Firewalk Studios is being shut down

[Loy310]

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

Well hopefully nothing else fails and gets shuts down.
I think game is an artistic field of work and devs should be allowed to experiment with ideas, fail if they get it wrong and also succeed if they get it right.

 

[Etifilio]

They shut down Sony Liverpool over Wipeout 2048 in 2012 and also shut down Bigbig Studios and Zipper in the same year.
Also it is you with the one with no concept in reality because you are a graduate from the university of brown nosing Sony

why are you wasting your time arguing with a clown that justifies and acclaims every move, even the stupidest, baddest ones that Sony makes? he's just a fucking clown who can't accept the reality of things, and the reality of things is that Sony has lost billions of dollars trying to follow trends instead of just sticking to what worked and slowly dipping their toes into GAAS and Mobile without making any huge financial commitment/acquisition, now we are the ones paying for that with no tentpole releases in 2024 and only one tentpole release in 2023

i said to this clown months ago Firewalk would get closed and so will Haven if FairGame$ flops, and let's be honest, the chances of FairGame$ flopping are IMMENSE, just look at the dislike ratio on the trailer, turns out, gamers don't want these stupid trends that Sony is following with their GAAs games, they don't want another hero shooter, they don't want another extraction shooter, they want something original, something that TLOU Factions could bring, something that Spiderman The Greater Web could bring, but anyway, i won't waste my time here either, just comical to see such "analysts" now with their hands tied after backing all this shit up.

 

[Yobo]

Firewalk was comprised mostly of ex bungie Devs ....

So what

 

[Yurinka]

Let me give you a history lesson. When you see long time heads of PlayStation leaving out of no where like Connie Booth, you know something not good is happening within the company. Jim Ryan stepping down out of nowhere after now to the point they had to have Hiroki Totoki be an interim CEO is not a good sign.

If these signs seem normal to you then fine. Awesome I guess PlayStation will be all fine and Dandy and we can expect the rest of the PS5 generation to not have anymore studio closures right before the launch of the PS6?

Connie pretty likely took responsability for several projects she was in charge didn't work (Pixel Opus' title, TLOU Online, Deviation's game, Sony London's new IP, Concord).

Jim Ryan retired after 30 years of service having broken almost all records he could break, with SIE having the best generation ever in terms of revenue, profit and active userbase (and a lot of other key metrics). At a retirement age and giving notice of around half a year before leaving.

I'd say there will be several studio creations (we know there's minimum the secret ex-Deviation studio and the ex-Bungie studio), acquisitions (I expect them to resume acquisitions late 2025/early 2026) and closures (I think could be case of MM and Haven if their next game tank hard, something I think won't happen) before PS6 gets released around late 2027/early 2028.

They shut down Sony Liverpool over Wipeout 2048 in 2012 and also shut down Bigbig Studios and Zipper in the same year.

I might be the top 1 Wipeout fan, but I understand that this is a business and not a charity.

So there is nothing rare that -as it was the case of these teams- when several games in a row of a studio don't sell enough (normally meaning that the projects are unprofitable) it is pretty likely that will end shut down, as happened to them.

 

[Yurinka]

True, But they are releasing less and less games every generation which is kind of important for running a business of selling consoles.

Sony probably has the most employees in SIE ever but that doesn't change the fact that their output is smaller than last gen which was already smaller than the PS3 gen.

Their output isn't smaller: big games take longer to be made every generation for all companies, not only Sony. The only way for releasing games faster is to have more and bigger development teams.

This is the reason of why Sony acquired development studios, support studios and heavily grew the their previously existing studios during the Hermen and Ryan era.

Unless if Sony finds something out this is not sustainable.

When a publisher sees that a game won't be sustainable they cancel it, or in case of being an released live service game, they shut it down. It's better to do it as fast as possible, to reduce the amount of money lost with it.

Also I'm sure Sony knew some of their live services games would be flops which is why I'm sure they originally planned way more to come out then what they are currently releasing. However I am also sure nobody at Sony was expecting any of their live services games to be shut down in TWO WEEKS! after all that money was spent on it.

Well, they shat down 3 of them during development, before release. In GaaS is common to see games to be shut down during soft launch / early access once they see the game metrics aren't good enough to sustain it in the long term. In case of ND it was different, but canned it too.

They acquired Bungie and got 3 GaaS that replaced the 3 canned GaaS. Pretty likely they had planned to at some point to can 3 GaaS. Their plan of having a dozen GaaS continues.

 

[Neversummer]

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.

You did all that typing just to be wrong

Sony was trying purchase Paramount for 26 billion for a division that’s been doing mediocre at best. There wouldn’t be that much fracture if Sony bought a publisher & made there games exclusive unlike Xbox that have diminish there hardware, storefront & consumer base in buying premium games

 

[arvfab]

You suggest foreclosing on other platforms, but you can see all that leads to is reduced revenue with similar operating costs

Yet - going by your past comments - forclosing is the greatest danger for Sony if "big tech" enters the game (again)?

 

[SLB1904]

Dei>game

According to these stupid fucks at SEI

 

[Vertigo]

Sweet Baby Inc and DEI in gaming is dead. 2024 put an end to it. Not one bought the shit. No one watches Acolyte and Agatha. No amount of gaslighting and lies can make consumers like dog shit.

Thank god. Enough of this soulless designed by committee dumpster fires. We need real game devs back.

I don’t feel bad one bit. Concord fucking sucked. Slow, cringe trash whose best aspects were stolen, copy and pasted from their former employer. Only console warrior kool aid drinkers pretended to like it… players who actually play online games knew to trash it within 5 mins.

 

[Gediminas]

Sweet Baby Inc and DEI in gaming is dead. 2024 put an end to it. Not one bought the shit. No one watches Acolyte and Agatha. No amount of gaslighting and lies can make consumers like dog shit.

Thank god. Enough of this soulless designed by committee dumpster fires. We need real game devs back.

Fir sure, it ain't finished yet. Fuckers charging the names, and keeps harassing devs and pubs. It is multi millions scam, they won't let it go so easy.

 

[Vertigo]

Fir sure, it ain't finished yet. Fuckers charging the names, and keeps harassing devs and pubs. It is multi millions scam, they won't let it go so easy.

I can’t see this happening anymore. These are colossal failures. At the end of the day these publishers and devs need to make money. They need to sell a product and bring home a salary. They will not continue to make games that don’t sell — they’ll be shuttered or starving. There’s no way the industry isn’t making a u-turn… or just giving up on western devs and looking at china.

 

[Gediminas]

I can’t see this happening anymore. These are colossal failures. At the end of the day these publishers and devs need to make money. They need to sell a product and bring home a salary. They will not continue to make games that don’t sell — they’ll be shuttered or starving. There’s no way the industry isn’t making a u-turn… or just giving up on western devs and looking at china.

They are compensated for pushing this shit through sweet baby and other perverse channels.

 

[Vertigo]

They are compensated for pushing this shit through sweet baby and other perverse channels.

The grift and squeeze is the business model (many at Firewalk shouldn’t have made the money they were making), and agenda pushed thru cult of personality. Okay sure… but at the end of the day it’s still about money made. That’s the beauty about gaming here. We resoundingly reject a product and when we do it usually has consequences. I’m a bit more optimistic about this considering many pubs and devs across the globe will grab the opportunity instead.

 

[Sircaw]

I can’t see this happening anymore. These are colossal failures. At the end of the day these publishers and devs need to make money. They need to sell a product and bring home a salary. They will not continue to make games that don’t sell — they’ll be shuttered or starving. There’s no way the industry isn’t making a u-turn… or just giving up on western devs and looking at china.

It won't end; the infection has seeped its way in to deep,

They will be back, 100% guaranteed.

 

[Shmunter]

It won't end; the infection has seeped its way in to deep,

They will be back, 100% guaranteed.

Even now?

 

[Sircaw]

Even now?

Especially now.

 

[Boswollox]

Especially now.

It's dead, Jim.

We had the era of gritty grey games (how I long for those days!!), we are leaving the era of woke games, what's next, who knows? Modern shooters? Vampires? Zombies? We've had them all.
Woke era will be dead by 2025.

 

[Monkeyclaw]

It's dead, Jim.

We had the era of gritty grey games (how I long for those days!!), we are leaving the era of woke games, what's next, who knows? Modern shooters? Vampires? Zombies? We've had them all.
Woke era will be dead by 2025.

Yup. It's not sustainable anymore. Every shoehorned woke project got stomped into the ground and well deserved.

2024: The year of Wallet Power

Saints Row
Dustborn
Concord
Star Wars
Dragon Age: Failguard
Unknown 9
Flintlock
All dead and buried.

And sights are already being set on the next big flopping donkey dick of a game DEI lecture.

Gamers are leaving a pile of rotting corpses.