What are the knock on effects of Concord's pitiful demise?

[Captain_Fuzz]

Millions gone up in flames and years of time pretty much wasted - but what sort of waves does a failure like this make for the games industry?

More conservative budgets? Less leaps into new, unknown IPs?

Surely a catastrophe like this has widespread repercussions, so what, if any, causes or consequences do you think this'll have on games? The devs making Fairgame$ must be at least a little worried.

 

[Azerka]

I hope it means more cautious ventures into the live service model

 

[DiligentKiller123]

I hope it means more cautious ventures into the live service model

Ditto, -$200m or -$400m either way it's a serious hit to Playstations wallet.

 

[SleepyAgent]

Almost certainly mass layoffs at Firewalk Studios in the immediate future.

In the further future, I have no idea. Speculatory but I think that Jimmy Ryan went on a bit of a wild ride greenlighting live-service games and neglecting the core titles that PlayStation has built their brand on, which is why we were seeing things like Fairgames, Last of Us online, Concord, and that cancelled Spiderman live-game.

These ventures always end up costing a lot, high risk that way but when they work they bring in big money. My bets is he wanted to finish on a high so he greenlit a ton of this stuff, then Sony bean counters took a look at what was happening and basically came in with the scythe to cut a lot of the projects down. Wouldn't be surprised if we have a lull of not much before they go back to releasing their high quality games once or twice a year.

 

[Captain_Fuzz]

Almost certainly mass layoffs at Firewalk Studios in the immediate future.

In the further future, I have no idea. Speculatory but I think that Jimmy Ryan went on a bit of a wild ride greenlighting live-service games and neglecting the core titles that PlayStation has built their brand on, which is why we were seeing things like Fairgames, Last of Us online, Concord, and that cancelled Spiderman live-game.

These ventures always end up costing a lot, high risk that way but when they work they bring in big money. My bets is he wanted to finish on a high so he greenlit a ton of this stuff, then Sony bean counters took a look at what was happening and basically came in with the scythe to cut a lot of the projects down. Wouldn't be surprised if we have a lull of not much before they go back to releasing their high quality games once or twice a year.

This whole gen feels like the lull caused by that very thing. Already down from 14 live service projects to what 5 6? Colossal failure.

 

[Kvally]

Is anyone thinking they can bring the game back as free to play with MTX?

 

[poklane]

Hopefully more f2p instead of charging for stuff, and way better and longer marketing cycles including content creators and professional players getting hands-on very early.

Is anyone thinking they can bring the game back as free to play with MTX?

It'll flop just as hard. You can make it f2p, but the character designs still suck ass, the gameplay would still be mid and the game wouldn't have any unique hook which will make a noteable amount of people pick the game over other games like Overwatch and Marvel Rivals.

 

[Podly]

My bet is an attempt at a relaunch in time for December's Secret Level episode. Not F2P but free for PS Extra subscribers. Gameplay was already ok, curious to see if design will change in any transformative way.

 

[DiligentKiller123]

Is anyone thinking they can bring the game back as free to play with MTX?

Hope that's not their only takeaway from this cause the price tag was a small part of a big problem

 

[SleepyAgent]

My bet is an attempt at a relaunch in time for December's Secret Level episode. Not F2P but free for PS Extra subscribers. Gameplay was already ok, curious to see if design will change in any transformative way.

I'd love to agree, but that would mean they refunded everyone and made a very public gesture of shutting the game down, to bring it back less than 6 months later as a F2P title to coincide with an Amazon TV series episode.

I think this game is going to be on ice a while before they re-introduce it or they'll let it fade from memory completely.

 

[FuzzyMuffin]

hopefully to stop over evaluating companies. got taken for a bit of ride with bungie and firewalk.

 

[Jivesh]

hopefully to stop over evaluating companies. got taken for a bit of ride with bungie and firewalk.

Bungie can actually turn out to be a great buy. Sony just need to completely take over management

 

[Bogdan47xD]

The game is no longer saved even if it is F2P, the problem of the game was never the price because no one said anything that it is too expensive for what it offers, the problem remained and will remain that it is not fun, it does not bring anything to make you board in 2024, soon 2025. Does it make sense to make it f2p? Probably they should just give it a little chance for PC rather than PS, but I don't see it being saved anymore and I hope this game will be a lesson for SIE that this is not for them. I understand the fact that they don't have chosen because their competition ends up having all the successful games and the money will have to reach them, but it's definitely worse to end up investing in several projects and either cancel them along the way, or end up like Concord and the investment is done worse when the budgets could be allocated for the already existing studios for SP and those sold millions of pieces...