Following the news Sony has closed Concord studio Firewalk, the live-service game’s initial development deal reportedly cost $200m.
This, however, was not enough to cover the game’s entire development costs, sources familiar with the agreement told Kotaku. This cost also did not include the purchase of the Concord IP rights or Firewalk itself, which Sony acquired last year.
Yesterday’s news detailed the human cost of closing the studio, which employed around 150-170 people. The $200m figure adds a sense of the financial cost of even beginning development.
A report from September, after the game was shut down, suggested the game had cost $400m to produce, with development rife with “toxic positivity”.
A final statement from Firewalk shared last night on social media details what the studio achieved during its time on Concord.
“Firewalk began with the idea of bringing the joy of multiplayer to a larger audience,” reads the statement.
The assembled team then grew a new startup, the statement continues, built a “customised next-generation FPS engine”, managed an acquisition from Sony, and ultimately delivered “a great FPS experience to players – even if it landed much more narrowly than hoped against a heavily consolidated market”.
We took some risks along the way – marrying aspects of card battlers and fighting games with first-person-shooters – and although some of these and other aspects of the IP didn’t land as we hoped, the idea of putting new things into the world is critical to pushing the medium forward,” the statement continues.
“The talent at Firewalk and the level of individual craft is truly world-class, and teams within Sony Interactive Entertainment and across the industry will be fortunate to work with them. Please reach out to Recruiting at PlayStation for inquiries, and thank you to all the very many teams, partners and fans who supported us along the way.”
Despite this hard work, Concord reportedly sold only 25,000 copies – clearly not enough to recoup its huge costs. It was pulled offline at the start of September.
“The PvP first-person shooter genre is a competitive space that’s continuously evolving, and unfortunately, we did not hit our targets with this title,” wrote SIE boss Hermen Hulst in an internal email shared yesterday. “We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”
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