Labour Union Blasts Sony for Looking to Further Monopoly with Studio Closures 1
Image: Sora Shimazaki

Labour union the Communication Workers of America (CWA) claim that Sony’s recent closures of Concord developer Firewalk and mobile studio Neon Koi are evidence of it looking to further its “monopoly position in the video game industry”. It’s also warned that it’ll be sharing its concerns with regulators and policymakers.

Firewalk was shuttered earlier this week after the unprecedented flop of Concord, the online multiplayer game which is rumoured to have sold fewer than 25k copies. Neon Koi, meanwhile, was acquired by Sony a couple of years ago, and was working on a mobile action game which never saw the light of day.

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In a statement we’ve been trying to make sense of for several minutes, the CWA said: “Sony's decision to dissolve studios outside their walled-garden of PlayStation-exclusive content, rather than making games that have to compete in the highly diverse and competitive mobile game market, should be a cautionary warning sign of Sony's interests in furthering their monopoly position in the video game industry.”

We’re not fully sure we understand the insinuation here. Is it arguing that Sony bought Neon Koi then closed the company to reduce competition? Honestly, we don’t think whoever wrote this thought it through.

Nevertheless, that’s not going to stop the CWA from raising its concerns to regulators: “CWA plans to raise the anti-competitive impacts of Sony's increasing monopoly and monopsony power with the appropriate antitrust regulators, policymakers, and stakeholders.”

PS5, of course, isn’t anywhere close to being a monopoly. While it’s a successful product, it faces stiff competition from Nintendo, PC, and, to a lesser but not ignorable extent, Xbox. It’s also challenged by all other forms of entertainment, such as Netflix et al.

Ironically, the CWA supported Microsoft’s massive acquisition of Activision Blizzard, on the basis of a labour neutrality agreement. This, unfortunately, didn’t prevent the thousands of layoffs which have occurred within the division since the near-$70 billion deal closed.

[source gamedeveloper.com]