New report says Sony's 'Concord' cost $400 million to make

Given the high costs, immediately disastrous player count, and unprecedented closure, it seemed obvious that Sony would suffer a major loss on Concord. But it could be even worse than everyone thought.

A new report from Sacred Symbols' Colin Moriarty, citing a source who worked on Concord, claims that the game had a bigger budget than anyone expected, a whopping $400 million, split into two development halves. Check out the video below, but I have a summary below:

What happened:

• Before the game entered alpha, they had already spent $200 million on it, although it was unclear how much came from the original owners/investors and how much from Sony.
• After that, from 2021 until the 2024 launch, Sony spent another $200 million on it. The game was in a “ridiculous state” when it was shown in this alpha state, so Sony felt they had to spend so much to bring it up to the status of a minimally viable product.
• A major cost factor was outsourcing much of the game to other studios. In the first quarter of 2023, some aspects of the game were not worked on at all, such as onboarding and monetization (I would say that perhaps explains the price and “no battle passes” rather than a conscious, noble decision to change the model. And how bad the earned cosmetics were).
• The ongoing cost of maintaining the game would be an additional million per month.
• Concord is the biggest budget game Sony has ever released and the biggest loss Sony has ever suffered. Sony is currently working on other games that cost more, but in terms of games already released, this is the largest. It's a total loss.

Why did it happen:

• Concord was considered “the future of PlayStation” and was a “Star Wars-like project”. There were big multimedia plans between the cinematics and inclusion in things like Amazon's Secret Level.
• There was a culture of “toxic positivity” where you couldn’t say anything negative about the game internally. Character designs, etc. No one was allowed to “meaningly change the course of the game.”
• This was (Sony Interactive CEO) “Herman Hulst’s Baby,” who was a huge advocate for the game.

Some of this still strikes me as odd, aside from the budget, because given the AAA bloat these days, I can believe it. But how do you look at a game that was in a “ridiculous” alpha state two years ago, struggling to outsource work to finish it, and still believing it is “the future of PlayStation” and a potential one Star Wars-like object? Star Wars comparisons are always a big challenge, that's what we heard back then about the goal of Bungie's Destiny. But Destiny… succeeded and lasted for ten years. Concord lasted two weeks.

I guess that's the “toxic positivity” confirmed by other sources, and even if that sounds ridiculous, you can't say that, especially when it was a game involving the entire head of Sony Interactive was involved. I submit that placing so much faith in such a poor game is almost entirely disqualifying for this role.

The head of Firewalk has already resigned and it seems almost impossible for the team to survive, either being disbanded into other studios or shutting down entirely. This is arguably the biggest video game disaster in history caused by financial loss, and someone needs to be held responsible. In this situation it shouldn't be the ordinary workers…

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