LogInThe Communications Workers of America asserts Sony's studio closures strengthen the company's position as a video game monopolist.
While Sony's decision to shut down Firewalk Studios, the developer of the infamous hero shooter Concord, came as no surprise and was largely supported by an online community that still has a near-unanimous disdain for the game, it also came with a depressing caveat of dozens of Firewalk's developers losing their jobs, a situation that's impossible to celebrate given the widespread and devastating industry layoffs over the past few years.
Sony
According to a Sony representative, 210 employees are set to or have already been fired as a result of SIE's latest round of studio closures, including 172 from Firewalk and 38 from Neon Koi, a mobile game developer also dissolved alongside Firewalk Studios.
In light of this, the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), has issued an official statement, condemning Sony for killing off two studios and terminating their employees and proclaiming that this decision "makes it clear that now more than ever, video game workers deserve a free and fair opportunity to join together to form unions".
In its statement, CWA lambasted Sony executives for creating tough-to-navigate working conditions for video game workers, eliminating their job stability, and directly contributing to the record layoffs across the industry, emphasizing that the higher-ups have no respect for the affected developers by pointing to the sardonic "piece of advice" given by former President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Chris Deering, who, in his infinite wisdom, once suggested that laid-off workers should "drive an Uber, find a cheap place to live, and go to the beach for a year."
Moreover, the union also argued that Sony's studio closures are reinforcing the company's "monopoly position in the video game industry," stating their intent to bring the alleged anti-competitive effects of Sony's growing monopoly power to the attention of the relevant antitrust regulators.
"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 interest in furthering its monopoly position in the video game industry," the statement reads. "CWA plans to raise the anti-competitive impacts of Sony's increasing monopoly and monopsony power with the appropriate antitrust regulators, policymakers, and stakeholders. We will continue to support workers across the video game industry who seek to form a union and improve their workplace."
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