How does delisting a game make/save money?

No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 178 points – 4 months ago

As more developers confirm, it looks likely that ALL Adult Swim Games titles will be removed by May [UPDATE: Better Links]

I don't understand how this works. How does delisting a game make or save money? It's already spent in the creation. Now sales don't cost anything. There's no goods to ship. Steam copies the files to you, WB doesn't do anything.

"As more developers confirm, it looks likely that ALL Adult Swim Games titles will be removed by May" cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/26167118

This. Sucks. I really love games like Duck Game, Kingsway, and Super House of Dead Ninjas.

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It’s due to tax breaks. NPR did a piece on it. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/17/1143901911/popular-titles-are-vanishing-from-hbo-max-after-merger

the relevant quote:

it's about these special tax breaks that these companies can take in the immediate aftermath of a merger. So the company expects to write off something up to $3.5 billion connected to content costs as a result. And part of getting that tax benefit means they have to pull some of these shows from the service

so it's essentially a perverse incentive at work.

Welcome to the USA, this country is one "scam" after another all the way to the top

Because we made it that way. And we can fix it, too. Will we?

We can’t fix it, the common people only have a marginal say in our government. Corporations have captured almost all regulators and all the offices needed to effectively control the nation. Politicians will vote based on whatever their donors want them to do, not what the actual citizens in their districts want

not what the actual citizens in their districts want

Most of them don't vote, so there's no reason for any politician to ever take their wants into consideration. That's really what needs fixing.

It's more an unintended consequence. Pretty sure the point of this is that you can buy a company and get some relief for bad assets they have. You can also use healthy assets to get a quick tax break, for things unlikely to make a ton of money.

The law needs to change. Artistic works that are written off for tax purposes must revert to the public domain permanently and immediately.

That would be nice and in line with the goals of copyright, so obviously it will never happen.

unintended consequence is the definition of perverse incentive.

A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable result that is contrary to the intentions of its designers.