On Wednesday, Sony announced in a blog post that it would stop producing all physical game releases by 2028.
The post sent social media into a frenzy, with the initial post quickly garnering many negative reactions.
While some people feel like digital is the way of the future, many still buy games and other media physically.
“I frequently purchase physical copies of video games: that is, when a game can be purchased physically, I will opt to do so,” Elliott Bourgeous, a senior in electrical engineering, said. “Same for films. Possessing physical media at least approximates ownership…”
Alex Korb, a student at Iowa State, said, “I buy all games for my PS5 physically. I rarely buy movies digitally unless it’s on sale for like five bucks or less. And even then, I think I’ve only done that three or four times.”
However, for some, the change won’t affect them very much.
“Since I don’t have a console, I just buy digital copies,” Jackson Fehr, a senior in mechanical engineering, said.
With one company deciding to stop physical releases, it may only be a matter of time before many join in.
This would affect not only the video game industry but also the film and television industries.
“If you would include books, which I think is a fair inclusion; they are just as important in their physical forms every day, often multiple times,” Bourgeous said. “Just movies and games, at least five or six times a week.”
“Very often, I use streaming a lot, but I often buy movies physically for myself,” Korb said.
For others, physical media isn’t as important.
“I rarely ever buy physical media due to not having access to something that can use it,” Fehr said.
It all leads to a future we are rapidly heading towards: an all-digital library and marketplace.
In this regard, many think this is not the way of the future that the industry seems to be heading towards.
“Absolutely not,” Bourgeous said. “Having a disc in one’s possession is the closest thing they can have to owning what they have purchased. Once that physical artifact is absent, items purchased are no longer things owned in any meaningful sense.”
“For consoles, it makes sense for physical media,” Fehr said. “As a sports game fan, older sports games are the ones I play. However, the only way I can access these is second hand.”
“I think personal digital libraries are cool, even though for movies and games it gets kinda impractical due to file sizes,” Korb said. “But having all media on digital libraries, you have no control over what you can lose on a whim, and having products you purchased taken from you is ludicrous.”
As a result, there has been a growing community in gaming fighting to preserve games. This community is called “Stop Killing Games.”
Preservation is one of the biggest reasons to invest in physical media.
The cost of buying digital is that you never know when that digital license will be taken away, and the money you spent on owning something is gone. It can be seen that just earlier this week, Sony removed 551 movies from people’s accounts, according to Kotaku.
A digital-only future would not only allow this but also harm future consumers by offering fewer options and all but eliminating second-hand shops.
