-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
BREAKING: Sony is shutting down Firewalk Studios, the maker of the recent shooter Concord (Update: Neon Koi is also closing)
- Thread starter jm89
- Start date
James Sawyer Ford
Member
The people that inked the deals with Firewalk are now gone and retired
Last edited:
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
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.
FalsettoVibe
Member
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.....
Hrk69
Member
Last edited:
HoodWinked
Member
Insane, I was definitively in the camp that they'd re-release as Free 2 Play due to the astronomical amounts of sunk cost.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
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
Member
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
Member
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
Member
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
Member
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
Rodent Whores
I doubt they will.
IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
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
Last edited:
Topher
Identifies as young
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.
Last edited:
Timberwolf25
Member
Even a blind man could've seen this coming 
yurinka
Member
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.
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.
Last edited:
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
yurinka
Member
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
Banned
Angry_Megalodon
Member
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.
yurinka
Member
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.
- Gran Turismo 7: Big success
- MLB: Big succeess
- Firewall Ultra: it was a GaaS shooter for VR only, obviously couldn't be a hit
- Destiny 2: Most successful game in SIE's first party catalog ever
- Helldivers 2: Best Sony launch ever
- Condord: Big fail
- Horizon Online: WIP
- Fairgame$: WIP
- Marathon: WIP, record numbers on its announcement
- Bungie's incubated new IP moved to its own PS Studios office: WIP
- Bend's new IP: WIP
- Ex-Deviation/CoD devs new IP: WIP
Projects that weren't greenlighted, so never were in a production that couldn't be cancelled: Twisted Metal and Spiderman MP game.
Last edited:
That is a relief. I really hope leadership of PS will go back to Japan.
yurinka
Member
Totoki, Nishino and the Sony HQ (plus other things like the PlayStation Indies head) are in Japan.
Last edited:
TerribleAtThisGame
Member
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!
Radioskugga
Member
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
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
Member
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
Member
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.
Concord's problems lies more with poor management and lack of oversight from Sony.
poodaddy
Member
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Neon Koi.
Another studio Sony bought years ago. I dont think they even made one game. Look at this waste of time and money.
Another studio Sony bought years ago. I dont think they even made one game. Look at this waste of time and money.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
it died so ND could focus on SP games, this title has nothing to do with it
FunkMiller
Member
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.
Last edited:
ChorizoPicozo
Member
next to the gauntlet: Dragon Age
ResilientBanana
Member
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.
Last edited:
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
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.
Last edited:
FunkMiller
Member
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
Member
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.)
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
A Fucking Idiot
Now those employees will scatter like parasites and infect other developers who are too stupid to properly vett them.
Similar threads
- Locked