Firewalk Studios is being shut down

[Vertigo]

No. Not sadly. They knew they were taking a risk and with it they pissed in their own Cornflakes.
The game didnt land well with the general audience. Don't blame people who saw this coming from miles away and voiced their opinion.

Blame fucking Sony/ Firewalk for doing a "LALALALALALALA dont wanna listen!"

Gamers voted with their wallets and Sony lost this ballot. Stop moving goalposts and accept that your beloved brand went and fucked up big time.

I played the beta and liked the mechanics. But I hated the character models. Just like 99,999999% of players. Wanna blame them all?
Nah mate, blame Sony.

Say Tesla brings out a horrid looking car and no-one buys it. Gonna blame the drivers? That's beyond fucked up.

I want everyone to enjoy games. Being it Concord or whatever and im genuinly sorry that you cant enjoy it anymore. Honestly.

But if the game had any outstanding features or mechanics, people would have looked past the characters. But there was nothing there other then a generic GaaS title with tight controls. And that alone isnt enough to warrant success.

Yup. It was bad. It didn’t help that anyone loving it was a console warrior and not anyone I recognized as a fan of shooters. It’s the quickest I’ve noped out of a game. Instantly knew it could go fuck itself.

What it did well it just copy and pasted from Bungie itself but at half speed and not as readable due to poor art direction and color use. Just go play Halo or Destiny. I’ve been playing Bungie shooters for close to 25 years now… and I saw nothing here to pull me in.

And then of course, which needs to be mentioned… Valorant’s console launch was placed right on top of it and ate its lunch and didn’t even leave crumbs.

You can’t be launching live service games that aren’t doing anything new.


PS - I don’t see where this idea that they should’ve been given another chance is coming from. For what reason? They failed. Most never get another chance. Heck, even success stories — it’s always a Hail Mary play where devs would risk it all. I mean… what are we expecting to happen?

 

[Monkeyclaw]

All gamers/men right now:

All They/Them right now:

Even the numbers are accurate. Well done good Sir!

 

[Yobo]

The sad thing is Firewall was probably full of your average joe talented developers that would have gone far ten years ago but now get shoved down the pecking order cause they are a nerdy white guy instead of a trans activist

 

[Kokoloko]

Let go of Killzone already

These people never played Shadow Fall. Shit was terrible, played terrible, sold terrible and the series was never the Halo killer PS needed it to be. I couldnt even finish Shadow Fall at launch lol.
And they probably didnt play Concord so ultimately there opinion has nothing to do with gameplay

 

[KvallyX]

The sad thing is Firewall was probably full of your average joe talented developers that would have gone far ten years ago but now get shoved down the pecking order cause they are a nerdy white guy instead of a trans activist

They are no doubt a team of talent. I hate to see anyone lose their jobs. Maybe they can spin off a new studio, learn their lesson from Concord, and create a new great game. If that is their passion, they will make it happen.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

but concord should be made playable in some way,

They do that and Sony can't recoup several tens of millions in tax write-off so no, it's not going to happen.

you shouldn't close a studio after a single flop

There's no point in keeping the studio. There were mostly two types of people hired at Firewalk:

1 - Leadership made up of industry veterans who came from Bungie and Activision, and allowed for a climate of feedback-less toxic positivity to fester which resulted in losses of several hundred million for the publisher. Meaning they're completely unfit for these positions.

2 - DEI hires.

3 - People that are somehow competent but didn't see or ignored the sinking ship until way too late.


I guess I feel for 3), but you can't keep a studio running on those alone. Odds are they're being given offers for other studios from Sony anyways.

 

[Vertigo]

If Sony is looking for jobs for them…

With the Bungie to SIE hires, it was like a multi-tiered thing mostly to pull talent not necessarily game design, overlap and oversight of service aspirations (aside from that team of 40 with now with Blundell - maybe). Some of that seem negotiated between Bungie and Sony and others just given a shot to try their resume for the job. (It also seems that some of the laid off musicians are back for the next expansions but contracted now thru Sony [album rights I suppose])

I would assume that guys like Josh Hamrick from Firewalk will stay within Sony, at Bungie since they’re hiring or the gummy bears team. Ryan Ellis is probably done.

Otherwise, I’m assuming Sony said “fuck it” and was ruthless. I’m sure we will hear about it.

 

[RE4-City]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Why couldn't they have announced this on November 7th when Mario and Luigi comes out! it would of been perfect meme material for all the Concordia marketing that game was getting.

Well anyway, I don't know how many guys worked at FireWalk and Neon Koi but I have to imagine there are quite a few good people who lost their jobs yesterday and I feel bad for them. I know the guy who called people talentless freaks on twitter and the other bad people at the studio don't deserve sympathy but feels bad for the good people who lost their jobs.
Now hopefully Microsoft and Sony never purchase another studio anytime soon with how many both have shut down this year. Shame on these companies having record breaking profits and still canning these studios. Also Bungie had like 200 layoffs in August I think and this needs to be figured out.

I personally hope Haven has better luck than Firewalk and Neon Koi (who haven't even shipped a game as far as I can tell) as I think Jade Raymond has a lot of experience in the gaming industry and would hate to see her new game flop like this. I rather see next years MLB flop then her new game or even Marathon as I haven't really cared about Bungie since Halo 3.

 

[Bryank75]

lmao, with fans like yall the whole playstation business might just go bust.

It is weird to see them wanting to see games fail just because... FairGame$ should probably be rebranded but I def don't wanna see it fail.

I don't, it's not a hope...it's just speculation. Based on the reception etc.

 

[Danja]

I don't, it's not a hope...it's just speculation. Based on the reception etc.

Unfortunately it might flop. I feel PlayStation poisoned the GaaS well with how bullish they were with the initial push. There's a ALOT of resentment from loyalists.i have some. Myself but unless they fully rebrand the game I fear, it will have a similar fate. But I still want it to succeed. I like Sony Multiplayers overall

 

[BarrierIslandZilla]

Go woke go broke

Even if the game was filled to the brim with barely dressed attractive women, the game is still……bad. It wasn’t good.

 

[AllBizness]

Sony might as well kill their entire gaas initiative and just stick with Destiny 2 and Helldivers 2. Sony doesn't understand that multiplayer games need to incubate and cook to become better over time. Concord had solid gameplay. All they had to do was add more of the type of heros/characters the audience wanted and problem solved. But they dumbass are treating gaas like singleplayer games and you cant do that. If a singleplayer game flops, it's still out there and people can still buy and play them, but when a gaas flips they want to shut it down completely and fans cant even play it anymore. Fuck Sony's gaas initiative, I'm not even going to check for their multiplayer games anymore. They are just a single player publisher in ny eyes now.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Sony/PS would be better of if they took MS approach & just bought whole publishers & acquire the team that already have a history of cadence, quality & output.

Buy Capcom (western/asia/esports)
Buy Square Enix (japan/asia)
Buy Hoyoverse (mobile)
Kadokawa (ps production/anime/manga)

Not to mention Bungie marathon is multiplat in where the PS5 console sell & landscape is looking spooky they have marathon being multiplat where it should be PS & PC exclusive to push PS console hell it should even get a PS4 just to further ensure game population.

PS future look bleak due to Jim, Herman & Sony/PS short sighted vision chasing small profits/growth on competitors platform at the demise of there own platform, storefront & hardware. It’s like they saw Xbox implode & said ehh let’s head the same direction as those guys

I really think the problem with people like you is that you have really poor understanding of things.

Let's start of with your premise that Sony would be better off buying publishers like Microsoft. I think fundamentally you don't understand how small Sony is, not just in relation to Microsoft, but in relation to being able to buy publishers.

I think you also don't understand the trade off with buying a publisher, let's use Capcom as an example.

You buy Capcom and you used to make up to 30% off of their games with zero cost to Sony. Now you make 100% but you had to buy them for billions of dollars. What are you getting out of Capcom that you weren't getting before?

You suggest foreclosing on other platforms, but you can see all that leads to is reduced revenue with similar operating costs. In your mind you're convinced that everyone buying Capcom games on other platforms will rush to buy PlayStation consoles, but that isn't really how foreclosure works. People HAPPEN to buy Capcom games on PC and Xbox, there's not much evidence to suggest that they'll change their entire consumer ecosystem just due to Capcom games.

So now you're just selling less software and you're incurring Capcom's operating cost but with less revenue than they were making before you bought them and all you're getting in return is an extra 70 percent of their PS revenue in exchange for their operating costs and the cost of buying them.

Capcom is worth 10.9 billion USD... so with premium you'd have to buy them for minimum 13.625 billion dollars and at most 16.35 billion dollars.

You think Jim and Herman are short sighted, but look at you...

Not to mention what happens to Capcom's revenue when they've run out of remakes of Resident Evil and what happens if future RE games decline in popularity.

At the end of the day you're a fanboy whose mentality is tied to the idea that exclusives sell consoles, but you ignore the success Sony has had since the end of the PS3 era with exclusives and yet people are still buying Xbox consoles and did through out the PS4's time on the market.

Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon, TLOUP2, Uncharted 4.... the biggest selling games in Sony's history, and Xbox still sold nearly 60 million units.

You fundamentally don't understand consumers and think consumers are fanboys like you. They aren't. Their buying habits are based around ecosystem, yes, but they're not as focused on foreclosed 3rd party titles as you think they are. Just as Microsoft buying publishers has not expanded their market share this generation.

 

[Bryank75]

Concord: a warning - Reforge gaming

 

[Bryank75]

I really think the problem with people like you is that you have really poor understanding of things.

Let's start of with your premise that Sony would be better off buying publishers like Microsoft. I think fundamentally you don't understand how small Sony is, not just in relation to Microsoft, but in relation to being able to buy publishers.

I think you also don't understand the trade off with buying a publisher, let's use Capcom as an example.

You buy Capcom and you used to make up to 30% off of their games with zero cost to Sony. Now you make 100% but you had to buy them for billions of dollars. What are you getting out of Capcom that you weren't getting before?

You suggest foreclosing on other platforms, but you can see all that leads to is reduced revenue with similar operating costs. In your mind you're convinced that everyone buying Capcom games on other platforms will rush to buy PlayStation consoles, but that isn't really how foreclosure works. People HAPPEN to buy Capcom games on PC and Xbox, there's not much evidence to suggest that they'll change their entire consumer ecosystem just due to Capcom games.

So now you're just selling less software and you're incurring Capcom's operating cost but with less revenue than they were making before you bought them and all you're getting in return is an extra 70 percent of their PS revenue in exchange for their operating costs and the cost of buying them.

Capcom is worth 10.9 billion USD... so with premium you'd have to buy them for minimum 13.625 billion dollars and at most 16.35 billion dollars.

You think Jim and Herman are short sighted, but look at you...

Not to mention what happens to Capcom's revenue when they've run out of remakes of Resident Evil and what happens if future RE games decline in popularity.

At the end of the day you're a fanboy whose mentality is tied to the idea that exclusives sell consoles, but you ignore the success Sony has had since the end of the PS3 era with exclusives and yet people are still buying Xbox consoles and did through out the PS4's time on the market.

Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon, TLOUP2, Uncharted 4.... the biggest selling games in Sony's history, and Xbox still sold nearly 60 million units.

You fundamentally don't understand consumers and think consumers are fanboys like you. They aren't. Their buying habits are based around ecosystem, yes, but they're not as focused on foreclosed 3rd party titles as you think they are. Just as Microsoft buying publishers has not expanded their market share this generation.

If they put console sales growth above short term profit, Capcom or a similar investment would be worth it...

But everything has to align for that, all games must be exclusive.

Xbox is dead...so it's a non issue

Pc is the most direct competitor now and they must start to act like it.

They can make a deal with apple of the want to and bring their exclusives to Mac in return for partial funding.

Concord and their pc friendly direction has already wasted billions that could have been used for a good acquisition...

But it all doesn't matter when the overall strategy is dogshit.

PlayStation is being eroded by bad management and it needs to be fixed.

Splitting management between console and software was yet another signal that Sony have no idea what they're doing.

Console and games are a symbiotic relationship.

Do you think Nintendo would exist without their focus on exclusive IP?

It's not different.... The only difference is that Nintendo have the will and determination to put 40 plus years into making sure you won't get their games anywhere else.

Sony as company, come to everything late and were about to launch an electric car as the industry collapses...

Sony telling PlayStation what to do is stupid beyond belief.

 

[Boswollox]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this game didn't fail because of woke
It failed because live service games are a gamble by default, and the game was an Overwatch clone from an unproven studio with forgettable character design years after Overwatch lost its relevance.

So what you're saying is "fairgame$ is doomed"?

 

[Boswollox]

Xbox is dead...so it's a non issue

Xbox died 12 - 14 years ago. Microsoft could clone the DNA of Xbox and bring it back to its' former glory.
They could.
But they won't because they're too dumb to know how.
But what Xbox represents isn't dead, it's just sleeping.

 

[TrishaCat]

So what you're saying is "fairgame$ is doomed"?

Probably, but not necessarily
Its a gamble
You can win at gambling, but you should never *expect* to win

 

[mibu no ookami]

If they put console sales growth above short term profit, Capcom or a similar investment would be worth it...

But everything has to align for that, all games must be exclusive.

Xbox is dead...so it's a non issue

Pc is the most direct competitor now and they must start to act like it.

They can make a deal with apple of the want to and bring their exclusives to Mac in return for partial funding.

Concord and their pc friendly direction has already wasted billions that could have been used for a good acquisition...

But it all doesn't matter when the overall strategy is dogshit.

PlayStation is being eroded by bad management and it needs to be fixed.

Splitting management between console and software was yet another signal that Sony have no idea what they're doing.

Console and games are a symbiotic relationship.

Do you think Nintendo would exist without their focus on exclusive IP?

It's not different.... The only difference is that Nintendo have the will and determination to put 40 plus years into making sure you won't get their games anywhere else.

Sony as company, come to everything late and were about to launch an electric car as the industry collapses...

Sony telling PlayStation what to do is stupid beyond belief.

The general premise that someone with a Y device will buy a PS5 instead because of X game is fundamentally unsound.

This is particularly true of PC gaming, where the best selling games are largely F2P and/or PC oriented.

Splitting management between console and software actually shows Sony knows exactly what it is doing and understanding the complexities of the video game industry.

Nintendo has games released on mobile. Pokemon Go has been one of the biggest mobile games ever made. It's made them billions of dollars. Pokemon Go isn't even available on Switch.

One of the biggest problems with fanboy mentality is that it ignores all evidence to maintain the illusion.

 

[BillyZ]

The general premise that someone with a Y device will buy a PS5 instead because of X game is fundamentally unsound.

This is particularly true of PC gaming, where the best selling games are largely F2P and/or PC oriented.

Splitting management between console and software actually shows Sony knows exactly what it is doing and understanding the complexities of the video game industry.

Nintendo has games released on mobile. Pokemon Go has been one of the biggest mobile games ever made. It's made them billions of dollars. Pokemon Go isn't even available on Switch.

One of the biggest problems with fanboy mentality is that it ignores all evidence to maintain the illusion.

Phones aren't competition for a console. The kind of gaming you do there is very different so you might as well release something there and get a piece of the pie. On the other hand releasing games on PC when you are a console maker is retarded.