Insider: Sony's decision to cancel two service games was influenced by the huge failure of shooter Concord
Yesterday it was revealed that It's official: Sony has cancelled two service games, one of which was based on the God of War franchise two service games that were being developed by Bluepoint Games (creator of the Demon's Souls remake) and Bend Studio (developer of the biker zombie action game Days Gone). One of the cancelled games was an online version of God of War, and the other was being created by a new IP.
A Sony spokesperson confirmed the cancellation, but did not provide a reason for the decision. However, a reputable insider Jeff Grubb revealed what motivated the Japanese company.
Here's What We Know
In the broadcast of the Game Mess podcast, Grubb voiced a thesis that will not surprise those who follow the news of the game industry. According to his information, Sony cancelled service games because of the grandiose, stunning and, most surprisingly, the most predictable failure of Concord - an idle network shooter, on which the company spent 8 years and $200 to 400 million (data vary). Concord's servers were shut down two weeks after the game's release, and gamers didn't buy even 50,000 copies of the shooter.
Grubb is sure that such failure came as a shock to Sony:
Sony is in shock after Concord and is now visiting every studio and re-evaluating every project. If a certain studio wants to create a live service - it won't get permission from Sony.
I think that most gamers will consider this as good news, but for developers it is bad news, as they will be left without funding from Sony and now they will have to develop new ideas and most likely they will be single player games, which is interesting for the Japanese company.
In general, now it is safe to say that Sony is almost completely moving away from the idea of producing service games and will focus on single-player projects, which it has always had the highest class.
Recall, earlier it was stated that internal PlayStation studios are developing 12 service games, but only Helldivers 2 can be called a definite success, but the online versions of The Last of Us, Twisted Metal, Marvel's Spider-Man and a game from Deviation Games have already been cancelled.
Source: Jeff Grubb's Game Mess
