steam for everyone to see.

Where small studios are unable to compete is actually with SINGLE PLAYER games because of the differences in budget and the hefty requirements (which is also why even the giants are making fewer of them).  A tiny developer can't touch a Zelda, or an Uncharted, or an Assassin's Creed release but GaaS just needs a fun concept and periodic improvements, plus the dedication that large studios rarely offer.  Rust, 7 Days to Die, Raft, most of the games I mentioned before, even PUBG didn't come from one of the big publishers.

One of the most amusing issues seems to be that the big boys are trying to replicate what the indie developers are doing except with more money and less creativity.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but that's because they're skipping the "really good idea for a game" step and just copying someone else.

And of course Concord won't be the last GaaS failure.  Do you think Forespoken will be the last single player failure?  

Regardless, my original point was that "gamers hate GaaS titles" was a huge exaggeration and I've still seen nothing to change my opinion.

I recon they they will do some changes to the game [mostly around monetization mechanics, perhaps under new title] and re-release it as free to play. If that doesn't work, then it will stay dead forever. I just don't see them throwing it away like nothing happened.

This is Uncharted territory, nothing this big has ever failed this big. Things that failed close to this were much smaller titles like Drawn to death, they stuck that on as a free game on PS plus as they did with Starblood arena which was a VR space shooter but I'm not sure they want to eat failure with this twice on something this big they didn't get anyone in for the beta either and that was free. It could well stay dead and instead Fairgame$ will be the title that gets the PS plus/catalogue treatment before it can fail also. Like they'd have to rework a lot of this game to get it in the hands of players even for free, the cosmetics are atrocious, so is the cast and there's not much that isn't bland and uninteresting. They are competing for gamers time and there are loads of games coming that they just can't compete with like Black OPS 6 as a direct competitor and Astrobot as something that'll take the casual base away from playing something mediocre. Perhaps if they waited until next year for a real dry spot early in the year... but even then I can't see it. 

I'm chasing this thread into a Fair games discussion thread in a bit once I research the game and find out the ins and outs of it. Perhaps it won't be the flop it's expected to be.

Sony's biggest live service game doesn't have loot box mechanics, it doesn't have FOMO, it isn't even F2P.

All this talk about live service taking away from single player investments, but we have Astro Bot releasing in a little over a day, Until Dawn Remake in about a month, and Lego Horizon during the holidays. That's not even including XDev's involvement with Rise of the Ronin or even SIE's increased investment into Stellar Blade. And that's with Wolverine and Death Stranding 2 coming in the future. Where exactly are all these single player games being impacted? I would get the hysteria if Santa Monica Studios or Bluepoint were forced into making a live service game. 

When it comes to your last hypothetical, I just don't see how Sony pursuing GaaS leads PlayStation consumers down that path, when none of Sony's single player games charge you a subscription fee to play them. They didn't even lock F2P games behind a paywall when they could've easily made that the norm last generation. 

Its not fair to say all of Sony's live service games are going to be generic. We don't know how Guerrilla's multiplayer project in the Horizon universe is going to play, how Bungie's incubation project is going to look, or how whimsical Media Molecule's take on the live service genre is going to be. Even something like Destruction All Stars, despite bombing hard, did try and fill a gap in Sony's portfolio.

One major bomb like Concord isn't going to damage PlayStation's prestige reputation in any significant way. If anything, Concord would just be another dud in a pile with stuff like Drawn to Death, Entwined, Lair, The Order 1886, etc. This isn't one of Sony's premiere studios flopping. Even Nintendo has put out flops from time to time. It happens.