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Kotaku: Concord budget was $200M which did not include marketing, the sale of IP rights or the acquisition of the studio

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
Likely higher surely?

I thought marketing budgets for big AAA games these days ran between $50-$150mil alone, this was a tentpole game, where they included it in an amazon show too, and had custom controllers etc, so I would imagine it would be the higher vs lower end?

It was delayed a year, so what, another 50mil?

The acquisition was at the height of overvaluing of game studios in 2020, this was Sony believed to be a money printing machine by a promising team of veterans. I know Sony got an absolute bargain for insomniac at $230mil ish, and Embracer got a bargain at 300mil for Crystal dynamics, but acquisition costs in 2020 were just a bit crazy, with silly money flying around in the fever pitch of rapid covid induced industry growth, I can't imagine they were cheap to buy.
Possibly higher but yeah at least 400 now I believe Colin even more
 
Didn't Colin outright state the 400 million figure was JUST dev costs?

I know he said it didn't include the purchase of the company.

Nor the marketing

Just dev costs.

So the people parroting Colin, and also think the marketing and acquisition costs were outrageous, must believe total costs were $600M or similar.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
It'll be interesting to see if we get numbers in the next quarterly report.

StreetsofBeige StreetsofBeige arent you an accountant? Don't they list major "write offs" like this where projects make no income and are basically fully written as a loss? Or can they obfuscate it?

Like, will there be a line item that says "LOSS DUE TO FIREWALK SHUTDOWN AND CONCORD WRITE OFF -- ($220M)" or something like that?
Nope. Not an accountant. Ive stated on GAF here and there I dont even have a designation.

For losses, they will write it off, but it comes down to if they think it's big enough to publicly spotlight that with a paragraph description. Companies are typically vague on stuff unless they really need to tell people. My company has disbanded entire product lines. They are usually small scale and shitty. They've never specifically highlighted in a report Brand X is discontinued leading to XXX losses and writeoffs. BUT, if there's brands kicking ass that move the needle they will often specify the brands carrying the torch.

Firewalk losses are small when compared to Sony as a whole corporation.

Whatever costs of Firewalk/Concord have already been going on in 2023 and part of 2024, yet they havent even highlighted that anywhere. It'd be baked into gaming dev costs as a whole or however they do it.
 
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mdkirby

Gold Member
Possibly higher but yeah at least 400 now I believe Colin even more
It’s really crazy how it wasn’t front page news on major papers. A company outright losing the best part of half a billion, as a 100% write off is probably the biggest single loss catastrophe for any film or game. Even the biggest movie flops make back a good chunk of their budgets, even if it’s still a big loss. And yeah it’s sounding like he was on the money.
 
It’s really crazy how it wasn’t front page news on major papers. A company outright losing the best part of half a billion, as a 100% write off is probably the biggest single loss catastrophe for any film or game. Even the biggest movie flops make back a good chunk of their budgets, even if it’s still a big loss. And yeah it’s sounding like he was on the money.

Because there’s no facts here, the $400M figure thrown out was not done so by someone with “journalist” integrity
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
Yeah so all this "declaring him right" because of marketing costs, the cost of the company, etc. isn't really making sense.

If colin is right, then the overall hit for Sony is well North of $400 million, as their entire investment went down the drain.
Which seems more and more plausible to me

Doubters asking for receipts to prove those numbers wrong are just adding their own guesses which carry way less weight then numbers we have been given by people who actually know people

Because there’s no facts here, the $400M figure thrown out was not done so by someone with “journalist” integrity
But guesses are much more accurate right?
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Which seems more and more plausible to me

Doubters asking for receipts to prove those numbers wrong are just adding their own guesses which carry way less weight then numbers we have been given by people who actually know people
That doesn't make sense.. you replied to a post about marketing budgets and other costs that Colin said weren't part of the $400 million.

So those things have nothing to do with his guess, and would be added to it as total overall money spent on Firewalk/Concord. Why is that suddenly more believable now?

If you think Sony spent "dev costs + $200 million:", then if you believe what Colin said you believe they spent $600 million all told on this failed investment
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Personally don't care what SM2 cost

Don't care what Halo Infinite cost (which I personally know the real number)

Honestly not sure why some of you guys are taking these costs so personally and trying your best to debunk things that are being reported on or making up your own numbers
Just having a conversation, nothing personal here.
 

Nydius

Gold Member
But guesses are much more accurate right?

James and Men In Boxes are the two biggest Concord clowns on these forums. They simply cannot accept reality that this game will be the biggest flop of not just this generation but several generations. They just keep coming back with the same shitposts and the same whataboutisms. I can't, for the life of me, fathom why. The game is done. Gone. Never to return. Meanwhile, the "wHaT aBoUt HaLo" is still alive and kicking, even if the engagement numbers are mediocre.

I've done my best to not ignore anyone around here but after the last few months of the same constant bullshit from these two over Concord flopping, I've had to put them both on my ignore list. There's no point engaging with them. Every time the topic comes up, the two of them posting reminds me of a moment from WrestleMania IX...

bIpsh70.jpeg
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
James and Men In Boxes are the two biggest Concord clowns on these forums. They simply cannot accept reality that this game will be the biggest flop of not just this generation but several generations. They just keep coming back with the same shitposts and the same whataboutisms. I can't, for the life of me, fathom why. The game is done. Gone. Never to return. Meanwhile, the "wHaT aBoUt HaLo" is still alive and kicking, even if the engagement numbers are mediocre.

I've done my best to not ignore anyone around here but after the last few months of the same constant bullshit from these two over Concord flopping, I've had to put them both on my ignore list. There's no point engaging with them. Every time the topic comes up, the two of them posting reminds me of a moment from WrestleMania IX...

bIpsh70.jpeg
I hate putting people on ignore here and I totally don't mind disagreeing with James Sawyer Ford James Sawyer Ford as he has never made it a personal attack on me and we can just agree to disagree

I don't have some on ignore though when they start the name calling :)
 
James and Men In Boxes are the two biggest Concord clowns on these forums. They simply cannot accept reality that this game will be the biggest flop of not just this generation but several generations. They just keep coming back with the same shitposts and the same whataboutisms. I can't, for the life of me, fathom why. The game is done. Gone. Never to return. Meanwhile, the "wHaT aBoUt HaLo" is still alive and kicking, even if the engagement numbers are mediocre.

I've done my best to not ignore anyone around here but after the last few months of the same constant bullshit from these two over Concord flopping, I've had to put them both on my ignore list. There's no point engaging with them. Every time the topic comes up, the two of them posting reminds me of a moment from WrestleMania IX...

bIpsh70.jpeg
Genuinely can't understand why they need to defend that heap of shit.
 
Personally don't care what SM2 cost

Don't care what Halo Infinite cost (which I personally know the real number)

Honestly not sure why some of you guys are taking these costs so personally and trying your best to debunk things that are being reported on or making up your own numbers

My numbers are based on pretty realistic estimates of headcount and years of development, using data from the insomniac leaks.

I would say that’s more reliable than the $400M dev costs alone because it’s grounded in reality
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Personally don't care what SM2 cost

Don't care what Halo Infinite cost (which I personally know the real number)

Honestly not sure why some of you guys are taking these costs so personally and trying your best to debunk things that are being reported on or making up your own numbers

The thing is though that when those halo infinite rumors started, the creative director (Frank / "stinkles") publicly commented that the figure was wrong.

No one from Sony / Firewalk / Concord has refuted these claims, which only lends them more credence, until proven otherwise.
 
No one from Sony / Firewalk / Concord has refuted these claims, which only lends them more credence, until proven otherwise.

A no comment does not lead any credence to the rumors. What are you talking about? Just because Stinkles denied certain claims doesn’t mean that a lack of a statement gives any sort of evidence for other studios

We also have Sony PMs on Twitter denying the $400M figures, so you’re wrong there too
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
sony has a policy of no commenting on rumors and speculation for a reason. it's a lose-lose scenario

Sure, but Firewalk people have very active social media accounts, any of them could have tagged and commented on the rumor before today if this was not true. They definitely commented on a lot of other things during the last few months.

A no comment does not lead any credence to the rumors. What are you talking about? Just because Stinkles denied certain claims doesn’t mean that a lack of a statement gives any sort of evidence for other studios

We also have Sony PMs on Twitter denying the $400M figures, so you’re wrong there too

See above. The lack of any comment from the active social media presence only leads to things like this sounding more true by the day.

It's clear that *you* are not going to believe this until you see a budget approval sheet signed by Herman Hulst, but the rest of us are commenting based on how there's 2, 3 different people reporting a very high budget figure.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
It might have been $400m for the launch plus an entire season of content, but realistically for a couple of years of burn rate... that seems way too much to me to be plausible. I highly doubt the staff were being paid higher than the rest of Sony first-party and the plain fact is that it wasn't that big of a team/studio.

$400m is the sort of figure I'd expect for a 5-6 year dev cycle, like TLOU2.
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
The thing is though that when those halo infinite rumors started, the creative director (Frank / "stinkles") publicly commented that the figure was wrong.

No one from Sony / Firewalk / Concord has refuted these claims, which only lends them more credence, until proven otherwise.
Yeah but Ybarra told me its final cost
 

Trilobit

Member
Putting people on ignore reduces the fun!

I've never blocked anyone here. The fun stuff happen when you collide somewhat with other users and there's flying sparks in a good discussion. But I wouldn't be surprised if I have been blocked by quite a few.

The only thing I've blocked has been the too numerous butt and boob threads that filled page 1 on Off-Topic at one point.
 
Right on cue here comes James with his “wHaT aBoUt HaLo?!” white knighting bullshit that he’s pulled in every single Concord flop thread.

Give it a fucking rest. You looked like a clown before, now you just look like the whole damn circus.
He's never gonna stop, he'll defend his plastic box until the day he dies.
 
He's never gonna stop, he'll defend his plastic box until the day he dies.

It has nothing to do with defending a plastic box. Concord is a major flop.

Just because I don’t believe it cost $600M like some of you doesn’t mean I’m defending Concord. I’m just defending getting the story correct, while a lot of you just simply believe anything as long as it piles on even more
 
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Imagine blowing over $200 million and having nothing to show for it. That’s crazy, Jim was smart to leave when he did.

The new CEOs have a long road ahead to recoup all that money.
 

PandaOk

Banned
So Colin Moriarty was right, 400 million for everything, what a colossal waste of money, whoever saw "something worth" in this piece of garbage game should resign, but yesterday 😂
No he wasn’t. He claimed the development budget was 400 million alone without even factoring in the other elements. That’s what people found ludicrous, and they’ve been proven correct. This isn’t difficult, I don’t even like concord, but accuracy should matter.
 
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Personally don't care what SM2 cost

Don't care what Halo Infinite cost (which I personally know the real number)

Honestly not sure why some of you guys are taking these costs so personally and trying your best to debunk things that are being reported on or making up your own numbers
I just remember Colin said about half of the money was spent before Sony was involved so he made it sound like Sony's loss was far less than the full $400 million but it was still very significant.
 

FunkMiller

Member
I believed 400 million was probably pretty accurate when it was initially reported because I know how expensive marketing and advertising actually is on a global scale.

I do struggle to believe the whole package was more than that though.
 
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