Jesus wept.
John 11:35
In case you haven’t heard, Sony just announced that PlayStation will stop making physical disc releases of their games in 2028. Feel free to read more here:
And this piece from Stephen Totilo, a journalist who used to be important at Kotaku:
He’s got a graph! My perspective is one of an academic; I care about preservation and analysis.
I got mad enough that I decided to write a whole thing today instead of working on the next five articles that I already have drafts for. Stay tuned for those!
My greatest worry is, of course, access. It’s hard to trust companies when they gain so much power over the materials we supposedly purchased and when they seem to never do anything beneficial with the money they earn. Abuse the Global South for labor and resources? Always. Allow fans, critics, scholars, and archivists permanent access and ownership of their copy of that artwork? Never.
The industry has already been moving in this direction. Steam is digital; Xbox and PlayStation released all-digital versions of their newest consoles, which sold very well, and they sell more digital copies than physical. Nintendo sends out cartridges with access codes, not the game files themselves (PS discs have done this as well).
Not adding to physical garbage is a good thing.1 That’s not the reason they’re doing this, of course; discs and their cases cost about $1 each, according to Totilo above. Sounds to me like Sony has decided that they’d rather save themselves a little money. Plus, they wouldn’t have to include an option for a disc drive on the PS6, which will save on manufacturing cost. Sure.
It’s also convenient, and discs have a habit of breaking. Downloading digital files is the best way to do something like PlayStation Plus, which I do take advantage of (that’s how I’m playing Assassin’s Creed Mirage). Digitization is also more accessible for indie creators who don’t need to waste their time or money finding deals with disc manufacturers.
I have a problem with this—this is probably neither surprising nor a hot take—and the PlayStation digital-only announcement is incredibly disappointing. First, I prefer physical ownership for the sake of access without Internet or connectivity. I prefer CDs in my car, rather than downloaded files from my phone.2 I’d rather the disc play (and repeat) without my thinking or worrying about it. I don’t want my phone’s Bluetooth to be on all the time, for the sake of its battery but also for the nebulous concept of ‘usage’ in general. If I’m driving through an area without any signal, the music continues. I bought the thing to support this (usually very small) artist, and I get to enjoy it on my own terms regardless of my access to mobile data and without having to use a touchscreen.3
Second, physical items offer buy-in and care. If you have to figure out where physically a thing will go when you obtain a copy, you’re probably more careful about whether you should buy it in the first place, or (in this case, with gaming) play one of the 19 other games you’ve saved up in your library but haven’t booted yet. If we thought of our games like we do our clothes or our books, we’d keep track a little easier. There’s also the added benefit of being able to sell used copies.
Along with this point, it’s important for us to give ourselves to the art in our lives. If we challenge ourselves to only buy the games that can physically fit in our dedicated games shelf, and therefore we buy fewer of them, we will engage with them much more deeply and meaningfully. We’ll replay the ones we love. Again, I’m likening this to music: before streaming, we allowed ourselves to listen to full albums and enjoy the deep tracks—sometimes even more than the hits or singles.4 I’m kind of saying that we need to be okay with accessing fewer pieces of media in order to enjoy, love, and analyze the ones we do encounter to a better degree. But that’s not the whole picture: physical releases all do that higher buy-in even if we buy the same amount.
This is because of my third premise: a physical object in front of you means more than a potential access to a software program hosted on a server that’s located in a data center you’ve never heard of.5 It impacts us more, if even just for the ritual of opening the case when it’s time to play. But it also gives you a constant reminder on the shelf.
Here is the PlayStation blog, in full:
As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.
This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.
We’ll continue to prioritize our resources to drive innovation in how players can access games and provide choices as to where players prefer to purchase new games, whether that’s at retailers or PlayStation Store. We remain committed to delivering a world-class gaming experience to our fans and we thank you for your continued support.
They’re blaming us, which is the most obvious move since Rockstar announced that GTA VI will not have a physical disc release (they claim it’s simply too big).6
And, of course, they’re not wrong. We have chosen it. We have chosen it even after it became widespread knowledge that digital ownership is only digital access as long as the host company allows it. We continue to choose it. It’s just too convenient. We left tapes and CDs behind; we left Blu-rays behind.7 What did we think was going to happen?
We should not be shocked, and there will come a day when several games we bought will no longer be available. I’m not often a man without hope, so join me in this frustration. These companies have already started it with some films; here is a Gamerant article by Michael Brandon Ingram about Sony’s newest removal. And you know what? I bet we’ll get over it. I bet we’ll complain in online articles; that company’s stock might even dip. I bet we cancel subscriptions. But I bet they get away with it, if we’re as placid a people as it seems. Unless we can push back a little now—and a lot more when the time comes. Let me be wrong. Be mad about this.
I would love for enough of us to buy physical games over the next year so that Sony reverses their decision. I would love for CDs to continue their renaissance, too, and for cars to put CD players back. I think we all know they won’t; this is a definitive blow. But this is also a time ripe for a company to become a bastion for physical and/or shareable media; otherwise, piracy is sure to increase.
I promise to be better, for one. The only digital games I’ll buy for the foreseeable future will be from indie developers without a physical release. I will buy them on GOG or itch, if possible, since they are such bastions for shareable media.
This gesture won’t do anything, but I’m gonna do it anyway in hopes that it makes me a better person. Permanent physical release is probably too much to demand; the cost and waste should not be ignored. But can we get some anti-DRM8 promises? I promise to avoid DRM as a principle, which I have not been as good about in the past.
Support indie artists, go to live shows, and share your media with friends. In a sense, flashdrives are praxis, and discs are still based. Just please, dear God, we can’t let them make all games a subscription service. Where is our Rubicon? What is too far? When do we resort to the high seas, and when do we demand access to what we bought?
Using digital storage space also contributes to physical garbage and has other effects of its use—water pollution and sewer use for the data centers themselves, electricity usage, and the metals used for the electronic components that digital media are saved onto—but the main difference here is, indeed, that physical releases include an extra object that will find its way to our dumps, unable to be useful again.
We are not discussing streaming as a business model and mode of interaction.
We are also not discussing the arrival and enlarging of touchscreens in cars.
Now, there is something to be said for not wanting to be trapped by media you don’t like. Agreed. There is also something to be said for wanting to enjoy as many different things as you can—maybe to stay up with several subsets of our culture(s), maybe because you’re a content creator. Agreed, to a point. I think this is just how hobbies work. Those of us who love playing tons of new games will naturally devote more shelf space to them. You can sell the games you don’t want to replay or remember or need for research. Sure, you’ll probably listen to some duds and play some games that you hate, but you’re already doing that. Might as well allow the things that really move you to do so with vigor and attention.
The further we move away from tangible, physical, and independently verifiable concepts, the more danger we are in of convincing ourselves that concepts need no grounding. A simulacrum is a reference to a reference, often times so lost in its own reasoning that it no longer refers back to anything that actually exists. Money, clocks, and English orthography are all simulacra because they refer to ideas based on previous references, not to reality directly. I fear that full digitization will distance us from our media and set up a simulacrum where we should instead have direct relation.
This happened a week ago. You can still get a physical box, which contains a download code.
Both CDs and vinyl records have enjoyed renewed interest, so there’s obviously still demand, and we can demand direct ownership of our copy.
DRM, or digital rights management, is the shorthand for companies that require certain authentication, log-in, credentials, etc in order to prove your right to access some product. Steam, PlayStation, et al all use this. This is also the system that says we only purchase access to the artwork, not a copy of that artwork for ourselves. As I understand it, GOG, itch dot io, and Bandcamp are all DRM-free, so you can download the files directly and access them without going through a mediating site. GOG is also one of our best hopes for archiving and keeping available a ton of older games that could otherwise be completely lost.
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