Summary
The initial deal thatSonymade for Firewalk Studios to developConcordwas reportedly “just over” $200 million. That figure was apparently exceeded throughout development and does not cover marketing costs.
This is according to two sources speaking withKotakuand comes just asSony reveals that it is shutting Firewalk Studios down. This means that Concord will not be returning, as was initially suggested, cementing the live service as a costly failure for the company.
Concord Development Deal Reportedly $200 Million, Exceeded By Acquisition And Marketing Costs
As further noted by Kotaku, this alleged figure wouldn’t have covered the costs of Sony acquiring developer Firewalk and the Concord IP. With this in mind, it’s unclear what the total cost of Concord’s lengthy and ill-fated production would have been, but in any case, we now know that it won’t get the chance to recoup its losses.
Concord launched a little over two months ago on August 23.The game was taken offline after two weekson September 6 after itfailed to find a significant playerbase.
Despite being taken offline, it was suggested that the game still had a future, andit was still receiving updates on Steam. However, we now know that this won’t be happening, as in the announcement of Firewalk’s closure, Sony also confirms that it is going to “permanently sunset the game”.
As part of today’s announcement, Sony also revealed that it is closing Neon Koi, a studio that was working on a mobile game for Sony. It acquired Neon Koi in 2022, but it never got the chance to ship a game.
Despite this costly failure, Sony says that it isn’t abandoning its live service plans completely. “We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area,” the announcement reads. However, as it has now dropped two of the studios working on live service, these plans may be smaller in scope than originally intended.
Concord
WHERE TO PLAY
Concord is an upcoming FPS from Firewalk Studios, part of the PlayStation Studios family. A PvP multiplayer title, it is slated for launch on both PS5 and PC in 2024.
