Report: Concord cost over $200 million, excluding Firewalk acquisition and IP rights
Following the news of the closure of Firewalk Studios, fresh details about Concord’s development costs have emerged. The game appears to have been a huge loss for Sony.
- The initial development deal for Concord was “just over” $200 million, two sources familiar with the matter told Kotaku.
- In April 2021, PlayStation entered into an agreement with Firewalk Studios to publish a AAA multiplayer shooter. Perhaps this is when the parties signed this initial contract, although the team started working on the game a few years before partnering with Sony.
- According to Kotaku, the $200 million wasn’t enough to cover the game’s entire development. Its total budget remains undisclosed, not to mention there are no details about its marketing costs.
- It is also worth noting that the initial deal doesn’t cover the acquisition of IP rights for Concord and Firewalk Studios itself, which Sony snapped up last year to accelerate the growth of its live service operations.
- Prior to joining Sony, Firewalk was part of ProbablyMonsters, a company led by former Bungie president Harold Ryan. In 2021, ProbablyMonsters raised $200 million to fund several games developed by its in-house teams, so some of that money likely went toward Concord’s early stages.
Launched on August 23, Concord lasted less than two weeks. The game peaked at just 697 concurrent users on Steam, which was a worrying sign for a AAA multiplayer shooter with live service ambitions. According to GameDiscoverCo, it sold around 25k units, with PS5 accounting for 60% of the total.
On October 29, SIE Studio Business Group CEO Hermen Hulst announced the closure of Firewalk Studios and Neon Koi, a mobile team formerly known as Savage Game Studios. The executive noted that the company needs to be more strategic in expanding the PlayStation brand beyond consoles and “recognize when our games fall short of meeting player expectations.”