In a somewhat surprising turn of events, the ultra-woke video segment of the videogame industry has been dealt another blow, this time by Sony Interactive Entertainment which has decided to shutter Firewalk Studios, the developer behind the recently released “woke” game Concord. The decision to close the studio comes after the game’s disastrous launch and subsequent shutdown, which saw it taken offline less than a month after its release.
However, most mainstream gaming websites still seem unable to determine precisely what led to such a disastrous result.
Whoever greenlit Concord at Sony after seeing these character designs should pay back the 200 million
What the fuck where they thinking? https://t.co/Qk1yZgT8RZ pic.twitter.com/lJO6KlbnAS
— Rock solid (@ShitpostRock) September 3, 2024
Sony’s announcement of the closure of Firewalk Studios following the game’s disastrous rollout, which resulted in its removal less than a month after launch. “We consistently evaluate our games portfolio and status of our projects to ensure we are meeting near and long-term business priorities,” the announcement 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 stunningly expensive, with initial costs exceeding $200 million, and the massive budget did not include the acquisition of the game’s IP rights or Firewalk Studios, which Sony acquired last year. Despite the considerable expenditure, the game failed to connect with players on any level, resulting in its rapid demise.
Analysts have flailed around in their attempts to identify the causes that led to Concord‘s demise, with IGN blaming its failure on “poor marketing, a high price point, and most critically, a lack of differentiation in an oversaturated genre.” What they don’t mention is anything about the content being utterly, and irreparably “woke” in almost every regard.
Concord, a multiplayer game similar to Overwatch, received plenty of criticism and bad feedback from the very minute it was launched. Most gamers were dissatisfied with ridiculously PC character designs the really game’s design choices overall, particularly the unnecessary use of preferred pronouns for characters, which many felt was promoting transgender ideology. Despite complaints, Firewalk Studios chose to disregard the feedback, with Director of IP Kim Kreines stating in an interview with VGC that the trailer was only 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.
UPDATE: @PlayStation owned studio @FirewalkStudios has heard your complaints about Concord…
And ignored them.
Sources tell me internal emails show the Concord team is shrugging off the criticism of their characters as “white noise,” and dismissing it. Very much in their own… pic.twitter.com/Obvv58TWhs
— Grummz (@Grummz) June 5, 2024
These flaws, combined with the game’s terrible timing, eventually sealed its demise. So the old adage still appears to hold; “get woke, go broke.” When will they ever learn?
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