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[PendekarRajawali]

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Someone has to take responsibility for failing to recognise they had a massive flop on their hands and that all the warning signs were ignored. Concord was a very high profile failure, and even if it's just symbolic there's an expectation that a resignation should follow.

We also know a lot of money has been wasted on a number of GaaS titles that got binned on Bungie's say so, so there's a real chance he's lost the company more money than he ever made it.

The people that inked the deals with Firewalk are now gone and retired

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Studios closing and people getting laid off are what happens on the other side of not being told "no". These guys need to make games that people want to buy. If that's an uphill battle then they are going to find it hard to pay bills.

When you got a studio making a game for the first time with a big budget over many years, you'd think they'd do some focus testing or research or early beta tests. Even just showing gamers alpha builds a year or two out to get gamers vibe would be worth doing.

Nope. Gamers got a vague CGI trailer a year out, then 3 months from launch (technically 2 months 3 weeks), gameplay vids and info comes out its a hero shooter with pronouns, lousy art and pastel colours. And then a beta test 2 or 3 weeks from launch. In other words, there's no turning back.

Great business plan. Those internal board meetings must had been a hoot.

 

[Kacho]

Hrk69

 

[FalsettoVibe]

Sony chose to buy them exactly for the GaaS reason and i'm pretty sure they funded the game way before the acquisition. They bought it in April 2023, a bit more than 1 year ago, they surely didn't put 400M $ in a single year lol

None of that means this is Sony's fault though. They saw an EXISTING product and supported it and the Studio in hopes for a ROI. Any one company could have done the same. Having pity on Firewalk and pointing the finger at Sony makes no sense. Had Sony looked the other way, the game would have still failed. Maybe even more spectacularly.....

 

[M1chl]

I wouldn't really celebrate unless there is known, that people in executive is also gone, generally they just fall upwards...

 

[Hrk69]

Hrk69

FUCK THAT UGLY CUNT

 

[HoodWinked]

Insane, I was definitively in the camp that they'd re-release as Free 2 Play due to the astronomical amounts of sunk cost.

 

[kapshin]

Who they think they are Xbox?

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

None of that means this is Sony's fault though. They saw an EXISTING product and supported it and the Studio in hopes for a ROI. Any one company could have done the same. Having pity on Firewalk and pointing the finger at Sony makes no sense. Had Sony looked the other way, the game would have still failed. Maybe even more spectacularly.....

No sane exec would take the financial risk Sony did with an unproven studio. It's stupid at all levels and stupid decisions must be punished.

 

[Begleiter]

The people that inked the deals with Firewalk are now gone and retired

Even if we charitably assume Hulst had no involvement as head of Playstation Worldwide Studios, someone still has to take responsibility in Sony proper. Hulst had time and plenty of opportunity to cancel Concord, or delay it until it was a viable product.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

delay it until it was a viable product.

That’s not realistic.

An unappealing game delayed is forever unappealing

Concord was in a weird position of being quite polished, technically and mechanically competent

They gave it a fair shot - it was not rushed or released too early. It was just not commercially appealing.

 

[Dazraell]

Insane, I was definitively in the camp that they'd re-release as Free 2 Play due to the astronomical amounts of sunk cost.

This just wouldn't work. Simply releasing a bland game with no hook as f2p in an overcrowded market would just leave to more money being lost. You have to pay for maintaining servers and infrastructure, costs of new content supporting the game to keep players engaged, figure out a monetization that would actually encourage players to make these optional purchases. People won't just magically appear and keep playing

 

[ResilientBanana]

Studios closing and people getting laid off are what happens on the other side of not being told "no". These guys need to make games that people want to buy. If that's an uphill battle then they are going to find it hard to pay bills.

Completely agree. But politics and discrimination are at play which is an HR nightmare which in turn could lead to lawsuits. It’s a very fine line. I’m not sure how the gaming industry will navigate it in its current state unless we have more developers jumping on a more western developer bandwagon and dictating that they simply just want to make good games and know what the customers want. I think the DEI mantra is going to get lighter and lighter over time. But I think it will take a lot of studio closures to accomplish.

 

[Rentahamster]

Sony needs to learn from this just as much as anyone.

I doubt they will.

 

[IntentionalPun]

When you got a studio making a game for the first time with a big budget over many years, you'd think they'd do some focus testing or research or early beta tests. Even just showing gamers alpha builds a year or two out to get gamers vibe would be worth doing.

Nope. Gamers got a vague CGI trailer a year out, then 3 months from launch (technically 2 months 3 weeks), gameplay vids and info comes out its a hero shooter with pronouns, lousy art and pastel colours. And then a beta test 2 or 3 weeks from launch. In other words, there's no turning back.

Great business plan. Those internal board meetings must had been a hoot.

You barely should even need that if you have a good development environment. But I think more and more it's getting harder and harder to feel comfortable criticizing ANYTHING in the workplace.

Toxic positivity... why it's happening? Well I know what NeoGAF thinks, but I think it's a range of things. There's certainly some level of fear of criticizing non-white or non-straight people, but I think a bigger factor is just general lameness of where culture has gone when it comes to giving participation trophies out. Both things were really corporations taking younger generations into account though. All those polls that came about about what young people were looking for in a workplace and suddenly we had a massive increase in pampering of Gen-Z going on. A lot of it is down to being able to pay them a lot less though lol

Hopefully there's a big course correction, but we've also taught younger generations to be super litigious if they don't get their way, so who knows? lol

 

[Topher]

Completely agree. But politics and discrimination are at play which is an HR nightmare which in turn could lead to lawsuits. It’s a very fine line. I’m not sure how the gaming industry will navigate it in its current state unless we have more developers jumping on a more western developer bandwagon and dictating that they simply just want to make good games and know what the customers want. I think the DEI mantra is going to get lighter and lighter over time. But I think it will take a lot of studio closures to accomplish.

100%. Can't help but think that this is the end result of embracing ideologies instead of making great products. DEI very well may be the rot that kills some gaming companies from the inside out. Meanwhile, gaming "journalists" will gaslight these virtue signaling companies to the ground while wagging their fingers at "misogynistic" developers in the east who are too busy counting their coin to care.

 

[Germuso]

Reading retardera is always a pleasure.

Talented devs they say lol.

 

[SHAKEZ]

Other studios have died for way less (Tango), this one we all saw coming for obvious reasons.

 

[Timberwolf25]

Even a blind man could've seen this coming

 

[yurinka]

Not one new IP in there.

All of the new ones fail miserably and their studios get shut down. The only GAAS trash people want to play are in already established franchises, which is why they are a poor investment nowadays. You will fail unless you're already known. People can only invest so much time.

I don't know if you understand what a new IP means.

The project incubated at Bungie moved to PS Studios, Returnal, Condord, Fairgame$ (and almost Marathon) are new IPs.

Bluepoint, Nixxes, Valkyrie are support teams who can support in both new and existing IPs.

And well, there's nothing wrong having people like Bungie or Firesprite working in existing IP. Because as we know around half of the first party Sony games under development are new IPs.

Someone has to take responsibility for failing to recognise they had a massive flop on their hands and that all the warning signs were ignored. Concord was a very high profile failure, and even if it's just symbolic there's an expectation that a resignation should follow.

We also know a lot of money has been wasted on a number of GaaS titles that got binned on Bungie's say so, so there's a real chance he's lost the company more money than he ever made it.

This flop is an ultrarare exception surronded by a huge amount of big hits in sales, reviews and awards. As an example, they broke their sales records with games released in 4 of his 5 years.

And other than this, there have been only 3 GaaS games cancelled that got replaced by 3 he acquired in Bungie.

And no, SIE made more profits in his time than in all the previous SIE history combined.

 

[lh032]

I don't really like the closure of studio but the culture of firewalk is just ....I doubt they can come up with good games.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

 

[Calico345]

 

[yurinka]

Bring back Japan Studio

They are still there but with different names (Team Asobi and XDEV Japan). They developed Astro Bot and published / supported Death Stranding Director's Cut, Stellar Blade or Rise of the Ronin and are working in Lost Soul Aside, Convallaria, Death Stranding 2 or Physint.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

You release the biggest game industry flop and financial disaster of all time, and you call the team responsible

*checks notes*

"world-class"

OK.

Quite a few of them are.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

That kind of blindness is the clearest sign that they will fail again and again till the dumb clown gets his ass fired. And most likely another clown will step in and do the same, just to be fired, too. It will take a couple more CEOs for Sony to get the memo.

 

[paolo11]

Western developers should take notes not to make filth like this. I mean, if you got a lead who calls herself “professor “ by force, it’s going to flop

 

[yurinka]

Two are legacy IPs from the PS1 era, one is from a bought out company in the toilet with two layoffs and shifting employees to SIE, and one is a giant success from the first game 8 years ago.

Destiny 2 is the most successful in the entire catalog of SIE, and The Final Shape was very successful. The Marathon announcement broke records in youtube. They are only in the toilet in your dreams.

The rest of their new ideas have been shaky:

- Firewalk studios and Concord dead
- Deviation studios and their game dead (didnt even release it)
- Neon Koi studio and their game dead (didnt even release it)
- Factions 2 dead
- Any other games in those leaks that arent happening anymore

Right now, on the horizon are Marathon and Fairgames which are 2025/2026 games I'd assume.

1. Gran Turismo 7: Big success
2. MLB: Big succeess
3. Firewall Ultra: it was a GaaS shooter for VR only, obviously couldn't be a hit
4. Destiny 2: Most successful game in SIE's first party catalog ever
5. Helldivers 2: Best Sony launch ever
6. Condord: Big fail
7. Horizon Online: WIP
8. Fairgame$: WIP
9. Marathon: WIP, record numbers on its announcement
10. Bungie's incubated new IP moved to its own PS Studios office: WIP
11. Bend's new IP: WIP
12. Ex-Deviation/CoD devs new IP: WIP

Cancelled GaaS: TLOU Online, London Studio's new IP and Deviation's new IP (if it isn't rebooted at the ex-Deviations studio).

Projects that weren't greenlighted, so never were in a production that couldn't be cancelled: Twisted Metal and Spiderman MP game.

 

[yogaflame]

They are still there but with different names (Team Asobi and XDEV Japan). They developed Astro Bot and published / supported Death Stranding Director's Cut, Stellar Blade or Rise of the Ronin and are working in Lost Soul Aside, Convallaria, Death Stranding 2 or Physint.

That is a relief. I really hope leadership of PS will go back to Japan.

 

[yurinka]

That is a relief. I really hope leadership of PS will go back to Japan.

Totoki, Nishino and the Sony HQ (plus other things like the PlayStation Indies head) are in Japan.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I’d say Concord has provided at least 15 to 20 hours of entertainment - which is more than you can say for most games these days. Bravo!

I would agree. I'd say my playtime has been close to 10 hours of unbridled Incel Action. Not bad. That F2P model happened after all!

 

[Valedix]

I can't believe last of us factions died for this crap.

 

[Radioskugga]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I’d say Concord has provided at least 15 to 20 hours of entertainment - which is more than you can say for most games these days. Bravo!

It's actually great for all.

Despite making a lousy product, you got lots of people who made a living off it for years. After some severance pay, they'll collect even more money going on unemployment insurance unless they can score another job before it ends. And like anyone let go, they might get severance pay and get another job asap, which is like hitting the lottery.

So for some Firewalk workers who will surely be in this situation, they are actually getting rewarded for making a lousy game and sapping Sony's and Probably Monster's budgets for years.

 

[ComputerBlue]

Problem is when they attach this stuff to established IPs. So whenever they sell "well", I am betting they use them as example of the opposite. I think the only learning will happen is when a) Couple of more IPs with forced DEI flop and/or b) Couple of established IPs start underperforming because of forced DEI. My hope is that there is at least one executive bringing this topic up.

Yup that’s the problem, the next naughty dog game may be infested with it, but it’s also likely going to be an incredible game.

 

[newtypepilot]

yes, they made a shit game, but it's never fun to hear people losing their jobs.

Concord's problems lies more with poor management and lack of oversight from Sony.

 

[poodaddy]

Quite a few of them are.

What, like the professor?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Neon Koi.

Another studio Sony bought years ago. I dont think they even made one game. Look at this waste of time and money.

Culture — Neon Koi

We make Action Games

www.neonkoi.com

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

I can't believe last of us factions died for this crap.

it died so ND could focus on SP games, this title has nothing to do with it

 

[Jaybe]

Pronouns: Un/Employed

 

[FunkMiller]

I can't believe last of us factions died for this crap.

That would likely have been an endless parade of shit as well. Far more popular to begin with, granted. But it would have been a MTX jammed shitshow, designed to fleece as much money as possible, because 2024 Sony.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

next to the gauntlet: Dragon Age

 

[ResilientBanana]

Reading retardera is always a pleasure.

Talented devs they say lol.

I mean. Suicide Squad looked great and was animated well. It was a technical masterpiece. The problem was the gameplay loop wasn’t all that fun, the story was lame and the DEI tropes were apparent. But I would have to say much of the team was indeed talented. Credit is definitely owed to where it’s due.

 

[begotten]

Great news. Sony cutting all the live service fat is a good thing.

Does that just leave Haven?

 

[lmimmfn]

Oh dear, the woke studio is dead....what are we going to do?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I mean. Suicide Squad looked great and was animated well. It was a technical masterpiece. The problem was the gameplay loop wasn’t all that fun, the story was lame and the DEI tropes were apparent. But I would have to say much of the team was indeed talented. Credit is definitely owed to where it’s due.

For all the bad reviews SS got, it had oddly solid cut scenes. I didnt play the game and I typically hate cut scenes in games but when people posted videos of them even I watched some clips.

Classic case of a company where some people/depts do a good job and some dont.

It's like a product on the shelf with great packaging and artwork. You buy it and it sucks ass. Well, whomever did the boxart did a slick job. Whomever in R&D designed the product did lousy.

 

[FunkMiller]

I mean. Suicide Squad looked great and was animated well. It was a technical masterpiece. The problem was the gameplay loop wasn’t all that fun, the story was lame and the DEI tropes were apparent. But I would have to say much of the team was indeed talented. Credit is definitely owed to where it’s due.

The lack of talent is squarely in the concept, design and narrative. I hate the fact a lot of decent technical devs have lost their jobs because a load of idiots were in charge of the other stuff.

 

[RCU005]

This is a great way to show what to expect with Hulst as CEO. His tenure is going to be hell for players and the gaming industry.

I wish Nintendo has great success with Switch 2 since right now it's the only company that is "grounded" in what consumers really want (fun games first).

Also, hopefully Microsoft will be able to come up with a good strategy for next generation, as Sony is seemingly heading into a a path the majority of players don't want (DEI, GaaS, etc.)

 

[Hollowpoint5557]

Now those employees will scatter like parasites and infect other developers who are too stupid to properly vett them.