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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's a weak overwatch clone that came out years too late to ride it's coattails