Sony has officially killed Concord and is closing the studio behind the game. ConcordFirewalk Studios' servers were taken down just two weeks after the release of Firewalk Studios' competitive team shooter following poor sales. Firewalk game director Ryan Ellis decided to take on a more supporting role after ConcordThe struggles, and Sony had said it would consider its options for the project. The decision is made.
“After much thought, we have determined that the best path forward is to permanently suspend the game and close the studio,” said Hermen Hulst of Sony Interactive Entertainment's Studio Business Group in a statement. statement today. “I want to thank everyone at Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.” A representative said x.com/jasonschreier/status/1851332241051513093″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:Bloomberg News;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>Bloomberg News that Firewalk Studios had 172 employees who will lose their jobs.
The online gaming business is brutal and Concord It may have suffered from its long development time, which meant other shooters on the team had already risen to prominence and defined player expectations. Many similar games are free to play and supported financially with a battle pass or season model. Players may have objected to the $40 price tag for a new property, or perhaps the genre was simply too crowded to Concord to enter muscle.
Whatever the reasons, today's news marks another difficult chapter for the world of game development. Firewalk Studios is an outlier for having this level of commercial failure, but it is still another closure in the industry that has seen a lot of turbulence in recent years. Layoffs and closures have been big news in gaming, but several recent cases have been like Firewalk, which was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment last spring. Netflix abruptly closed its AAA studio last week before the team announced a project. Microsoft closed three studios in the Zenimax family earlier this year. As fewer parties control an increasing proportion of the games industry, tolerance for experimentation and narrow profit margins will likely reduce as well. And this kind of sudden upheaval could become even more common.
Update, October 29, 2024, 2:52 pm ET: Updated story with additional context on ConcordFirewalk Studios staffing levels and broader studio closure trends.
