In the wake of the commercial failure of ultra-woke video game Concord, Sony has formally shut down the development studio behind the game, Firewalk Studios. Sony made a massive investment in both the studio and the game, which shut down just two weeks after launching due to a complete and utter rejection of the woke game by Sony’s customers.
Bloomberg reports that the leftist video game industry has been dealt another blow as Sony Interactive Entertainment announced the closure of Firewalk Studios, the development team responsible for the recently released game Concord.The decision comes after the game’s catastrophic commercial performance, which saw it taken offline less than a month after its release.
According to an internal email released by Sony Interactive on their official website, the closure of Firewalk Studios is part of the company’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its Studio Business. “We consistently evaluate our games portfolio and status of our projects to ensure we are meeting near and long-term business priorities,” the email stated. “After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio.”
The development of Concord was a massive expense, with initial costs exceeding $200 million, according to industry reports. However, this budget did not include the acquisition of the game’s IP rights or Firewalk Studios itself, which Sony had only acquired last year. Despite the significant investment, the game failed to connect with gamers on any level, leading to its swift demise.
Analysts have attempted to identify the factors that contributed to ‘Concord’s’ downfall. According to IGN, the game suffered from “poor marketing, a high price point, and most critically, a lack of differentiation in an oversaturated genre.” These issues, combined with the game’s unfortunate timing, ultimately sealed its fate.
However, Breitbart News previously reported that Concord’s woke messaging and design played a major part in the game’s failure:
Concord, a multiplayer game in the same vein as Overwatch, faced criticism and negative feedback from the moment it was announced. Many players expressed displeasure with the game’s design choices and the inclusion of pronouns for characters, which some viewed as the promotion of transgender ideology. Despite these concerns, Firewalk Studios chose to ignore the feedback, with Director of IP Kim Kreines stating in an interview with VGC that the trailer was just a “tiny slice” of the game and that players would eventually fall in love with the depth of the characters and their unfolding personalities and backstories.
The game’s performance metrics painted a bleak picture from the start. During its Early Access phase on Steam, Concord only managed to reach a peak concurrent player count of 1,124. The Open Beta saw a slight improvement, with a peak of 2,388 concurrent players. However, reports from True Trophies indicated that player counts on PlayStation had declined by 8.1 percent between the Early Access and Open Beta periods.
Rock solid on X (formerly Twitter): “Whoever greenlit Concord at Sony after seeing these character designs should pay back the 200 millionWhat the fuck where they thinking? https://t.co/Qk1yZgT8RZ pic.twitter.com/lJO6KlbnAS / X”
Whoever greenlit Concord at Sony after seeing these character designs should pay back the 200 millionWhat the fuck where they thinking? https://t.co/Qk1yZgT8RZ pic.twitter.com/lJO6KlbnAS
The closure of Firewalk Studios is not the only casualty in this saga. Sony also announced the shuttering of another studio, Neon Koi, whose mobile action game will never see the light of day. The news of Neon Koi’s closure was largely overshadowed by the more high-profile failure of Concord.
Read more at Bloomberg here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
