BREAKING: Sony is shutting down Firewalk Studios, the maker of the recent shooter Concord (Update: Neon Koi is also closing)

RCU005 said:
Sony is seemingly heading into a a path the majority of players don't want (DEI, GaaS, etc.)
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Factions cancelled.
Studios rumoured to reset their project development / project pipelines.
London Studios, Deviation Games, Neon Koi and Firewalk shut down.
Trimming and sprinkling Bungie back into SIE.

All this actually suggests GaaS isn't their path anymore and nowhere near the priority that it once recently was. Hiroki even spelt this out for you already.
 
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Hollowpoint5557 said:
Now those employees will scatter like parasites and infect other developers who are too stupid to properly vett them.
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That's fine. If a developer is willing to employ someone based on their political ideology rather than their skill at narrative and design, then they will fall apart too. Hiring practises will inevitably change at the developers who wish to continue existing. It's called survival of the fittest. More than enough games being made for the industry and the audience to cope with more developers going to the wall. In fact that gives less well known devs with new IP a chance to shine.
 
begotten said:
All this actually suggests GaaS isn't their path anymore and nowhere near the priority that it once recently was. Hiroki even spelt this out for you already.
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You'd think that because that's the logical thing to do after all failures Sony has had, but they are doubling down on live service games with Bungie, and are giving even more money to live service games!! Extremely stupid!
 
Hulst should have been fired too, if he had any hand in Concord being greenlit, and in the acquisition of the studio. Talk about an unforced error. Whatever profits they made on Helldivers 2 went straight down the Concord drain.
 
RCU005 said:
This is a great way to show what to expect with Hulst as CEO. His tenure is going to be hell for players and the gaming industry.

I wish Nintendo has great success with Switch 2 since right now it's the only company that is "grounded" in what consumers really want (fun games first).

Also, hopefully Microsoft will be able to come up with a good strategy for next generation, as Sony is seemingly heading into a a path the majority of players don't want (DEI, GaaS, etc.)
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Sony might release another Concord...but they also release games like Helldivers 2, Astrobot, Spider-Man 2, and the future Ghost of Yotei (also single player). People aren't going to leave Sony's console for another brand that's...also releasing their games on Playstation.
 
begotten said:
Factions cancelled.
Studios rumoured to reset their project development / project pipelines.
London Studios, Deviation Games, Neon Koi and Firewalk shut down.
Trimming and sprinkling Bungie back into SIE.

All this actually suggests GaaS isn't their path anymore and nowhere near the priority that it once recently was. Hiroki even spelt this out for you already.
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They are doing what is called "failing fast". It was an inevitability that most GaaS will fail. They should have cut ties sooner with Concord, lesson learned

They are looking to find SOME properties that they can grow. They have one with Helldivers, they want others like Marathon and Fairgames, but this strategy will cut swiftly for those that fail
 
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James Sawyer Ford said:
The people that inked the deals with Firewalk are now gone and retired
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The people that inked the deals are perhaps gone, but let's not kid ourselves that Hermen Hulst had absolutely no say in the whole deal. Hulst was the head of PlayStation Studios. He would have been directly involved in the decision process, in the evaluation of the prospects of a new studio and the game they were developing and would have to report back to just a handful of higher-ups at Playstation and Sony Corp.
 
kruis said:
The people that inked the deals are perhaps gone, but let's not kid ourselves that Hermen Hulst had absolutely no say in the whole deal. Hulst was the head of PlayStation Studios. He would have been directly involved in the decision process, in the evaluation of the prospects of a new studio and the game they were developing and would have to report back to just a handful of higher-ups at Playstation and Sony Corp.
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I agree, but agendas are usually set at the top. It's very likely the heads of playstation throughout the years are the ones looking at how much CoD, Fortnite, Overwatch, etc. are generating on Playstation and are basically given a mandate to someone like Hulst to try and capture that lightning in a bottle. Hulst takes responsibility for the ultimate product, but at the end of the day Concord suffered from something that's intrinsically unappealing but at the same time mechanically and technically competent, so I can see where there was an illusion that this game could become a success, especially in a world where so many other shooters of that ilk were. But it's the fallacy of not doing anything that genuinely stands out and having designs that are intended to appeal to a wide audience but ends up completely sacrificing any sort of compelling identity to achieve that.

People want Hulst's head to roll for Concord's failure, but he's also been responsible for a great cadence of titles on the PS5 platform, and in particular this year has been especially strong with the likes of Helldivers 2, Astro Bot, and partnerships like FF7R, SH2, Stellar Blade, and Rise of the Ronin. Nobody is going to have a 1000 batting average, and there's not been a single year where PS5 has been absolutely devoid of content, and has arguably seen the strongest start (content wise) to a playstation platform since the PS2 era.

So I am not quick to dismiss him despite the massive failure that is Concord, there's also lots of success as well.
 
PendekarRajawali said:
giphy.gif
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I have to do it 😂😂😂
 
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i am not really like both jim ryan and herman, but seeing people (especially on other forum) blame it on them feel kind of weird, how it's their fault, they paid hundred million of dollar for this game, while other indle studio has to pay their arm and leg to get that budget (like wukong devs they work years without payment), sony just hand it out on silver plate, but still their fault for this game failure?
 
I honestly thought they were going to at least try and bring it back. Someone at Sony needs to get PUNISHED for this... :messenger_alien_monster:
 
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Cakeboxer said:
"We are thrilled to join the PlayStation Studios family, and we couldn't be more excited about the future that we'll create together."

That didn't age well.
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Its typical Hulst fluff talk. Empty PR words with no actual genuine creative weight behind them.

Shin-Ra said:
(...)

Yes, yes he is.

More than half of WWS/PlayStation Studios' lifetime studio closures have been under his leadership.

Firewalk Studio
Neon Koi
Pixelopus
London Studio
Japan Studio creative teams
Studio Cambridge / Guerrilla Cambridge
Manchester Studio
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Dude is a fucking bane to Sony. He needs to be muzzled and demoted ASAP. If Totoki doesn't recognize that, he'll sink Sony even further.
 
400 million dollars....enough to have funded EIGHT high calibre Japanese games with top of the line production values. 400 million dollars....I hate corporate greed so much.
 
So what we all knew was going to happen happend? I for one am shocked. SHOCKED I TELL YOU!!!!!

I do feel sorry for those who did work there minus those in charge and who dictated the direction of the game. I have no doubt some good folks lost their jobs to decisions outside their scope and call. That sucks for them. Those in charge failed those folks. They cost them their jobs. I hope those folks land on their feet. I really do.
 
begotten said:
Factions cancelled.
Studios rumoured to reset their project development / project pipelines.
London Studios, Deviation Games, Neon Koi and Firewalk shut down.
Trimming and sprinkling Bungie back into SIE.

All this actually suggests GaaS isn't their path anymore and nowhere near the priority that it once recently was. Hiroki even spelt this out for you already.
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You know what, you're right.

It reeks of complete amateur hour miss management that we have never seen before.

This generations sony has been a complete and utter clusterfuck.

They had the easiest job, ride out the ps4s success and they are still managing to self sabotage themselves from that colossal generation.
 
Dirk Benedict said:
It is time for the Professor to downgrade into Kindergarten Teacher.
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I wouldn't put that fucker anywhere near kids, he can keep his his shit to himself, his mentalness has already destroyed how many lives with this studio closure, I'm sure he'll set up Purple Hair studios or something
 
DenchDeckard said:
You know what, you're right.

It reeks of complete amateur hour miss management that we have never seen before.

This generations sony has been a complete and utter clusterfuck.

They had the easiest job, ride out the ps4s success and they are still managing to self sabotage themselves from that colossal generation.
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They saw the skin sales in Fortnite and got greedy. Why make Last of Us 3 when they could just make billions selling you new Joel skins in a gaas? They learned the hard way.
 
Interfectum said:
They saw the skin sales in Fortnite and got greedy. Why make Last of Us 3 when they could just make billions selling you new Joel skins in a gaas? They learned the hard way.
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I have no issues with them going after that GASS money, those sorta crazy incomes fund other crazy games with high risks which is good for gamers all round but jesus fuck, is everyone at Sony studios blind?? a 5sec clip of Concord was enough to see that it had trainwreck written all over it, if youre making a multi character game the first thing you should be thinking when designing your characters is will they look hot af cosplayed by some big titty goth chick and if the answer is yes, then you move onto the next character design.. those characters they created where some of the worse things put in a videogame, beaten only by Dragonage...
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
No sane exec would take the financial risk Sony did with an unproven studio. It's stupid at all levels and stupid decisions must be punished.
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In hindsight yeah. But no one would know that years ago. Also, your post has nothing to do with the core of what me and the other poster are talking about.
 
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Sony don't know what the fuck they are doing in regards to GaaS. They had garunteed money with a last of us game and allowed that to be shut down.

They purchased Bungie for their "GaaS expertise" but all they had to do was look at the Destiny sub Reddit to see that they had no clue what they were doing either. Over paid for them.

This has been a generation of blunders for them outside of Helldivers 2.
 
FalsettoVibe said:
In hindsight yeah. But no one would know that years ago. Also, your post has nothing to do with the core of what me and the other poster are talking about.
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In hindsight? This must be one of the most foretold failures of all time. I didn't need a crystal ball in 2021 to know that this would bomb, the same as Haven, those were doomed since conception. If armchair analysts can see it, executives should, too. This shows how out of touch these corpo guys are.

The discussion was about who was to blame for this disaster. It's both, Sony and Firewalk. And, ultimately, the parent company ProbablyMonster, which I believe is a brilliant scam.
 
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I just figured out that all those junior game devs will have an incredibly hard time finding new jobs. Having this trashy game on your resume will not sell well.
 
rubenburgt said:
I just figured out that all those junior game devs will have an incredibly hard time finding new jobs. Having this trashy game on your resume will not sell well.
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If they were programmers/coders then 0 worries, they had to do their damn job and had no saying in how game gonna look/play, if on the other hand they are "artists" directly responsible for the design of those characters- well, accountability is good thing, contrary to what feminism tells to modern women :D
 
The most important part is where he literally says "mobile remains a priority growth area for the Studio Business" and it will be ignored.

Also how can this emails leak? I work in a multinational brand and these thing are under tight control....
 
NeverYouMind said:
Are Fairgame$ and Marathon developers next to walk the plank?
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Ya'll need to stop wishing Bungie to be next. I get the backlash on concord but many of you are starting to take small digs here and there at Bungie. Do gamers love to see games fail or something?

Destiny is still a good/fun game. I know the engagement numbers haven't been what Bungie would have wanted but we all should remember that the series has been around since the PS3 — that is a long time. And D2 has been around since 2017. It's natural that people will take a break because in the end, it is still a game lol. Stop wishing it dead.
 
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Concord was a solid 7/10 but you can't have that when the 10 in the genre is F2P.

Shutting it down was the painful but correct move. It's impossible to know if this was a Ryan thing or a Hulst thing, but hopefully the success of Astro (not to mention upcoming GoTY awards) and the failure of Concord will help to move Sony back in the right direction.

Another question to be considered - Shuhei was SO good at his job shepherding the 1st Party output...why was he ever taken out of that position?
 
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