The situation with Concord has taken many twists and turns since its announcement last August. From doubts, through a concerning launch, to the game’s farewell and the closure of its servers, until, at least for now, a new notice. However, in the midst of this PlayStation and Firewalk Studios debacle, a rumor emerged last weekend pointing to an astronomical budget for Concord of no less than 400 million dollars, something that many professionals consider an “inflated figure” and an absolute lie.
The speculation was originated by Colin Moriarty, former journalist of IGN and Kinda Funny, who mentioned this figure in relation to the game’s development, which generated great surprise and doubts about the viability of such a spending on a hero shooter. Moriarty has been in the spotlight in recent years, although many of his reports, such as the data on the new BioShock game or Tomb Raider, were never confirmed and his sources carry little weight.
An overly large budget for a game like this
However, with Concord being one of the most resounding failures in many years, the mere mention of such a hefty budget caused Moriarty’s words to spread like wildfire on social media, at least until several professional journalists intervened. Christopher Dring from Games Industry, described the figure as “absurd”, arguing that no game has a development budget of such magnitude. This statement, in fact, makes sense when we look at the development of games like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which is said to have cost 300 million, while GTA V had a budget of 260 million. On the other hand, Star Citizen is excluded from the list as it has been funded by players for 10 years.
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According to Dring, it is unrealistic to think that a title of this kind would require such an investment, especially when Concord has not allocated significant resources to traditional marketing, which is usually one of the biggest expenses in video game production. In fact, despite some mentioning that the game has extensive credits and that part of its development was outsourced, Dring pointed out that this is common in most current AAA titles. As an example, he cited Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which has end credits that last twice as long as Concord’s, in addition to having a significantly larger development team.
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Similarly, to complement Dring’s mention, renowned journalist Tom Warren from The Verge also expressed skepticism about the rumors, stating that PlayStation owns Firewalk Studios and, therefore, Concord, since 2023. Therefore, a large part of the funding would be associated with ProbablyMonster. However, this studio is small, and the idea of funding a $400 million game is unlikely. Others, like Ethan Gach from Kotaku, indicated that, while they could not confirm that figure, they had heard about a considerably lower budget than the one mentioned by Moriarty.
It’s important to note that the figure mentioned by Moriarty, if true, could refer to Sony’s overall investment in Concord and the acquisition of its studio, of which we have never known the amount, as well as marketing beyond the game itself. This could include the relationship of the game with the Secret Level TV series, which will premiere on Prime Video later this year. However, all of this remains in the realm of speculation, especially after the brief time Concord was in the market before being withdrawn due to low sales.
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