Firewalk Studios Announces That Concord Is Shutting Down After ONLY Two Weeks.....WOW!

[Music] I kind of want to pump the breakes there because we have a another breaking news story and I'm gonna let infinite umra run this story if you don't mind Umbra because you're the one that found it so of course I want you to take the lead on it you're show host yourself so you know exactly what you're doing look this is devastating news for Concord for fireworks Studios for PlayStation and for the 25 uh, people that bought this game now granted that's not a lot of people we had it confirmed that 10,000 PC Gamers bought it we had a confirmation that 15,000 PlayStation Gamers bought it but that game over the weekend had a concurrent player list of 56 people humans for a game that launched two weeks ago the concard story is a disaster it is a game that was in development for eight years it is considered a triaa developed game and it has fallen flatter than any multiplayer game before I think it might go down in history as the worst launched game ever uh again this no one's dancing on anyone great anyone's grave because I see that being the running the running sentence for a lot of these media folks the the podcast Community dancing on the graves nobody's dancing on anybody's grave the listen the developers tried to put out something this is what they this is what they did it just wasn't good it doesn't mean that we're dancing on anyone's Graves we're just having a conversation so I want you to lead this one let's read read if you don't mind exactly what happened because man this is just it's just bad news would you uh like me to read the exact blog if you wouldn't mind sure by by all means yeah let me stretch the old vocal cords let me get this uh link okay here we go an important uh update on Concord posted by Ryan Ellis game director of firewalk Studios Concord fans we've been listening close most L to your feedback since the launch of Concord on PlayStation 5 and PC and want to thank everyone who has joined the journey aboard the Northstar you your support and passionate community that has grown uh around the game has meant the world to us however while many qualities of the experience resonated with players we also recognized that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn't land the way we intended therefore at this time we have decided to take the game offline beginning September 6th 20 24 and explore options including those that will better reach our players while we determine the best path ahead Concord sales will cease immediately and we will begin to offer a full refund for all Gamers who have purchased the game for PS5 or PC if you purchase the game for PlayStation 5 from the PlayStation store or Playstation direct a refund will be issued back to your original payment method custo customers who purchased the uh from other digital storefronts will also be refunded more information about refunds from Steam and epic can be found below so yeah they're refunding it fully which I I I'll say just to add I appreciate that they're doing that absolutely yeah because they could just be like whatever we got your money your little 2 200 Sales you're not getting it back but you know hey kudos to them for for giving it back what I will say is that this is not so much a shock because we all saw the rioting on the wall and I'm not trying to say this in a negative way because none of us want games to fail no right absolutely not but it was very clear PlayStation fans did not want this I said it several times and it starts to sound cliche I know a lot of people got upset because people were telling the honest the god truth that the game was Dead on Arrival but it was as clear as day PlayStation fans have been uh conditioned to a certain type of game and this unfortunately just ain't it uh the game was released August 23d by the way it will be offline September 6th yep how how many days is that can anybody tell me 13 days yeah because you got okay so yeah so it yeah it it maybe I'm not I'm Ma I'm not a mathematician folks but it's between 11 and 13 days I would even it wouldn't even matter if it was 30 let's say it was 30 days that is the fastest game to be as far as I can tell right now fastest double A or tripa a game and I'm pretty sure this is double A for eight years in development $200 million loss clearly trip a right that is the fastest triaa game I've ever seen uh get sunsetted that fast at least until they work it over uh obviously I'm guessing they're going to go free to play right smart before that babylon's fall was the fastest to be taken offline do you know how long that was online before they took it offline guys no quick little research before you called on to me 194 days oh wow okay well this was done I know that I'm laughing but I'm not trying to laugh at it this was done you said 13 days was it yeah I give or take yeah 13 days in this game is already being taken offline and I guess let's say 16 days by the sixth right how about that it's Gotta Be An abdale exactly this has to be a new Guinness World Record a sad one but that's what it is yeah uh I the only thing I can say to this and I've said this before I said it on my show as well it is not a good look uh for Sony he said no laugh Smitty yeah I'm not trying to laugh Smitty I'm trying not to I don't want it to sound callous or come off the wrong way I'm laughing at how absurd it is if anything right uh but for firewalk um we've already had a ridiculous number of you know shutdowns and and job loss for devs and we don't want more of that but I have to say $200 million loss game being taken offline refunds that does not spell a a a good uh what should I say doesn't doesn't smell like it's gonna land smell uh like it's gonna uh land positively I guess should I say for firewalk if anything I'm G to Guess that there's going to be some layoff for them if not an entire Studio closure yeah and uh yeah I hate to say it I really do but in this the state that we're in right now of economy and everything like that and how developers are are going out left and right you can't have a loss like this uh where you effectively get no sales and post a $200 million to loss on top of that yeah it's not looking good for firewalk if I had to guess uh I'm G to guess massive layoffs if not Studio closure for firewalk unfortunately I'm hoping that's not the case but I'm going to guess that is going to be the case I mean there's so before we bring in Jamie and get your hot take Jamie there's some caveat here that I kind of want to just put on the table uh Umbra so Jim Ryan before he was retired let's just say uh announced that they had a dozen free you know gas games in development now at the time of this announcement how it was presented to us how was was presented to the Press was that their main Studios were taken off of projects that were single player Focus which is what PlayStation is known for and put on to these gas games well since Jim Ryan's departure that list has been halfed now we're not going to get into the particular games that were cancelled we all know them already we've talked about it to the point of nauseum a lot of really good strong first party uh games that could have been Half Baked and did better than Concord but where I think the rubber hits the road here gentlemen in chat by the way we have 655 people watching live so thank you so much for checking out Today's Show is Concord was was expected to be a Money Maker for PlayStation Studios and well it's failed it's going offline officially on the six that has been confirmed marathon is another game that potentially is going to fail based on the reports from numerous people including Jason shrier that that game including its lead developer who was fired for sexual misconduct behavior is a studio meaning bung completely out of control just absolutely a just a giant S Show that now so you have these book ends now the pressure is on Jade Raymond and her studio for fair games which is expected to release next year and let's call a spade a spade folks it looks like a Payday clone so if Concord has failed Marathon already delayed into 2025 and probably is not going to make that until at least 2026 if it even releases now everything rests upon Jade Raymond's game the new IP fair games to be that quote unquote Money Maker for PlayStation folks I'm here to tell you and I've said this before and you can make fun of me all you want PlayStation is in a pickle Jamie let's talk about this horrendous news for the for Concord it's just it's just awful talk about about Failure to Launch like I feel sorry for the developers first off because you do yeah we do you spent years and years making this game and you know it started development when um OverWatch came out OverWatch was absolutely huge when that came out I mean it was so big that blizzard was wanted to have International Teams and it would per perform pretty much like the Euro or the World Cup it was going to be massive um and over time hoo Shooters have gotten less and less popular but like the only one that really sticks around is OverWatch 2 and you know I think this whole thing about chasing Trends it just doesn't work you know it happens time and time again it fails and this is like it's was anyone anyone in chat really was anyone really asking you know what I could do with right now a brand new hero shooter no one was asking for this no one and it's sad because you know it's being hyped up like hell last year when I was talking about Starfield all the time you'd be surprised how many people reply to me saying concord's better because they saw a shiny spaceship and they doing the whole Nory thing where they compare and everything um anyway uh it's sad to say you know the game's going to get taken offline like two weeks after launch uh 25,000 in sales I just checked online right now 25 people are playing this sun steam like this this has to be I'm I'm not even the biggest AAA flop of all time yeah like massive and like what's Sony going to do and I have a feeling like Sony has one of two Avenues they can take they can make this game free to play and go the battle pass route who knows maybe they'll even put on Xbox and switch to or whatever or and I think this is the more likely scenario they can't find a way to monetize this because no one's talking about it you know they weren't willing like Sony wasn't willing to pay big streamers to play this game which was very telling and I found that very strange that like none of the big streamers were playing this they always get paid to play these big big games uh so the other thing I think they might do is that I think they may day list this game forever they're going to Willow us they're going to try and do a tax right off and then they might shut down the studio I hope they don't do that but this is like there's been a lot of bad gaming news this year there's been a ton of different Studios have shut down developers laid off like pretty much for Microsoft Embrace a Ubisoft EA the list goes on and like none of those games have failed like this like Skull and Bones was left out for years before it launched it's still here suicide score kill the Justice League was left out it's still here and it still has content coming and this game couldn't last two weeks and like I think the the problem is is that other than Sony not paying to market the game with big streamers and whatnot they they put out a a live service hero shooter to a fan base that aren't used to these kinds of games right Sony puts out single player games single player action adventure games and this isn't that if you go back to the PlayStation 3 generation they've putting out a variety all the time they had fighting games online games firstperson Shooters third person shooters RPGs well not many RPGs but they they they had some variety in their consumers we used to getting this but I think the problem is with the PlayStation 4 generation they kind of like bottlenecked their consumers into just wanting single player action Adventures like all of their games now are single player third person over the shoulder action adventure which may or may not have a BN hour and now they put out this like it's way different than what they used to so like expecting them to play this I don't know what they were thinking and like the whole Chase in the OverWatch thing was never going to work every the game that's Tred to chase OverWatch hasn't Works uh and just no one's talking about it and plus naming a game after a plane that crashed in 2000 like massive disaster if people don't know uh that wasn't going to end well it there was nothing good about this game going for it everything about it there was something wrong with it and again I hope the developers are going to be okay maybe the developers get to make something else but like eight years making this and then and look you have people in chat like like saying xbots and all this stuff like we get told all the time that we don't buy games and this reportedly sold what 10,000 on PlayStation and the rest of on Steam like why didn't they support these games we always get told hey we support these triaa bangers clearly not the game's getting shut down it didn't even last a month and as jez Cordon just said on Twitter uh Liz trust our uh prime minister that lasted a month outlasted Concord it's crazy and by the way when it comes to this trust Lett us outlasted her right like it's it's a sad situation it and it you know I'm not laughing at the situation it's sad because developers may lose the jobs but like this game is the biggest AAA flop of all time it's shocking and we're probably going to find out more over the next few weeks when journalists do the investigation work and all that stuff but um I'm actually speechless like it's it's crazy really is definitely crazy and I'm my only thing my concern now goes to the devs and I mean that seriously and I know you guys feel the same it's just like what Happ 100% dude these are human beings that made the game you have to understand where umb's coming from is how the is what empathy is that that's what we're supposed to have we're not supposed to be laughing at anyone listen the game came out and it just wasn't in a good game no one said no one would I don't I have not heard anyone actually say all these Dev developers actually went out of their way to make a crappy game no one does that it's just that the because the game was started development eight years ago Jamie I think you said this last week what launched eight years ago OverWatch which means that this studio was chasing the trend at the time and because they were a smaller team before they were being bankrolled by Sony it took a long time to get where they were someone should have stepped in and be like you know what let's pump the breaks this is ultimately going to be looked upon as a clone which we all did and it is and ultimately now the game is being removed from sales indefinitely and look I'm I'm sorry I don't think this game comes back I just don't I don't know what they could possibly do they would have to literally go into the code and pull out all of the characters and make new ones Sony is not going to spend a development bucks to do that they just won't um I'm going to have to agree I just think that the bed is made for this one I don't these characters and you know I'm not trying to be funny but they're pronouns too and I saw a few people joking about it but it's true it just didn't land for people like the whole robot with pronouns like all of that stuff I think and this I've had this discussion me and Danny talked about it and I'm not trying to you know sh shade anybody who feels feels a way about whatever on their life choices and style and style or whatever right but I think putting you know agendas into gaming is a mistake that people W gonna have to learn to stop doing and I think this the crowd's uh gaming crowd has kind of shown like we don't want that I'm just G to be honest there's some games it can work for very few can get away with it though like especially newer games I think they're going to have to shy away from that and uh you know these like I said these devs then they s out to make a game that they could be proud of I'm sure and from what I'm hearing the bones of it is are solid right but uh because it got like a seven I think across the board from most people so that's saying it's a good game essentially but it's nothing that stands out from the crowd also too you know we've talked about it so many times like it's very clearly you you're going for $40 in already a a a niche market of of hero Shooters with other hero shooters that are better and free so it's it's like I take free 99 over 7 $40 any day of the week and I mean there so many things that were against it I think the character work they look so Bland and uninteresting to people I think the agenda thing people were already put off by that and held the game for penalty for that to right or wrong um and I just don't know how I don't think you can un let me not curse but I don't think you can UNF this if you will you know what I mean I just don't think you can I think you're absolutely correct there I I think it's too too much too much damage done also too it's kind of like it's that thing like it's not cool anymore right so it's already had its chance to be that to give that first impression anything coming out now is gonna be like ah you had your chance ah whatever we don't want you I I just don't think it's going to rebound correctly but what hopefully it does and what they'll be smarter in making a decision to put it everywhere this time and not you know choose to x out Xbox if you will I just think that was a poor decision it should have been on all platforms it should have been free to play uh and the character work I just think that it was just uninspiring I don't know I I think a story mode wouldn't have heard it either being honest and for that amount of money that it's losing I would have expected it to have that at least it doesn't so that's I don't know but good luck to them going forward I just don't have good faith in Sony is Relentless with Studios that don't make money for them let's let's call we we've seen it time and time again they they have closed Studios faster than you lace up your boots and they don't have they don't even they don't even respond or apologize for it uh ultimately Sony Corporation is going to take a $200 million bath on this game that's a lot of money in an era where Sony is counting every dollar uh we know that because they nickel and dime us as fans to death and this is another example of and yeah it was just I think I saw the story yesterday I might even been today this morning when I was reading through the stories and the news feeds that they announced that uh Concord made a million dollars well now they have to give that money back so the million dollars that they made got to go back to the people that bought the game [Music]