That shouldn't be the case. As an engineer I know failure is the best learning experience. And it works often enough:

I've played a game named Craftopia a few years back. It had some crafting mechanics and a world, but overall not much in a way of a goal or coherent idea about it. But the developer PocketPair did go on to make another game, Palworld. I can clearly see how similar it is to Craftopia, major gameplay mechanics are similar or outright the same. But all the stuff that blows about Craftopia is fixed and the added mechanics and goals add so much to it - and it was a hit.

We all celebrated Larian Studios and Baldur's Gate 3. But lets not forget the path Larian took. They made a lot of games, and most of them met an unethusiastic audience. Even outright cancelled games that never saw the light of day. Larian had often to resort to working on games of other studios as support. Yet they learned along the way and all that experience did end up in Baldur's Gate 3.

No Man's Sky was a mess on release. Incomplete and the main game was mostly boring. But instead of giving up they sat down and fixed it. And the game is now a pretty good game, dare I say the best space game I played.

The common thing here is: all these devs had the room to continue after failure, to learn from it, to form that experience into a better game next time (or improve the same game in case of NMS). Yet Firewalk is denied this learning experience. And that is not on gamers, that is on Sony. They don't allow Firewalk to learn and turn into a better studio with a better game next time. And my guess the failure is mostly due to Sony decisions like price and live service model.

I guess a lot of that is down to budget. You don't easily walk away from a 200 million failure (or possibly more). But again: that is on Sony. Why not start with a smaller budget and smaller game with an unproven and new studio. Sony did that once upon a time: they had games like Flower, Parappa, Gravity Rush and so on. Small experiences. How many similar games were cancelled or uncussessful? With such small budget it is easy to forget a failure. And these games still allow the studio to learn and grow.

So no, wishing a game to fail because we dislike the direction it takes should not mean that the devs lose their job. That is a corporate decision, and it is bad as it prevents studios to build up experience and good workflow.

I mean, that's the thing. A lot of people claim that the industry is missing AA games, that everything nowadays is too expensive and time-consuming and that's costing the industry, etc.

But the thing is, people nowadays don't buy AA games. Period. They almost unanimously fail with rare exceptions, meaning going back to the old PS2 days where that used to work seems out of the question with today's market.

So, you might as well go for high-risk, high-reward GAAS in that scenario. Blame the game, not the players.

The NEW CEO thing. Herman just got the job, so he can make this decision.

If he was CEO during the aquisition, to write-off this kind of investment would cost him the job. Now Herman thinks 'not going to have this hanging around my neck going forward, so cut as soon as possible'.

Jim Ryan's legacy strikes again!

This is definitely how the industry views it. 

But I think the reality is (way, way) more complicated. 

When I look at the AA space, a lot of the times they're very obviously trying to go after the same trends as the AAA space, but that ultimately means they're just watered down versions of AAA games. I think there's a big missing piece in the industry, and that's where the AAA space used to be. If you look at a lot of the big games of the PS3 era (some of which are still talked about today), there's no development like those. You look at Uncharted 2 or Skyrim, those had surprisingly small teams compared to games today. 

Earlier this year, I got pointed to Banishers as an example of a good AA game, it was specifically pointed out as an example of AA games not selling. I have not played it admittingly, but I talked to two people who have, and they both gave me the same impression of the game being unnecessarily padded. 

I'm not aware of many AA studios that are putting out tight, fantastic 12 hour experiences like Uncharted 2. I'm not aware of any studios whatsoever that are putting out RPGs like Skyrim. 

I think Astro Bot is a great example of what AA should be. That was made by a relatively small team and only over a few years. 

(I apologize for ranting. This is a subject that has gotten me worked up this year, with how the industry is going...)

That's the thing about Firewalk, they aren't some unproven studio, they're made up of industry veterans. They wanted a 200M+ budget for their live service project. I'm sure they could learn from Concord and make a much better game the next time around. But would that be worth it for Sony? How much growth do they really have left? Would their next game even be a moderate success? It made sense to allow developers like Team Asobi and Arrowhead to learn and grow.  

Sony approves all sorts of budgets for all sorts of games. Concord getting 200M+ doesn't mean something like Astro Bot or Lego Horizon aren't going to be funded. We still get stuff like Destruction All Stars, Sackboy, Helldivers 2, Miles Morales, and XDEV projects like Rise of the Ronin. We even have them licensing out a niche but beloved PS Vita game in Freedom Wars. Personally I think Sony has done a good job in providing these experiences since the launch of the PS5. Could they do better? Sure. I don't think its accurate to say that Sony aren't funding smaller, more budgeted games, though. 

I just don't see how wishing these games to fail means you aren't hoping that these developers lose their jobs. Many developers can't afford a game bombing, yet alone a catastrophic bomb like Concord, especially if they are independent. I'm sure some of you guys hoping it fails don't have that intention, but that's not the reality. 

Xbox probably has like 20 of them that size, now.
Its also why its putting its games on Playstation and PC, the sizes of these budgets are just too big.
So its not just a issue for Sony.

Spider-Man 2 costed $315m, so $200m might actually be cheap for Sony. 

They need to adapt some of the cost saving techniques used in the past.

Isometric views, backgrounds are just 2D art (but handcrafted and beautiful). Instead of anything being open world.... reel it back in, make it more linear, just allow a bit of freedom with a few branching paths and some exploration and hidden spots here and there.  That sort of thing, worked well in the past.

You cant expect a good outcome if you do a low budget, full open world game.
That stuff takes way way to much time and resources, so if your that limited, you'll end up spread to thin and the AA budget will result in a poor open world game.

You need to manage expectations and be realistic, and instead focus and polish where it makes sense.

I could say that this is the final chapter in the Concord debacle but there's still that upcoming Amazon video game anthology series that has a Concord focused episode in it so Concord will have a little more time in the spotlight when that comes out and then that'll be it. I think viewership of that could actually end up being good due to the game receiving a lot of attention due to being one of the biggest flops in entertainment of all time.