Sony is begging you: please forget 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
How does community-run servers prevent them from writing off their losses?
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.
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.
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.
The EU is working it’s way towards digital ownership. Gdpr and dma are steps in reducing corporate power and granting ownership over identity.
Yeah, EU has plenty of flaws but are making some good steps.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m not sure why you are downvoted, this is 100% correct.
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.
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’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.
On the other hand, why they actually enjoy this, regardless of the reasons, why would they stop?
Sony could just have ignored this
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.
Please, tell me how it’s objectively terrible.
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.
Those are subjective opinions about the game.
No they’re not. Those are the opinions of the majority of people that played the game and/or reviewed it. Also they’re quantifiable by the game play.
The fact that it was too expensive is not subjective, the fact that the art direction was poor is not subjective, lack of material at launch is not subjective.
I highly recommend you look up the definitions of subjective/objective.
It’s a weak overwatch clone that came out years too late to ride it’s coattails
That’s a subjective opinion.
Fine. Objectively it failed because very few people wanted to play it. Those people largely didn’t want to play it because it was a weak overwatch clone that came out years too late to ride it’s coattails. Happy?
That doesn’t make it terrible, that simply makes it not original
That’s just laundering your opinion through Argumentum ad populum.
That is a subjective opinion on my reply and also throwing out fallacy names is technically an appeal to authority
That’s not an answer to the question that was asked.
And you’re not the person I was answering
…so?
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
Once in a while Sony reconfirms my choice to boycott them since the rootkit CD scandal in the 00s.
I’ve made a whole series of purchase decisions based on similar motivation. For decades I’ve avoided DSLRs, consoles, games, phones, tablets and a whole bunch of products made by Sony. I pirate what I can, everything else is just off-limits.
The only exception I make is used consoles since I know they hate that the used market exists. Even then, they haven’t really put out anything worth getting since ps2.
Same. I’ll never make the mistake of purchasing a Sony product ever again
I think I’ve boycotted sony for one thing or the other for the large part of my adult life. Only backed down in 2021 and bought some shares. Time to return back to normal I guess.
They make some pretty good bluetooth headphones though…
I’ve been using Bose Quiet Comfort noise reduction headphones for almost 2 decades now, ever since I had to do software development in a large open space office alongside the noisy business-side types (this was in Investment Banking - so whilst not a heavy-machinery-noisy environment, certain the top range of office noisy) and those they were very good already back then (I’m still using at home the first model I got, after replacing the ear-pads which is what gets damaged over time).
The QC 3.5 and onwards have bluetooth AND also a wired connection as fallback (which I have had to use with devices without bluetooth).
Of course, you pay for it (last ones I got were €250 if I remember it correctly), but then again they last a long time (as I said, the first ones, now almost 2 decades old, are still work fine even if the outside is all scratched up and they’re now on the 5th or 6th pair or earpads).
I very much doubt Sony one’s are anywhere close to that, especially given that the quality of Sony devices took a massive dive in the late 90s when top level management which until then was dominated by the Engineering side was taken over by the Media side took over (before they used to be known for the high quality of their electronics).
I actually have been using those Bose QC over the ear ones for a few years now (and I already had to replace the pads once), and they’re not great. IIRC I paid like $300, and they’re definitely not worth that much. I’m not that picky about sound quality, but the UX is terrible. Powering it on is a crap shoot. Sometimes you press the button, and 5 seconds later it plays a sound to indicate it turned on. Sometimes it takes 10 seconds, sometimes more. Sometimes it doesn’t even turn on, and you just sit there doing nothing waiting to see if it decided to turn on this time, or if you have to hold the button for ~30 seconds to get it unstuck. Sometimes that sound that plays when powering on even gets interrupted by the bluetooth connection notice. Sometimes, it gets stuck in a loop switching between sound isolation modes, just endlessly saying “Aware. Immersion. Quiet.” until you intervene.
It’s also hard to simply wear them around your neck when your ears get tired and you just want to use them as tiny speakers. This is for two reasons. First, the placement of the physical buttons on the side of the cups means that they will accidentally get pressed when the cups collide (which will happen when you wear them around your neck). Second, they will constantly pause whenever they get close to your chin, as they’ll think you took them off your head. That part is overly sensitive, and they were too cheap/lazy to add a simple sensor to detect the rotation of the cups to know when they’re not being used over-ear.
And finally, the battery life is not good enough to last an entire work day, so you’ll have to connect them to power… except, for some reason, connecting a usb cable to charge causes it to shutdown immediately. You can use them while charging, but you have to power them back on/reconnect them after connecting the cable, which means you have to play the annoying waiting/guessing game again with the power button!
I have other complaints, but whatever. When they’re working, they’re fine, but I’m probably done with Bose. These little issues on such an expensive product left a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t know how Sony’s over the ear headphones compare, but the in-ear ones I have are amazing simply because they work as intended 99% of the time without any of this kind of bullshit.
This is totally different from my experience.
I use headphones, which cover the full ear so I don’t get any “tired ears” from those. Maybe you’re using a totally different model (no idea if BOSE have earphones and if they’re any good - I avoid any earphones exactly because of getting “tired ears” with them).
If you’re using headphones, maybe you have the QC 3 (which are widelly seen as shit)?!
I have had over the years the original QC, QC 2.5 and QC 3.5 and still use the QC and QC 3.5 with none of those problems (funnilly enough, the oldest, an original QC, uses a single removable AAA battery, and I use rechargeable ones and even that will last around 3 - 4 days, whilst the built-in LiPo in the QC 3.5 lasts even more than that when using bluetooth, and even more when using an audio wire).
I’m using “Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones” manufactured in 2024, according to the app. I can’t find any model number, but I just looked up the order in my email and it turns out I’ve actually only had it for a little over a year, and the price was a ridiculous $380. Luckily, I only ended up paying around $200 because I had reward points with the vendor, but I would definitely not recommend these to anyone at $400. At $200? Maybe, but I wouldn’t buy it again at that lower price.
My ears fit in the cups, but they still get tired sometimes after wearing them the entire day. Idk what to tell you, I guess my ears are too big and brush up against the inside of the cups? It’s not a real issue for me, and doesn’t happen often, which is why I didn’t even mention comfort as being a problem.
Do you really not experience any of the software issues I mentioned? The Bose app even says I’m on the latest firmware version.
Fuck, maybe they went down in quality again 😬
In my own experience, the original QCs were great tech for the time, the QC 2.5 (or maybe I had a QC 2?) had issues and lasted much less and then the QC 3.5 were again great (the battery lasts way longer, build quality is nice and the user interface is decent with no such problems as your reported “easy to switch off” button).
Also I never used the manufacturer’s app, and it’s not really needed even with with the wireless 3.5 model (I don’t even know if there’s a mfg app for those), certainly not with the previous ones which are wired.
(As a general rule I avoid mfg apps since they’re almost always overbloated shit and instead always chose devices which do not require an app).
The QC 3.5 was launched almost a decade ago, so plenty of time for later models to have been enshittified.
Damn those headphones you have are from the pre-enshitiffication era. Cherish them!
The headphones work without the app fortunately, but you need it to control EQ settings, isolation settings, and install firmware updates. They’re kinda like the shitty software that PC gaming peripherals ship to control LED colors or whatever.
They really hate their own fans. Be aware of that next time you purchase any Sony product.
I don’t understand the word “purchasing” in the context of “Sony product”. What do you mean with that?
If you want to pirate a camera, a phone, a set of headphones, a walkman, a games console or any other consumer electronics goods, be my guest. I don’t see how you can do that…
Simple. I’ll just download it. Back in my day you used to be able to download RAM too.
epic anti-piracy ad music
You wouldn’t download RAMFunnily enough they pirated that music for the anti-piracy ad on vhs tapes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sony_Interactive_Entertainment_video_games
Sony has been the publisher for a zillion games via SEI.
They also literally directly own a bunch of game studios including Naughty Dog (The Last of Us, Uncharted, all the way back to Crash Bandicoot), Arrowhead Studios (Helldivers), Guerilla Games (Horizon) and now also Bungie (Destiny, Halo). That’s just a few of the big studios they own. Complete list here: https://www.gamesradar.com/playstation-studios-sony/
Edit: Oh and of course they owned the studio that made Concord (Firewalk Studios)
Yes I know, (my Sony boycott is a well-informed one, before I purchase a game I make sure that there’s no Sony stench coming off it), and I can understand how you can pirate those (Which I assume was the joke that Tattorack was making).
But Sony is much bigger than just its games division. It’s also the music label, the movie label and the electronics. Music and Movies can also be “pirated”, but not the consumer electronics.
Sony doesn’t only make games.
I’m not awake yet. Thought this was a response to me. Sorry. Have had a crappy night
I stopped buying anime when they bought up all the major NA distributors.
Had to laugh, here I am scrolling Lemmy and see a post about those server existing, random post next, then this one.
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.
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.
Its become Cartmanland to me. I want to check it out. I wouldn’t pay for it, but I want to check it out.
Hurry! Release the server code on the high seas before the Sony lawyers find you!!!
Pissing off perhaps the only fans of this failure lol
Ahh yes, just the PR Sony wants after Valve dropped an atomic bomb of an announcement.
What was the announcement?
- New home console (called “GabeCube”)
- New Steam controller
- New VR Headset (called “Steam Frame”)
Oh, yeah. I saw that all over Lemmy. I thought they might have been talking about something else.
Thanks for the response.
StopKillingGames? More like StopMurderingGamesAndExecutingThemInColdBlood.
Assholes
My understanding is they refunded everyone who bought it.
Still dumb for them to do this, don’t mistake me.
you’d think they would be happy people are going out of their way to preserve the service. It gives them excuse to shut down their servers if they can point to these. but nope
Oh it’s never about that. You can’t milk a game that lives for free. Although they pay for publicity (ads, etc.), getting it for free means less cash flow, means less numbers on quarterly earnings, means less investor money.
It is always about the number on their bank account, never about you, me, or anyone else. They don’t give a flying fuck, they’d happily let us burn in a house fire if it meant just a teensy bit more dollars.
Fuck Sony, Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, ActiBlizzosoft, and the rest of them.
Blame the suits, they got into the video game business once Atari became a household word.
I do, and always will. Hopefully more studios will split into smaller ones and start making small, simple games for $15 that will sell like hotcakes. Creative talent is simply wasted on this AAA slop.
Its bad press for them. The whole game is bad news for them all the way around. I bet they won’t ever mention it by name again.
It gives them excuse to shut down their servers if they can point to these.
I’m pretty sure they already shut down all their servers. They refunded everyone and try to forget the game ever happened.
It all comes down to Japanese peoples’ beliefs. They see modding their games as a shameful behavior because they compare it to plagiarism. As ridiculous as it is, they see it as stealing their ideas instead of coming up with your own. In their eyes you should be making your own game from scratch instead of ressurecting theirs.
It’s the same reason why Nintendo is so god damn evil. In their eyes they’re doing the honorable thing by suing their own customer base.
They see modding their games as a shameful behavior
Seems some of them are avowed purists.
They also think modding is a form of cheating, as in supposedly breaking the game mechanics, forgetting that some games are good visually but have awful difficulty or needing more immersion.
Another DMCA abuse
There’s isn’t even an IP argument to be had. They abandoned the game, so why pay a lawyer to
sewsue?Edit to correct.
so why pay a lawyer to sew?
I hate to be that person but just in case you wanted to know, it’s spelled sue.
-
sew: to unite or fasten by stitches
-
sue: to seek justice or right from a person by legal process, specifically to bring an action against
Fuck me I can’t go two days in a row without a spelling mistake! Also don’t apologize, I would rather be embarrassed once now, than potentially infinitely in the future!
BTW, to answer your original question: just because someone is a lawyer doesn’t mean that can’t also know how to sew. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a darning egg or two in a legal professional’s briefcase. They do have to wear fancy suits, after all.
Lol, this is so apropos! I just started studying law and am a bad ass needle pointer.
-
IANAL but, just because they abandoned the game doesn’t mean they don’t own the IP. It’s still their IP and unfortunately IP laws everywhere suck ass. IP law only works if you defend your IP. If you don’t defend it then it can weaken IP protection on other IP you own. Even if you don’t actively use the IP you still need to defend it to keep up protection on your other IP.
Yeah, you’re absolutely right.
So how can we help set up more servers to cost them even more legal fees?
I’m new to the Linux scene, but if you find a bot that does this, I’ll totally run it.
So, it’s all about control, at the end.
