Sony refunded everyone who bought the game though.
Comment on Sony cracks down on Concord custom servers, issues DMCA takedowns on gameplay videos
FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
How dare they try and play a game they paid for.
Meruten@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
A seller doesn’t get to walk in your home, hand you a check and take your couch. The same should not be allowed for digital goods. A voluntary refund should never revoke ownership rights. But we don’t actually have ownership rights any more, do we? Or any rights.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Digital ownership is probably going to happen, but it’s going to take a generation of politicians to die off. Once we get more people that understand computers and digital goods aren’t magic, there can be change.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
The average EU politician is 50. They were 25 when Napster did its thing.
There will be no change as long as the EU is fundamentally a liberal institution.
Chozo@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
But we don’t actually have ownership rights any more, do we?
When it comes to video games, we've never had ownership rights. Buying a game has always been just buying a license. The only thing that's changed is that now publishers have a mechanism with which to enforce it.
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Fuck that, when I bought Chrono Trigger for the SNES, I owned that game. I still own that game. Nintendo has not broken into my home to rescind my license to a physical cartridge that I purchased.
hzl@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
That is absolutely untrue. Games used to be sold as a physical object containing the game files. No serial numbers to redeem, no servers, no downloads or updates. Sometimes you’d get a booklet with the game that had some codes in it that the game would ask for on startup to make making copies a little more difficult, but that was it.
You’d literally have everything you need just on the CD, disk, or cartridge. We 100% owned the game and the system it was played on, and the only way to revoke that would have been to physically break into your house and steal it.
This whole games as services thing is about 20 years old tops, and it wasn’t even remotely approaching the standard for quite a while after that.
4am@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I’m not sure why you are downvoted, this is 100% correct.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I don’t see why I should pay for a license, especially when it can be revoked any time for any reason. That’s just not a valuable product
4am@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
In case you weren’t away, we’ve never had digital ownership. All software has been licensed since the dawn of software, including physical media you’ve bought
Are you using a product that is no longer sold because you have the physical media? If the rights holder decides to go after you to compel you to stop or even try to collect damages, they fucking can.
They historically haven’t because it’s a terrible PR move and they might not have a chance in court due to the physical nature of the transaction; but you’ve never “owned” software in the same way you’ve never owned a movie or music. The sale has always been a license and a physical copy.
The problem has always been the pesky physical copy, which couldn’t be revoked. Since we’ve moved to digital, boomers don’t recognize that this is theft in the digital world they’d never stand for in the real world, and the elite take advantage.
FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
There was a physical release
nyankas@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
To be fair, everyone was offered a refund for that game. So technically they probably haven‘t payed for it anymore.
I still totally agree that Sony shouldn‘t go after private Concord servers. This game is very interesting, because it was an unbelievable failure despite having pretty solid gameplay. And preserving that on private servers provides a great way for other developers to learn, and maybe prevent, the tons of other issues leading to the game‘s failure.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They’re not. Sony refunded all copy’s sold. Sony lost a metric butt ton of money on the game realized it was a massive ideological and developmental mistake and tried to correct course.
For some reason people are being super stubborn about this objectively terrible game.
Jesus just let it die.
Laser@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
On the other hand, why they actually enjoy this, regardless of the reasons, why would they stop?
Sony could just have ignored this
mechoman444@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They could have but it’s their game they refunded all the purchased copies of it. The whole point of copyright is to protect intellectual property for its owners if they don’t want people playing it they shouldn’t be.
And keep in mind copyright protects everyone not just large corporations like Sony.
FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Please, tell me how it’s objectively terrible.
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
It’s a weak overwatch clone that came out years too late to ride it’s coattails
FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
That’s a subjective opinion.
ripcord@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s not an answer to the question that was asked.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Look, the reason Concord crashed and burned isn’t some deep philosophical mystery. It’s because the game simply wasn’t good enough to survive in a genre that’s already stacked with better, cheaper options.
It launched with no real identity. Everything about it felt like a watered-down version of other hero shooters, same structure, same archetypes, none of the charm. Characters were forgettable, abilities didn’t mesh well with the modes, and the balance was all over the place. The movement was slow, the time-to-kill was absurdly long, and fights dragged on like you were playing in molasses. That’s not “a bold design choice,” that’s just poor pacing.
Then you add the fact that they tried to charge forty bucks for something that, by every metric, should’ve been free-to-play. On top of that, content was thin at launch. Maps were bland, the mode selection was tiny, and there wasn’t enough variety to keep anyone invested. When a live-service shooter launches with barely anything to do, the writing is already on the wall.
Players didn’t walk away because they “didn’t give it a chance.” They walked away because the game gave them no reason to stay. Sales were abysmal, concurrency numbers cratered immediately, and Sony pulled the plug in record time. That’s not player bias or community toxicity; that’s a product failing on its own merits.
You can dress it up however you want, but the reality stands: Concord entered a crowded market with nothing special to offer, priced itself like it was a premium experience, and then delivered something that felt half-thought-out and generic. It wasn’t some misunderstood masterpiece. It was just a bad game.
FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Those are subjective opinions about the game.
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
This is 100% proof Sony is going to write this off as a tax write off
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
I firmly believe that anything “written off” in that manner - this includes movies, too, in particular - should have to be released into the public domain as part of that process.
Any business that’s paying less taxes is harming the public good; we should at least benefit in some small way from that.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
It’s more likely they have contractual obligations with marketing companies, retailers, data centers, etc. If a product is discontinued they can get out of those obligations. Sure they will write off a loss and reduce the taxes they pay, but it’s not as if a bigger loss nets them more money somehow.
Really what needs to be regulated is all of the excessive exclusive B2B contracts which mean a company can’t just sell a product for a small amount of money to someone to maintain it when they’re done with that product.
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Well if it’s “written off” of their taxes that means it’s taxes they don’t pay which is essentially paid by the rest of us in taxes we do pay. So yeah it should be public domain since we “bought” it.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s not accurate. A tax write-off isn’t “taxes you don’t pay”. It’s “lost income that isn’t taxed”.
The US corporate income tax is nominally 21%. If a company writes off 100 of loss (or charitible donations, or expenses, or anything else), their earnings are reduced by 100 dollars, saving them 21 bucks. There’s no way to “profit” off of failure through write-offs.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Imagine you create a product that is mechanically functional but fundamentally terrible. Only a tiny group is willing to pay for it, and even that isn’t enough to break even. You have no choice but to pull it from the market and discard it. Then the government steps in and starts distributing that product for free. This is your personal intellectual property, you no longer control it or own it.
Your comment is deeply frustrating. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright and intellectual property, which is frankly astounding.
ThrowawayInTheYear23@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In the US our Constitution only grants you a monopoly on your creation for a limited time before it ends up in the public domain.
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
“Imagine you create something that ends up being terrible, you can’t profit off it, and then people can get it for free!”
I don’t understand what the problem is here.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
How does community-run servers prevent them from writing off their losses?
Hadriscus@jlai.lu 2 weeks ago
I guess the loss could be argued against in court given that there is player activity, even though it’s not endorsed nor hosted by them. Just speculation
WildPalmTree@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Not really. Now, please remember, im not a Japanese or American tax lawyer. A write-off is just a bookkeeping manouver that means: we are never going to make a profit on this investment so we will take the remaining cost right now instead of in installment over the bookkeeping calculated time frame we intended. It might have a time-vslue of money effect on the total value of the cost, but it’s not very significant. The tax write-off was always going to come; it was a cost after all. It’s just a matter of timing.
Let me give you an example. I’m developing a game console and it takes me 10 dollars and a year to do it. In a naïve bookkeeping world, I’d have a cost of 10 dollars the first year and for the next ten years, I’d have the COGS (cost of goods sold) as the cost and the money people pay as the income. This is not how modern bookkeeping works. The cost of year one will be split on the (for example) first 10 years of the game console life as this more realistically reflects what is going on. Cashflow is a very different thing.
I’m sure I’ve used the wrong terms for cost and income, I always do. But no one that didn’t already know what I said will notice…
uninvitedguest@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
You’ve said something with such absolute certainty that is not making sense to me.
Now I’m not versed in Japanese tax law, but Japan does follow International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). I’m also not versed in the capitalization of video game development expenses.
A business is going to write down their asset based on their ability to generate future revenue from it. With Concord dead on arrival, it would be fair to say that they would write down everything related to the individual game development. If they left any asset on the books it would be related to the IP/trademarks/copyrights/etc (maybe some transferrable technology if they are getting really specific).
I’m not able to make the connection between issuing takedowns on community servers/videos and the accounting write off of an impaired asset. Issuing takedowns seems more in line with IP protection.
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
This is likely going to be the main reason for the takedown notices, Sony will be exercising their legal rights in order to defend their trademarks & copyrights on Concord assets.
If a company doesn’t defend them vigorously, then any unlicensed works that are allowed to exist are then used as legal precedent moving forward to null/void such copyrights and trademarks.
As an aside, Sony is a global corporation and can likely choose to write down these losses in the most preferred region to maximise the tax offset - so likely either the US, or Ireland.