> None of the games in question are making any money, and the publishers don't expect to make any money in the future on them.

I don't know if that's true. Steam, GOG, Nintendo's Virtual Console... there's money being made on publisher back-catalogs these days, and even if the publisher has no current plan to release or support these games, the value of that back catalog is part of the total value of the company at sale or liquidation.