Get Woke, Go Broke - Sony and Concord Edition

From That Park Place, we get this completely foreseeable news. Sony And PlayStation Shut Down ‘Concord’ Developer Firewalk Studios

Sony Interactive Entertainment and PlayStation Studios Head Herman Hulst announced that it has shut down Concord developer Firewalk Studios about a year after it purchased it from ProbablyMonsters.

Sony was in love with the video game Concord. They reportedly spent a couple of hundred million dollars to acquire the game development company Firewalk Studios, from its then parent ProbablyMonsters. The amount they spent was never disclosed.

Sony then spent a couple of hundred million dollars (or a lot more than a couple of hundred million dollars) to bring the game to market. This doesn't count the money ProbablyMonsters and Firewalk Studios spent to start development.

The game was released 23 August, to much fanfare, and lot of "critical acclaim." It was a commercial disaster of epic proportions. Estimates are that Sony only recouped about $1 million of their investment.

While the game was available to play it only hit a peak concurrent of just 697 on Steam.

That is less than $30,000 gross revenue from one of the largest video game distribution services in the world.

On 3 September, less than 2 weeks after launch, Sony announced that they would be shutting down the servers, and issuing refunds to whoever had purchased the game. Now they have closed Firewalk Studios.

Speaking specifically to Firewalk Studios, [Hulst] said, “Regarding Firewalk, as announced in early September (An Important Update on Concord), certain aspects of Concord were exceptional, but others did not land with enough players, and as a result we took the game offline. We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options. After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio.  I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.”

There is much talk about market conditions, and in truth Sony did just about everything wrong when it came to Concord. It entered the crowded Hero Shooter arena, when there are a number of established titles. It was derivative of those titles. While most Hero Shooters are free-to-play, and they get you to spend money in other ways, Concord cost $40 up front.

And then there were the characters.

If you click thru to the article you can see images of some of them. They were derided as Woke, Discount Guardians of the Galaxy, and more.

For a short overview of the situation see this video from RK Outpost: Woke Concord Developer SHUT DOWN By Sony After Colossal FAILURE! | Firewalk Studios Gets Shut Down

There are too many articles/videos on this incident to list. In at least a couple of them, an environment of "toxic positivity" was described. Sony (meaning, I believe Hurst) saw this as their Star Wars. In their minds it was destined to become a beloved franchise, spanning TV, movies, and merchandising. No criticism was allowed. Any comments about the characters could get you hauled off to HR for a discussion of your aversion to the revolution message. Or something.