According to Eurogamer.net, Sony has issued multiple DMCA takedown notices against a fan-led project attempting to resurrect the failed live-service shooter Concord. The game was infamously pulled from sale just two weeks after its August 2024 PS5 and PC release, with reports suggesting it sold fewer than 25,000 copies. By October 2024, Sony had shut down developer Firewalk Studios and game director Ryan Ellis had stepped down. Despite this, a team of volunteer developers spent months reverse-engineering the game, getting main menus, character selection, and matchmaking working on private servers. The project was described as “playable, but buggy” before Sony’s legal intervention forced the team to pause development due to “worrying legal action.”
The legal hammer drops
Here’s the thing that makes this situation particularly frustrating. The Concord Delta team wasn’t just pirating the game – they were being incredibly careful about only allowing access to people who already owned legitimate copies. They actively shut down anyone trying to share copyrighted files and repeatedly emphasized they wanted to stay within legal boundaries. But Sony came down hard anyway, targeting videos of the project on YouTube and social media with copyright claims. Basically, even showing that the game could work again was enough to trigger legal action. And now the volunteers have backed off, pausing invites and likely ending what could have been Concord’s only chance at a second life.
The bigger preservation problem
This isn’t just about one failed game. Concord’s situation highlights a massive problem in modern gaming – what happens when publishers decide a game is no longer commercially viable? We’re talking about creative work that people paid for, that simply disappears forever. The UK House of Commons actually debated this exact issue recently, using Concord as a prime example of why better consumer protections and preservation efforts are needed. Sure, Sony refunded everyone, but is that really enough when entire games can just vanish from existence? I don’t think so. There’s something fundamentally wrong with treating games as completely disposable products.
Who really owns your games?
Look, I get it from Sony’s perspective – they don’t want unauthorized versions of their IP floating around. But when you’ve already refunded everyone and shut down the developer, what’s the harm in letting dedicated fans keep the lights on? The Concord situation exposes how little control players actually have over the games they “own.” We’re basically just renting access until the corporate overlords decide otherwise. And that should worry anyone who cares about gaming as an art form worth preserving. What’s the point of creating these elaborate digital worlds if they can be erased with a single business decision?
