Apparently Concord Cost Sony 400 million and was internally championed as future of playstation

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quest4441

quest4441

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I have to push back on this about Hermen being the one to go multiplat.

Sean Layden has said in the WUPS podcast that the PC strat was his idea, he is the one that opened Pandora's box and timeline aligns he also stated that GaaS was an inevitable model they would pursue (metric based). Also it's obvious that the California centric management has happened and shifted under his reign.

Concord being 400? If we go about headcount of 150 and above avg salary in California 200k: that would mean 30 mill a year in operating costs. We know they had a partnership in 2021 and acquired them last year. Even if they funded the whole 8 years, no way.
So that means they had to spend 300 mill in acquiring them but apparently Colin states this is wo acquisition. That would mean they got insane salaries but I doubt it.
I think we are forgetting that the contractors work on the game too for those years not just full time employees, the last 18 months seem to be a rush job too so the external contracting firms must have charged a premium on top of their standard rates.
 

ToTTenTranz

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No way that has cost 400 million.

People are inflating the number now by a mile.

Was it a disaster yer but this is getting beyond ridiculous now.
It's a very believable number once you factor in those CGI clips planned to release every week. How many of those are already made is up to anyone's guess.
 
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Are we claiming that episode costs over 200m? Considering in the same anthology series there is an episode on Spelunky? Did the Spelunky episode cost 200m too?

The number is BS but people with a axe to grind are clinging to it like it's fact. Worst case scenario we can't reach 400m.
The episode can cost 30-50 million easily, the costs add up. Someone went crazy with the checkbook and in this case it seems to be Herman who doesn't have much oversight over him
 

Dick Jones

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The episode can cost 30-50 million easily, the costs add up. Someone went crazy with the checkbook and in this case it seems to be Herman who doesn't have much oversight over him
So Concord tv show cost 50m according to you.

Now break down how the game cost 350m. I'd be interested in how it's broken down to sound reasonable. To me claiming it cost 400m sounds like utter wank.
 

Men_in_Boxes

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It's a very believable number once you factor in those CGI clips planned to release every week. How many of those are already made is up to anyone's guess.
I like how Concord costs 400 million dollars to make because of CGI clips but for some reason companies like Naughty Dog and Square Enix can make them infinitely cheaper.

People looking pretty silly right now. Colin perhaps the most.
 
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I like how Concord costs 400 million dollars to make because of CGI clips but for some reason companies like Naughty Dog and Square Enix can make them infinitely cheaper.

People looking pretty silly right now. Colin perhaps the most.
It is totally made up... I have no ideia how can people believe that 🤷‍♂️

Even so Colin Moriarty spread lies here and there all the time people keep giving him news topics lol
 
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ToTTenTranz

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So Concord tv show cost 50m according to you.

Now break down how the game cost 350m. I'd be interested in how it's broken down to sound reasonable. To me claiming it cost 400m sounds like utter wank.
You reach $400M easily when you're paying a team of 150 senior developers living in Bellevue WA (where the median home costs $1.3M and median rent is $4K), who probably get paid close to $350K a year on average.

Do that for 5 years, and then at some point you need to hire contractors to do additional work, and if everyone shuts up because the leadership believes in that crap, you'll reach those numbers.
 

Etifilio

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Seems like fake news...

$400 million lol

You guys can create something more real.
up until 2023 - 200M dollars (game started development in 2019), after Q1 2023 and the game being a mess, Sony invested another 200M in outsorcing to make it work, bringing the total to $400M not counting the acquisition of the studio
 

CrackmanNL

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I think we are forgetting that the contractors work on the game too for those years not just full time employees, the last 18 months seem to be a rush job too so the external contracting firms must have charged a premium on top of their standard rates.
Still that would require insane numbers, only way that would happen is if they got ripped off. But Sony knows the market and they are thoroughly represented in that area for decades at this point. If they got those insane salaries..

I don't care about Sony's financials but they could'v easily funded/bougth Eastern-Europe devs with this amount like 4A games (Metro devs) and fund a big J-RPG project from Asian devs at the same time.
 

Dick Jones

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You reach $400M easily when you're paying a team of 150 senior developers living in Bellevue WA (where the median home costs $1.3M and median rent is $4K), who probably get paid close to $350K a year on average.

Do that for 5 years, and then at some point you need to hire contractors to do additional work, and if everyone shuts up because the leadership believes in that crap, you'll reach those numbers.
150 x 350,000 = 52,500,000
52,500,000 x 5 = 262,500,000

100m on contractors?
50m on a TV show episode?

Your numbers lack credibility.
 
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quest4441

quest4441

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So Concord tv show cost 50m according to you.

Now break down how the game cost 350m. I'd be interested in how it's broken down to sound reasonable. To me claiming it cost 400m sounds like utter wank.
Okay lets assume 6 years of development-

They start of with at least 80-100 employees in 2018, Probably Monsters raised 265 million to fund the 3 studios under them.
We can assume a burn rate of 25 million/yr for employee salaries for both full time and external contractors for each studio they have as they started having financial problems by 2022 and shuttered one studio

Add in the overheads of real estate, expensive facilities management etc for 10-15 million a year. This is bellevue, washington after all

With bonuses and increments so far we are hitting around 120 million in total costs come 2022 for firewalk, Now Probably monsters starts facing financial troubles so Sony comes in and bails them out.

The dev team increases to 150-170 + increasing contractors brings the burn rate to 40-50 million.

This comes out to around 200-250 million come 2024, Now I think the rush job hiring contractors to finish the game must have cost a premium so add in those costs as well, Add in the marketing costs (streamers, tv show, controllers etc etc). The expensive cinematics add in another 50 million if they stockpiled for at least an year

I bet the whole thing cost anywhere between 300-400 million, even if its 300 that is a disastrous number.

And as stated by the players who liked the game - the game seems to have top notch quality, polish and looks expensive so it is reasonable to expect it to be expensive to make.
 
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quest4441

quest4441

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Still that would require insane numbers, only way that would happen is if they got ripped off. But Sony knows the market and they are thoroughly represented in that area for decades at this point. If they got those insane salaries..

I don't care about Sony's financials but they could'v easily funded/bougth Eastern-Europe devs with this amount like 4A games (Metro devs) and fund a big J-RPG project from Asian devs at the same time.
This is what we have been lamenting about, they can get good games made for 50-100 million and achieve moderate profits on them but Sony seems to want a billion dollar cash cow that pays year after year like fortnite and gta online
 

Men_in_Boxes

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Okay lets assume 6 years of development-

They start of with at least 80-100 employees in 2018
A Firewalk developer already said "We had less than 12 developers in 2019".

See how far off some of you are? It's crazy what nonsense gets spread here.
 

ToTTenTranz

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150 x 350,000 = 52,500,000
52,500,000 x 5 = 262,500,000

100m on contractors?
50m on a TV show episode?

Your numbers lack credibility.

Who said anything about one TV show episode costing $50M? Not me for sure.

Do you know how many episodes were fully produced before the game got shut down? I think I missed that particular leak you speak of.
 

Say1nMan

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No way this was $400 million. Absurd amount for a multiplayer only game that they charged only $40 for. The toxic positivity thing is believable though. And when Colin said Concord was dubbed as "the future of PlaySation" came across to me like these dudes thought Concord was going to be the second coming of Destiny since Colin said the devs saw a vision where they could constantly go back to the game and make it last for years. What a flop.