- cross-posted to:
- skg@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- cross-posted to:
- skg@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Sony is begging you: please forget about concord
You must log in or # to comment.
Thank you everyone for giving them money so they can use that money against us.
Had to laugh, here I am scrolling Lemmy and see a post about those server existing, random post next, then this one.
They really want people to forget all about Concord.
How dare they try and play a game they paid for.
This is 100% proof Sony is going to write this off as a tax write off
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.
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.
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.
IP/trademarks/copyrights/etc.
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.
How does community-run servers prevent them from writing off their losses?
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
Sony refunded everyone who bought the game though.
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.
In case you weren’t aware, 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.
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.
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.
I’m not sure why you are downvoted, this is 100% correct.
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.
Games used to be sold as a physical object containing the game files.
I can do that today too. I can buy from gog, download the installer an burn it to a DVD. I now own a physical object with the game files that gog or the game publisher can not easily take away from me. I’d still just own a license, not the game, and the license can be revoked. They just couldn’t really keep me from playing the game even after it was.
You need to understand the difference between having something in your possession and having the rights to it. You never owned any video game, even in the days of cartridges, they were always licenses.
“Having” is not the same as “owning”.
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.
You’ve never owned Chrono Trigger.
Sorry, another way in which the world was a lie.
But as the other person replying said, with physical media they’d have to break into your house; probably not happening without them wining some kind of devastating lawsuit against you.
Anyway the point we’re all making by pointing out this seemingly pedantic distinction is that digital media is sold in the same way physical was (just, without the need to transport a physical object to provide access to the media); this is what allows media companies to now take advantage. Whether it’s losing all your “owned” movies when the PS3 store shut down, or your games being “stolen” when Ubisoft shuts down the license server, etc.
Laws haven’t caught up because this transition happened gradually and without such poor practices; and now through regulatory capture will largely be ignored.
It’s a class war and they’re winning, even though they have no idea what the consequences will be as long as they get to live in opulence and control for now.
Legally speaking, you own the physical cartridge, but you only own a license to the software on the cartridge.
Practically speaking, no one will break into your house to control what you do with the cartridge.
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
You always have. Physical copies are sold as a license to use the product but not copy it (in some jurisdictions this is limited to “copy with intent to distribute”). This is also true of movies, music, and other media. This has been true since physical media has been available.
Under our current laws, “owning” a piece of media means control of the copyright; seems pedantic when the common terminology for having a piece of physical media is “owning”; but the point is that they would never sell you ownership; they would have to sell you a non-revocable license.
There was a physical release
To be fair, everyone was offered a refund for that game. So technically they probably haven‘t paid 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.
they don’t even run their servers anymore, it’s not like the fan servers are competing with them…
is sony turning into another nintendo/disney? flexing their copyright muscle just because they can?
Turning into? Sony has been worse than Nintendo or Disney for years. They’re the OG “we’re going to silently brick your machine to protect our digital assets.”
At least Nintendo had the decency to put in their EULA that they’re going to fuck you for trying to pirate content on their proprietary hardware. Sony just bricked your personal PC because fuck you and then lied about it.
The only reason you think Sony isn’t as bad as Nintendo is because they have better PR (and Nintendo is as bad as you think they are)
Turning into? They’ve always been this way. It’s been like 20 years since they decided it was ok to install rootkits on people’s PCs to protect their IP rights.
Sony has been shit for much longer than 20 years, kiddo.
It’s interesting. I did a quick search, and couldn’t quickly find many complaints about them before 2000, but technical people complained a lot about Sony products back then. The biggest complaint was that Sony did everything themselves. So, every component inside a piece of electronic equipment was made by Sony, and every time they could get away with it, it would have a custom footprint or custom specs, so that it was impossible to find replacement parts without getting them directly from Sony at huge markups.
I remember owning a Sony Powershot digital camera around the time when that tech first become consumer priced (around 2000 or so) and they had proprietary memory cards. I think it even had a custom USB cable with one end that wasn’t like anything else and one end regular USB
I said always, I just used an example from this century. Your comment does remind me of the UMD disks and their propriety sd cards
They have always been this way:
Although Sony ultimately did not win any of its lawsuits against them, Bleem! had to shut down when the huge court costs became too much for the small company to handle. Bleem! shut down in November 2001…
is sony turning into another nintendo/disney?
A corporation founded during the Showa era will always be anal retentive about intellectual property.
They’ve kinda always been shit to gamers, they just hid it from console gaming; PC gamers frequently got shafted by SOE.
I don’t even think they really hid it from the console space. Their entire PS3 launch was peak hubris. They just don’t step on rakes as much as Microsoft does, and Nintendo would shoot a litter of puppies if it helped them protect their IP rights, so they look better in comparison.
Happiness is value, and value must only be captured by the IP holder.
I think it’s more to do with its ongoing clash against Tencent. If they allow this to keep going, it may damage their chances on that side as well.
So let me get this straight… They’re still burning money on Concord through legal costs? Just walk away guys.
Sony is doing a Tax write off 100%
I don’t believe they need to erase it from history in order to do that
How weird is it that there are people who liked Concord so much that they spent all of their time and money to get something patched together just so they could play it again.
Didn’t it overwhelmingly bomb and had like no players towards the end?
Anyways good for them and screw Sony lawyers.
IIRC, it wasn’t a terrible game. It just wasn’t a unique enough game to compete in the space. Just another hero shooter. Just another live service. And thus it failed to meet overinflated expectations. Sony didn’t give it any time to grow or adapt.
Sony went all in on live service games, expecting them to all do gangbusters and to do so for forever. Their high expectations are slipping and failing to be met with Destiny. They bought Bungie for live service games too.
Oh, and Marathon. That one is in a precarious spot. Being delayed after an unexpectedly rough public beta.
Marathon being brought back as a live servive extraction shooter/battle royale was an immediate turn off for me, personally.
As a Mac owner when I was young, Bungie was my great saving grace for gaming. Loved Marathon even though it ran like shit.
Seeing it turned into that absolute trash and then discovering they didn’t even use AI but straight up stole artwork for it was the final nail in the coffin. Bungie is dead.
Considering how much Bungie has fucked over their one game and its playerbase for years and seem to keep finding ways to double down on it, I never had any faith in Marathon from the beginning.
What’s wild is this is far from the first time that studio’s been caught for art theft too.
I wonder how things would have been like if Apple, not Microsoft, bought Bungie for exclusive rights to Halo. 🤔
All five of us Mac gamers would have loved it
Sony seemed to want it to fail. Reviewers only got their hands on it shortly before release. Most didn’t like it. Marvel Rivals was dropping soon. It was doomed.
Hurry! Release the server code on the high seas before the Sony lawyers find you!!!
Another DMCA abuse
Must be nice to simply write off 250+ million. Sony needs to be broken up.
I thought the 250m was fake news?
Edit:
According to video game podcast host Colin Moriarty, citing an unnamed Concorddeveloper, the game had development costs of $400 million, although this figure was disputed by several PlayStation developers on social media.
Reacting to the game’s reported development cost of $400 million, Christopher Dring, head of GamesIndustry.biz, questioned media reports that took the figure seriously: “No game has that dev budget. The press reports are the laughing stock of the industry. Concord didn’t even get any above-the-line marketing spend.”
Idk I heard grand theft fuck your union 6 has a budget of 1.5 billion. Maybe also fake news but… yeah.
Also star citizen is a thing but thats a whole other can of space worms.
Sony: we think it’s the gamers fault the game isn’t successful.
gamers: hey, can we play it then?
Sony: fuck off
Nintendo: I am the shittiest!
Sony: Hold my beer…
Because of course they would, what a bunch of dicks.
Man, can’t have nothing!
