On July 1st of this year, the metaphorical tolling of the bell rang out to warn us all of an impending funeral. On this day, Sony Entertainment quietly dropped a notice on their official blog that they were planning to cease all manufacturing, production and the sale of physical discs for videogames sold on the PlayStation 5, by 2028. This includes games produced by third-party developers, and not just Sony’s own products. Reportedly, Sony has already begun to phase discs out of production at their last remaining disc plant in Austria. Doubtlessly this move has been planned for years, and despite the general outrage this news caused, the mournful cries of the grieving won’t persuade Sony to change its mind.
There were certainly signs of the impending apocalypse. When the PlayStation 5 launched in 2020, it came in two versions - the physical disc version (capable of supporting both disc and digital games) - and the digital-only, discless version. Although the latter was priced slightly cheaper, the majority of consumers purchased the physical disc version, and to this day, 82% of the consoles bought have been the physical edition. Ignoring public interest, Sony launched an upgraded pro-version of the console in 2024, but only available discless. It went somewhat undersold.
Clearly, there is still a strong consumer desire for physical games, even as mega-companies try to push people towards their more profitable digital services. Companies will also inflate their digital sales figures by artificially restricting their disc distribution - when the disc is sold out everywhere, many impatient consumers will turn to the online shopfront to quickly access a game. In Australia, the health of our brick-and-mortar retail shops is waning. EB Games, our major local chain, has had to shutter operations in New Zealand. Locally, discs and cartridges are getting harder to come by and publishers restrict physical sales to boost their own platforms.
Video game companies are notoriously bad at making their products accessible for media preservation, and there is a growing problem of games becoming abandonware or suddenly inaccessible. This is especially true for digital-only purchases, as it becomes possible for platforms to digitally revoke access to a game that has had licensing or longevity issues. Many of these games are live-service games, which are entirely multiplayer, community-focused experiences and don’t have a workable single-player mode. When sales cease and the player count drops beyond what is sustainable for an always-online game, many companies will pull the plug on the servers, rendering the game totally inaccessible. While fan-servers exist for many of these dead games, for others they cannot be emulated.
For other games, licensing can be an issue. Sony famously delisted P.T., a free “playable teaser” for a full game that never was released. Despite being a mere “teaser”, the short, cryptic horror game intrigued fans worldwide and was even a contender for “Game of the Year” in 2014. P.T. was only released on PlayStation 4, and after being delisted, cannot be accessed by anyone who didn’t already have it on their console. It has remained one of the most interesting horror games ever made, and yet cannot be acquired ever again. It seems Sony doesn’t care about revoking access to what people once had - even if they purchased it. The company sold film and tv shows through its PlayStation digital shopfront until 2021, and - days before announcing the death of physical media - also announced that access to over 500 films would be revoked, sparking questions about what really counts as ownership, since it seems that non-physical media can be snatched away at any time.
This is why physical media has always been popular. Companies love to sell the idea of a digital purchase as convenient; in fact it is most convenient for the company. The cost of manufacturing, distributing and licensing discs means that the profit margins are higher on digital games. Additionally, many video game consoles have a monopoly on their digital storefront, meaning that they can set a fixed price for their digital games with absolutely no competition. If this sounds worrisome, that’s because it is. With the removal of disc production, Sony is effectively creating a totally exclusive system wherein it sets the price and accessibility to every game on its hardware.
The upcoming GTA VI, a massive game that is projected to break sales records with an estimated three billion in revenue, will only be available digitally. Insultingly, there is a version to be sold in shops - an empty box with a download code inside. While calls have been made to regulators to step in and prevent this toxic ecosystem from emerging, it seems said regulators are unwilling to take on the multi-million dollar industry. Movements are emerging - Stop Killing Games - a coalition of legal advocates, is pushing the industry for better consumer protection in the EU, where consumer rights have historically forced the industry to shift.
In 2022, some countries in the EU began changing their laws regarding the protection of minors from aggressive marketing and addictive mechanisms in games. Loot-boxes - a system of pay-to-gamble microtransactions that offer a potential reward - were designated as falling under gambling rules, forcing many global publishers to capitulate and remove or tone-down these mechanics. Now, at the precipice of this disc-apocalypse, many look to the EU for hope, even as the EU commissioner has already responded with doubt that the EU has the power to regulate Sony this way.
It wasn’t always this way. The proliferation of the internet, and the expectation of online availability, has fundamentally shifted the way games are made. Fewer and fewer games remind wholly offline experiences, but even those that do are expected to have online updates sent periodically at launch. The troubled release of Ultima IX: Ascension in 1999 was the catalyst for the introduction of the “Day-1 Patch”, which has now become a ubiquitous expectation. Games nowadays are rarely shipped in a complete state, instead, many launch with massive bugs, performance issues and incomplete content, while the developers are pushed to continue fixing the already-released game. Rushed deadlines, marketing expectations and staff shortages have all contributed to these industry problems, with consumer expectations adjusting to match. And it should never have become this way.
Sometimes a company takes it too far - Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) was such a disaster that Sony pulled it from the digital shopfront and it was only available on limited disc copies until repaired, about six months later. Other games such as Fallout 76 (2018) had such serious security problems that many user’s personal data - address, phone, bank details - and accounts were compromised. Yet, launching a half-working game only to fix major problems a few weeks later would not be such an issue if internet access was universally available. These patches can be up to 50GB at a time, which may be very slow or expensive to download in certain areas. Many countries with smaller markets also heavily rely on disc distribution as they cannot easily access digital shopfronts. Sony officially supports 73 countries digitally, which means the rest will now have no way of accessing these games. Eastern Europe, South-Central Asia and North Africa are among regions likely to be locked out of the digital club.
As consumers we cannot take this news lying down. We must support grass roots action, boycotts and lobbying to force these mega-corporations to keep their media accessible. Nothing changes when we sigh, and accept the end of our right to keep what we pay for. Physical games must continue to be bought, traded, heirloomed, resold and distributed outside of the echo-chamber of digitisation.
StopKillingGames:
Sony’s Blogpost:
Sid Shuman (he/him)
EU cannot stop Sony:
Vikki Blake