Well, it’s official- Sony has introduced that Harmony and developer Firewalk Studios are each being completely shuttered. From minute one, the doomed first-person shooter by no means actually stood a lot of an opportunity. Since its announcement, it had been abundantly evident that individuals weren’t a lot concerned with shopping for what it was promoting, and the nearer we obtained to launch, the clearer it turned that Harmony was going to battle to seek out an audience- although few might have predicted that it might battle as a lot because it did.
Inside a mere two weeks of launch, following disappointing gross sales and lukewarm important reception, Harmony was pulled offline, and everybody who purchased the sport was refunded. Firewalk and Sony’s place on the time was that they might put their heads collectively and try to work out a distinct future for the game- which implied that possibly there was a future for the sport. Many assumed that possibly it might return within the type of a free-to-play shooter, however actually, the extra you considered it, the clearer it turned that Harmony was seemingly not going to get a second shot. Not after taking place as one of many greatest and most high-profile first-party failures the video games trade has ever seen.
Now, Sony has made the announcement that Firewalk Studios is shutting down, with cellular developer Neon (beforehand often called Savage Recreation Studios) additionally being shuttered, and it’s an absolute disgrace for simply so many causes. Firstly, it’s a disgrace, after all, that a number of a whole lot of persons are shedding their jobs, including to the already a number of hundreds of job cuts and layoffs this trade has seen during the last couple of years. It’s additionally a disgrace to see a brand new IP bombing this difficult. Gaming, like all inventive medium, desperately wants a relentless inflow of latest concepts, so to see a serious new first-party IP failing on this trend isn’t nice. You simply know {that a} bunch of c-suite executives on the market are going to resolve based mostly on Harmony’s failure that possibly it won’t be well worth the threat to make huge bets on fully new properties- which is the alternative of the path we wish to be headed in.
Past that, nevertheless, Firewalk Studios’ closure can also be indicative of a a lot bigger situation at PlayStation, and one more evident instance of the cavalcade of poor choices the corporate has made these previous few years. The PS5 technology as a complete has seen Sony at its most irritating in a number of methods. Sure, we have now clearly had a lot of nice first-party video games over the course of this technology, from Horizon Forbidden West and God of Battle Ragnarok to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Astro Bot, amongst others, however although the corporate has continued to ship high quality video games, that has sadly gone hand-in-hand with disastrous mismanagement in different areas.
Sony acquired Firewalk Studios nearly a 12 months and a half in the past, in April of 2023, previous to which it had already agreed to fund and publish the studio’s debut title, so clearly, it believed in Harmony, or a minimum of what it might change into. The place that confidence got here from, nevertheless, is an actual headscratcher, as a result of understanding what we now know of Harmony, we will say with equal confidence that although it wasn’t with out its personal fair proportion of gameplay strengths, general, it clearly wasn’t geared up for long-term success- and even short-term success, as it might end up. No, it was a flawed $40 Overwatch clone in 2024, in a market that’s already flooded with related reside service shooters.
Banking so onerous on Harmony was in and of itself a mistake, then, however much more egregious is how Sony has chosen to cope with the fallout. Firewalk is being shuttered lower than two years out from being acquired, a whole lot of persons are shedding their jobs, and the sport they spent years engaged on was allowed to stay on-line for simply two weeks. And let’s not overlook Neon Koi, the cellular studio that was acquired simply a few years in the past as a part of Sony’s huge cellular push- which, as per co-CEO Hermen Hulst, nonetheless stays an essential a part of the corporate’s technique, despite the truth that Neon Koi is being shuttered, and its recreation cancelled. Harmony and its fallout with Firewalk, it’s onerous to consider examples of different publishers dealing with a tough state of affairs with this type of bumbling idiocy and lack of grace. Really, PlayStation management has made an absolute mockery of itself.
Unsurprisingly, the dialog as soon as once more takes us again to Sony’s misguided reside service ambitions. We’re barely a few video games into these plans, and the listing of failures is already lengthy. Harmony shelved, and Firewalk shuttered. The Final of Us On-line cancelled, and Naughty Canine wanting nowhere near releasing a brand new recreation this technology. London Studios shuttered, and its reside service recreation cancelled. Partnered AAA indie studio Deviation Video games shuttered, earlier than it might even announce its recreation. The one success Sony has seen on this enviornment to this point has been Helldivers 2, which is extra of a shock success than one which the corporate labored for and deliberate around- and even that Sony has by some means managed to fumble with its PSN necessities on PC, illustrating simply the best way to snap defeat from the jaws of victory.
You may, after all, perceive from a monetary perspective why Sony wished different streams of income moreover its huge price range single-player titles, however Firewalk’s closure and the disastrous decision-making surrounding Harmony are completely emblematic of how terribly the corporate has executed on these plans. In his inside e mail to PlayStation workers the place he introduced the shuttering of Firewalk and Neon Koi, PlayStation’s co-CEO Hermen Hulst touched on how the corporate will be taught from the failings of Harmony because it strikes ahead, but it surely’s onerous to think about this model of PlayStation having the capability to be taught extra its errors.
This model of PlayStation is so entrenched in its idiotic imaginative and prescient for the longer term that it feels prefer it’s solely ever going to make horrible determination after horrible determination. Like shuttering a studio that it’s best to by no means have purchased lower than two years after shopping for it. Like shedding 900 individuals earlier within the 12 months. Like spending over $300 million on Spider-Man 2, watching it get pleasure from widespread important and business success, after which shedding a bunch of individuals at Insomniac anyway. Like investing a number of billions into Bungie, solely to observe the studio’s situation go from dangerous to worse within the blink of an eye fixed. Like adopting a collective coverage of compressing as a lot cash out of your viewers as attainable, with elevated costs for video games, consoles, equipment, or subscription companies. Like promoting a professional console for $700 and refusing to promote it with a disc drive, or hell, even a stand.
And that’s simply scratching the floor. That is the model of PlayStation we’re caught with, and the Harmony debacle is one more stark reminder of that. Clearly, you need to hope that Sony will certainly be taught from these big and expensive errors – and boy have these errors been big and expensive – however they needed to make a string of mind-numbingly bizarre choices to seek out themselves on this place, leaving you to wonder if they even have the capability to know what the suitable path ahead is.
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