Support NeoGAF

[FoxMcChief]

So if this 400 million dollar rumor isn't true and the game cost 100 million or 150 million, you think people continuing to believe it costs nearly 4x that much is fair?

What does it really matter? It’s either an epic flop or a megaton flop. I just don’t get why the dollar amount matters so much.

Is it because it’s Sony? Are you defending Star Wars Outlaws as well?

 

[CLW]

So is the ? Colin vs Jason who do I trust more?

Jason being a woke cuk BADLY wants to diminish the dumpster fire that is Concord

Colin is actually fairly liberal on the “sexual” social issues of the day or certainly isn’t conservative in the traditional sense but does have an audience who wants to DESTROY the woke cancer in the games industry

Bias in both places could be found but based off the track records of both I’d tend to believe Colin over Jason on just about anything

 

[Mibu no ookami]

It's more plausible than people want to believe. If Sony thought this was a true next level, future of the business tier franchise, with major potential across all aspects of their business, as they branch out into TV and movies, then it's like almost no amount of money is not worth spending. There was a thread the other day about the mid MMO Elder Scrolls Online getting almost $200M in revenue for a decade. Games in development right now from these studios, like Wolverine, are going to cost well over $300M. It's possible that Naughty Dog's next game will be a $500M enterprise, if Sony allows it (they will). GTA6 is like, $2B. This is where we are at. People want to believe that these games still cost $50M to make and a high budget is $100M. It hasn't been for a long time and costs have gone way up in the past three years.

Yet it isn't plausible.

The staff has historically been entirely too small. The external costs would have had to completely outweigh internal costs and we know that's not accurate either. We know exactly how much ProbablyMonster raised before Sony bought Firewalk, and we know that Firewalk didn't get all the funding.

We also know that Sony barely advertised this game. It had one teaser and then it had a CGI trailer and a small gameplay trailer, and then a beta... It did not get the ad campaign that you see from a Sony AAA game. It just didn't and that's true from the get go. Look at how Sony revealed Ghost of Yotei or even Wolverine and its night and day different.

What does it really matter? It’s either an epic flop or a megaton flop. I just don’t get why the dollar amount matters so much.

Is it because it’s Sony? Are you defending Star Wars Outlaws as well?

Let's say you get arrested for punching someone and they died three days later, but they died of heart disease.

Does it matter that they didn't die from you punching them? I'm sure you'd think so if you were being charged with homicide.

I'm not defending the game at all, which you seem to be missing out on. I'm defending truth and facts. Firewalk and Concord should be judged and they should be judged based on facts, not negative sentiment created from a lie.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

I'm not defending the game at all, which you seem to be missing out on. I'm defending truth and facts. Firewalk and Concord should be judged and they should be judged based on facts, not negative sentiment created from a lie.

Yeah it’s bizarre that people are willing to go along with a complete lie just to pile on rather than wanting the actual truth

 

[diffusionx]

The external costs would have had to completely outweigh internal costs and we know that's not accurate either.

Oh, it's totally possible if you have to start bringing in tons of contractors and consultants in an emergency type situation. That shit is expensive, more expensive than having people in-house do it. If the story is the way Colin describes it - game was in bad shape, Hulst saw it as extremely important, they wanted it out in 2024 - then it is totally possible. We know that Hulst loved the game, because he was instrumental in acquiring the studio, and releasing it in 2024 to fill a hole in the lineup also makes sense.

So, I don't know. I could see it. Y'all are just anchored to an industry that hasn't existed for at least five years.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Oh, it's totally possible if you have to start bringing in tons of contractors and consultants in an emergency type situation. That shit is expensive, more expensive than having people in-house do it. If the story is the way Colin describes it - game was in bad shape, Hulst saw it as extremely important, they wanted it out in 2024 - then it is totally possible. We know that Hulst loved the game, because he was instrumental in acquiring the studio, and releasing it in 2024 to fill a hole in the lineup also makes sense.

So, I don't know. I could see it. Y'all are just anchored to an industry that hasn't existed for at least five years.

To get to 400M you need to double the staff AND they all need to be making over 300k per year

That’s implausible

 

[diffusionx]

To get to 400M you need to double the staff AND they all need to be making over 300k per year

That’s implausible

As external consultants, done in this sort of situation to fix it ASAP? It's not implausible.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

As external consultants, done in this sort of situation to fix it ASAP? It's not implausible.

It is implausible to increase headcount from 150 to 300 @ 300k

And that assumes they all worked full time, 1800+ hours per person for over two years

 

[Banjo64]

As you watch this remember, people who tell the truth often use high detail because they have nothing to hide and they actually experienced said event.

People who lie use generalities (detail can get them caught) and often accuse the skeptic of being a bad person for not believing them. IE: "You actually think I would cheat on you Sarah?! I thought our love was stronger than that."

Which strategy does Colin employ here?

In fact, based on nothing but hundreds of hours of true crime and police interrogation analysis consumption, the opposite is generally true.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Out of those "multiple projects" ProbablyMonsters collected money for, Firewalk's was the only one in some state of actual development. The other studio was shut down, so that one doesn't count. Currently, there are two other projects but nothing tangible has been released.

So, Sony is likely to have paid around 200M for this studio, 150 at the very least. It's stupid to diminish the impact of this operation, one of the worst in gaming history.

 

[diffusionx]

It is implausible to increase headcount from 150 to 300 @ 300k

And that assumes they all worked full time, 1800+ hours per person for over two years

I guess I just don't understand why you think it's implausible. They had to staff up, it cost a lot of money. And you're not allowed to do crunch anymore because Kotaku says mean things about you.

Remember too in the time frame we were talking about here, tech salaries got OUT OF CONTROL. Facebook was hiring people out of college at $300K jobs and didn't even have work for them to do. They've had to cull all these people, but all these companies were throwing tons of money on talent.

 

[MarkMe2525]

Nope. Detail can be fact checked. The more threads you leave open, the more your story can be checked on.

That's why you often see liars wanting to change the subject. They know they're being inquired for more detail and that means they have to remember more lies.

That's not to say Colin is 100% lying but he is employing that strategy which is a huge red flag.

it's very common to bomb someone with fabricated details when lying. Yes, details COULD be checked, but the info that could refute claims isn't always available or impossible to apprehend (due to the situation not being real). I'm not making specific claims regarding this story, just pushing back against your assertion.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Out of those "multiple projects" ProbablyMonsters collected money for, Firewalk's was the only one in some state of actual development. The other studio was shut down, so that one doesn't count. Currently, there are two other projects but nothing tangible has been released.

So, Sony is likely to have paid around 200M for this studio, 150 at the very least. It's stupid to diminish the impact of this operation, one of the worst in gaming history.

Why would a studio closing down or other projects with nothing tangible yet somehow shift the cost over to firewalk? That’s not how this works

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

I guess I just don't understand why you think it's implausible. They had to staff up, it cost a lot of money. And you're not allowed to do crunch anymore because Kotaku says mean things about you.

Remember too in the time frame we were talking about here, tech salaries got OUT OF CONTROL. Facebook was hiring people out of college at $300K jobs and didn't even have work for them to do. They've had to cull all these people, but all these companies were throwing tons of money on talent.

Because

1. Hardly anyone is making that kind of money, including overhead, in game development. These aren’t tech salaries, it’s game dev salaries. Same place where Bungie employees complained on Twitter about not being able to survive on their $70k salaries in Seattle. If you work for a startup like FireWalk, you get less salary in exchange for potentially more stock

2. The studio grew into a peak of employees gradually over time, and had only a dozen or so in 2019. Yet somehow 200M was spent in a matter of 2 years after that point

3. There’s simply not enough content in the game itself to justify such a huge amount of spend/resources

 

[FoxMcChief]

I'm not defending the game at all, which you seem to be missing out on. I'm defending truth and facts. Firewalk and Concord should be judged and they should be judged based on facts, not negative sentiment created from a lie.

Until Sony can tell “their truth”, it’s not hard to see how this game overall costs could have gotten as high as it is reported. In many of the other topics on this huge failure of a product, posters have been able to explain the possible costs. Here’s one:

Everyone quoting salaries x years of development should reconsider their estimates.

Let's say you have a software development team with median salary of $150k/year. In the US at a white collar establishment, the company is paying substantial additional costs out of pocket. Health care/dental/vision insurance is mostly covered by the employer. 401k matching contributions. Contributions for continuing education. Office space and other overhead.

A typical rule of thumb in places like California is to double the employee's salary to estimate the actual cost of the employee to the company. That $150k is more like $300k.

 

[diffusionx]

Because

1. Hardly anyone is making that kind of money, including overhead, in game development.

2. The studio grew into a peak of employees gradually over time, and had only a dozen or so in 2019. Yet somehow 200M was spent in a matter of 2 years after that point

3. There’s simply not enough content in the game itself to justify such a huge amount of spend/resources

1. Money was flying around everywhere in that timeframe, and we aren't talking about regular employees but more expensive contractors who came in to fix a game that was fucked up. It costs much more to hire that person.
2. We're not talking about people at Firewalk, we are talking about people Sony brought in to get the game done
3. We know what is in the game, we don't know what was made and not in it. Cut content costs the same as content in the game. In fact in this case we know there is a LOT of stuff not in the game, future content, the CG, etc.

I don't know if the story is real or not, I am just saying that it is possible. Why do you all act like it's so crazy that a huge company wasted tons of money on a disaster project? It happens literally all the time.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Oh, it's totally possible if you have to start bringing in tons of contractors and consultants in an emergency type situation. That shit is expensive, more expensive than having people in-house do it. If the story is the way Colin describes it - game was in bad shape, Hulst saw it as extremely important, they wanted it out in 2024 - then it is totally possible. We know that Hulst loved the game, because he was instrumental in acquiring the studio, and releasing it in 2024 to fill a hole in the lineup also makes sense.

You have contractors and consultants on all major games like these, but the credits list is barely larger than Killzone Shadow Fall. That's just because Sony gives credits to contract companies by individually listing staffers when most companies are only listed by company name on other games. It doesn't mean these were 40 hour a week employees working on just this game.

Hulst loved this game so much that he never advertised it?

What we know for FACTS doesn't add up to the story Colin is saying. It doesn't mean Colin's story is entirely inaccurate, that's the problem with stuff like this is that when you tie kernels of truth to something it makes the rest sound more plausible.

If this story was remotely true, Firewalk would already be closed and the game probably would have been stripped from them before release.

So, I don't know. I could see it. Y'all are just anchored to an industry that hasn't existed for at least five years.

This is just a straw man.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Until Sony can tell “their truth”, it’s not hard to see how this game overall costs could have gotten as high as it is reported. In many of the other topics on this huge failure of a product, posters have been able to explain the possible costs. Here’s one:

Can you tell me a time where Sony has ever confirmed officially the development cost of a game i.e. an official statement not a leak. That is the problem with rumors like this. They don't get fact checked officially, and instead it will take actual journalists talking to sources to get a real figure and when that figure comes outs, people will decide they still want to believe Colin's figure because it fits the narrative better.

As for the explanation the 150K average salary is far higher than what the actual average salary is and it is just used to ballpark total costs better. You can literally look up the actual average salaries for these jobs and it isn't that high.

 

[Banjo64]

Let's say you get arrested for punching someone and they died three days later, but they died of heart disease.

Wild.



Something I never see mentioned when people are toting up cost estimates for this game is the fact that the studio owned what Sony saw to be a valuable IP.

This would have been an asset factored in to the purchasing price.

We don’t know what price Sony and Firewalk (and ProbablyMonsters) attached to it, but they would know the market rates for similar start up IPs with (what they considered to be) big potential.

It’s not just an exact calculation of staff + buildings + marketing.

 

[diffusionx]

You have contractors and consultants on all major games like these, but the credits list is barely larger than Killzone Shadow Fall. That's just because Sony gives credits to contract companies by individually listing staffers when most companies are only listed by company name on other games. It doesn't mean these were 40 hour a week employees working on just this game.

Hulst loved this game so much that he never advertised it?

What we know for FACTS doesn't add up to the story Colin is saying. It doesn't mean Colin's story is entirely inaccurate, that's the problem with stuff like this is that when you tie kernels of truth to something it makes the rest sound more plausible.

If this story was remotely true, Firewalk would already be closed and the game probably would have been stripped from them before release.



This is just a straw man.

No, I don't think the FACTS add up the way you think they do. I think there is grey area here. It's possible Sony spent $200 million on it, it's possible they spent $500 million. There are a lot of things we don't know. I said that Colin's version of the events is plausible.

Firewalk will quite likely be shut down before long.

 

[yurinka]

Looking at the development time, particularly the one with a full team, and the amount of people listed in the credits leads to think had a budget between aprox $150-200M.

It's totally impossible that Sony could have spent $400M on it.

Now, it's possible they could have spent $200M on it to ship it. And then that they could have saved up to $200M just in case it would have performed enough to be up to 10 years getting post launch content with generous content and with a great userbase using its servers (with the related server costs that would be included in these $200M).

It that is the case, having killed it just after launch Sony never spent anything of these additional $200M. Which would be more than usual.

This is the only case where he or his source (if it exists and he isn't mading this out) could have misunderstood it, thinking they spent $400M when really spent $200M. But well, I think it's more likely that he's just blatantly lying again trying to throw an uninformed guess as if it would be leaked info.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

1. Money was flying around everywhere in that timeframe, and we aren't talking about regular employees but more expensive contractors who came in to fix a game that was fucked up. It costs much more to hire that person.
2. We're not talking about people at Firewalk, we are talking about people Sony brought in to get the game done
3. We know what is in the game, we don't know what was made and not in it. Cut content costs the same as

I don't know if the story is real or not, I am just saying that it is possible. Why do you all act like it's so crazy that a huge company wasted tons of money on a disaster project? It happens literally all the time.

Money doesn’t just “fly around like that”. It’s a competitive market. Firewalk employees working at a start up make LESS not more.

While a certain number of contractors makes sense, some even at a very high rate, we are not talking about 150+ of them working full time at 3x labor rates for 2 years

 

[Mibu no ookami]

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Firewalk-Studios-Salaries-E9409211.htm

Here is the glassdoor on Firewalk salaries. Please tell me that the average employee was making 150K per year...

 

[rm082e]

Colin very directly said in the previous episode and in this one that he's reporting what he heard from one person who approached him. He fully admits this person could be lying to him, but he doesn't believe they are. Whether the source is lying or not, I believe that Colin is relaying the information without inflating the number.

The whole reason the source reached out to him is he originally commented on a past episode he didn't think the game could have possibly cost much more than $100M. He thought the $200M number that was getting tossed around was overblown.

His clarifications in this new episode make sense to me. Hell, Sony paid $3.7B for Bungie...

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Until Sony can tell “their truth”, it’s not hard to see how this game overall costs could have gotten as high as it is reported. In many of the other topics on this huge failure of a product, posters have been able to explain the possible costs. Here’s one:

No, because FireWalk studios doesn’t solely comprise of lead level software engineers

They are actually a tiny fraction of the workforce that gets paid far less

 

[TintoConCasera]

the Concord simp

This made me laugh out loud for real, thanks.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Wild.



Something I never see mentioned when people are toting up cost estimates for this game is the fact that the studio owned what Sony saw to be a valuable IP.

This would have been an asset factored in to the purchasing price.

We don’t know what price Sony and Firewalk (and ProbablyMonsters) attached to it, but they would know the market rates for similar start up IPs with (what they considered to be) big potential.

It’s not just an exact calculation of staff + buildings + marketing.

Colin specifically said his number did not include the purchase of the studio.

We know that Sony bought Insomniac for 229 million dollars.

Sony bought Firewalk in the free spirited money spending time due to low interest and high MAUs, but there is nothing to suggest that Sony spent big money on this studio.

Square Enix struggled to find a buyer for Crystal Dynamics, Eidos, SQ Montreal, along with Tomb Raider for 300 million.

 

[Dick Jones]

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Firewalk-Studios-Salaries-E9409211.htm

Here is the glassdoor on Firewalk salaries. Please tell me that the average employee was making 150K per year...

300 senior producers at the same time for 8 years.

 

[EDMIX]

you could say that is Colin's last stand

lol you wrong for that one lol

Ima have to let my friend go with this one.

I no longer really care about 99.9% of any game journalism and he was really the last one I'd trust with news, even if he had his bias, but this one is just too wild.

The fact that several other outlets passed up on this clearly knowing it was just too outlandish and fake sounding, he goes and runs it.

Lets try to be accurate, not merely first.

 

[cormack12]

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Firewalk-Studios-Salaries-E9409211.htm

Here is the glassdoor on Firewalk salaries. Please tell me that the average employee was making 150K per year...

Holy Shit, that lobster eating Professor was making 150k?!?!

 

[Banjo64]

Colin specifically said his number did not include the purchase of the studio.

We know that Sony bought Insomniac for 229 million dollars.

Sony bought Firewalk in the free spirited money spending time due to low interest and high MAUs, but there is nothing to suggest that Sony spent big money on this studio.

Square Enix struggled to find a buyer for Crystal Dynamics, Eidos, SQ Montreal, along with Tomb Raider for 300 million.

So I understand; the claim is just that development cost $400m?

 

[MiguelItUp]

I think most people here understand that. Its a massive flop, one of the biggest in gaming history and probably the largest for Sony. Having said that, there is a difference between the game itself being a big flop and concord being the most expensive PS studio game ever made by a substantial amount and Sony believing it was their new bell cow IP.

Of course, I guess I just I figured it's apparent they were certainly confident about it. I mean, not EVERY game gets its own controller. They even have that segment in that upcoming Secret Level series.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

His clarifications in this new episode make sense to me. Hell, Sony paid $3.7B for Bungie...

See this is what I'm talking about.

This isn't true.

The number you're looking for is 3.6 billion and they didn't even pay that for Bungie. They paid 2.4 billion for Bungie, with an additional 1.2 billion to be paid out in retention bonuses starting two years after the close date, but not all at once. They started doing layoffs before that 1.2 billion bonus kicked in.

So jumping from 2.4+ billion to 3.7 billion... is quite extreme and inaccurate.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

See this is what I'm talking about.

This isn't true.

The number you're looking for is 3.6 billion and they didn't even pay that for Bungie. They paid 2.4 billion for Bungie, with an additional 1.2 billion to be paid out in retention bonuses starting two years after the close date, but not all at once. They started doing layoffs before that 1.2 billion bonus kicked in.

So jumping from 2.4+ billion to 3.7 billion... is quite extreme and inaccurate.

Not to mention Bungie has IP value, FireWalk has none.

Most gaming acquisition costs are related to IP. How else was Activision worth $70B?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

lol you wrong for that one lol

Ima have to let my friend go with this one.

I no longer really care about 99.9% of any game journalism and he was really the last one I'd trust with news, even if he had his bias, but this one is just too wild.

The fact that several other outlets passed up on this clearly knowing it was just too outlandish and fake sounding, he goes and runs it.

Lets try to be accurate, not merely first.

as I said other times...the news of this leak is not the information, but the framing of it. But people are not talking about that.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Not to mention Bungie has IP value, FireWalk has none.

Most gaming acquisition costs are related to IP. How else was Activision worth $70B?

I just don't know why we can't have honest conversations about this stuff. You know you're messed up when you have to lie and invent numbers to make your argument, but that's the internet now.

Look at those numbers on glassdoor. Even the senior producers weren't actually making 150k. The top reported salary was 119K and most people were at 80K or lower...

 

[plip.plop]

I remember when the story initially broke everywhere about how much Sony lost from Concord it was $200 million. On an earlier episode of his podcast, he talked about those reports and thought that number was too high and didn't believe it. So why would he lie about this. Sony or Firewalk has had the chance to refute his report and have been radio silent. If anything, I bet they're trying to find out who leaked this info to him. Hope his source didn't use any company resources to reach out to Colin.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

I just don't know why we can't have honest conversations about this stuff. You know you're messed up when you have to lie and invent numbers to make your argument, but that's the internet now.

Look at those numbers on glassdoor. Even the senior producers weren't actually making 150k. The top reported salary was 119K and most people were at 80K or lower...

Yes because start ups are actually strapped for cash and pay less

I don’t know where this fictitious idea comes from that gaming developers are all making salaries of big tech software engineers, that’s just not reality.

 

[EDMIX]

Sony or Firewalk has had the chance to refute his report and have been radio silent.

Well, Sony and most companies don't even respond to any of this, they'd be spending all fucking day responding to rumors and allegations etc

So a company not saying anything isn't evidence of anything, when have they ever responded to a fucking claim from a Podcast?

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I remember when the story initially broke everywhere about how much Sony lost from Concord it was $200 million. On an earlier episode of his podcast, he talked about those reports and thought that number was too high and didn't believe it. So why would he lie about this. Sony or Firewalk has had the chance to refute his report and have been radio silent. If anything, I bet they're trying to find out who leaked this info to him. Hope his source didn't use any company resources to reach out to Colin.

His source is almost certainly someone formerly at Sony. That's where most of these leaks come from. Disgruntled employees, some past, some present, but all disgruntled...

Imagine if it was Connie Booth, who would be an excellent source other than the fact she got walked out of the building and probably hates Herman Hulst...

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Well, Sony and most companies don't even respond to any of this, they'd be spending all fucking day responding to rumors and allegations etc

So a company not saying anything isn't evidence of anything, when have they ever responded to a fucking claim from a Podcast?

Yeah, they're not going to refute it publicly, though they might come to the conclusion that Firewalk is entirely too toxic and not worth trying to salvage due to online discourse, whether that discourse is accurate information or not.

Lies can cost people their jobs. It's one thing for people to lose their jobs over doing a bad job or being unsuccessful, it's another thing for people to lose their jobs over lies...

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Yeah, they're not going to refute it publicly, though they might come to the conclusion that Firewalk is entirely too toxic and not worth trying to salvage due to online discourse, whether that discourse is accurate information or not.

Lies can cost people their jobs. It's one thing for people to lose their jobs over doing a bad job or being unsuccessful, it's another thing for people to lose their jobs over lies...

can you point out the lies in the picture below?

 

[Mibu no ookami]

can you point out the lies in the picture below?

400 million is the lie.

People saying that the PS5 Pro is 700 dollars because of Concord is the lie. People saying Sony is doing more remasters because of Concord is the lie. People saying Sony isn't doing older games because of Concord is the lie. Conveniently left out of your picture.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Yes because start ups are actually strapped for cash and pay less

I don’t know where this fictitious idea comes from that gaming developers are all making salaries of big tech software engineers, that’s just not reality.

It's part of the echo chamber of hatred towards game developers. People are angry because they think all of these developers and I use that word lightly make more money than them.

Many of these people would work as community managers for free just to know what is going on at studios so they resent people getting paid money to do that job.

We're in a negative death spiral in gaming.

 

[AmuroChan]

Prices of projects across various industries often do not make any sense, especially projects that failed or have gone awry. Sometimes these are due to bureaucracy, piss poor management, fraudulent activities, scope changes, project restart, etc. Unfortunately, the finer details of what went wrong often do not get exposed until years down the line, if at all.

Does it make sense that....

- A single public toilet in SF called for a budget of $1.7m. Source
- Eight episodes of The Acolyte cost $230m. Source
- The California High Speed Rail has spent $11B just to build 1600 feet of track. Source
- Star Citizen has raised more than $700m and counting and the game is still in Alpha. Source
- NY's ThriveNYC mental health initiative spent $850m and no one kept any record of where that money was actually spent on. Source

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

400 million is the lie.

It's not a lie until Sony actually sets the record straight.... (technically speaking)

People saying that the PS5 Pro is 700 dollars because of Concord is the lie

no, it's not a lie. It's just retarded console war rhetoric that shouldn't even be entertained as a talking point

. People saying Sony is doing more remasters because of Concord is the lie.

the point above.

People saying Sony isn't doing older games because of Concord is the lie.

the point above

Conveniently left out of your picture.

my dude. if you think "lies" are the reason Sony could fire/close devs/the studio... you are ignoring the truth... and that makes you a liar... the only issue here is that you are lying to yourself.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

It's not a lie until Sony actually sets the record straight.... (technically speaking)


no, it's not a lie. It's just retarded console war rhetoric that shouldn't even be entertained as a talking point

So it's probably not true, but because it is console war rhetoric means it isn't a lie... head scratcher.

the point above.

the point above

my dude. if you think "lies" are the reason Sony could fire/close devs/the studio... you are ignoring the truth... and that makes you a liar... the only issue here is that you are lying to yourself.

Yeah, public sentiment has a lot to do with business decisions.

There is public sentiment based on reality and then public sentiment based on lies (or highly unlikely statements if you prefer).

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

So it's probably not true, but because it is console war rhetoric means it isn't a lie... head scratcher.

the 400M IS NOT console war rethoric.

Yeah, public sentiment has a lot to do with business decisions.

There is public sentiment based on reality and then public sentiment based on lies (or highly unlikely statements if you prefer).

....that is the reason of the 400M statement/Toxic Positivity and Herman Hulst; it's a political issue inside Playstation

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

In fact, based on nothing but hundreds of hours of true crime and police interrogation analysis consumption, the opposite is generally true.

Nope. The more threads you leave the more you have to remember and the more that can be checked up on. Detail is easy for those telling the truth and difficult for liars.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

What does he gain from lying about this? He doesn’t care that someone on Neogaf made a thread about him questioning his credibility.

If he didn’t know beyond a doubt it was likely true he wouldn’t be doubling down on it, folks. IMHO