PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Perhaps it was just a sign of the times.
“This writing's kind of been on the wall for a while, so it wasn't really a huge shock to me that that was the direction they decided to go,” said Adrian Sandoval, chair of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Game Developers Association, about Sony’s decision to phase out physical disc production for PlayStation games.
The company announced this summer that new PlayStation releases will be exclusively digital downloads, beginning in 2028.
Sony, in a blog post, called it a natural direction because more people are buying digital downloads over discs. “This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today,” the company said.
KYW Newsradio has contacted Sony, but has not received a comment.
Sony isn’t the only video game manufacturer steering toward an all-digital future. Microsoft previously announced its next-generation Xbox console, codenamed “Project Helix,” won’t have a disc drive.
It’s not the first controversial decision Microsoft has made over game distribution. In 2013, the company announced games for its Xbox One console would be tied to users’ unique Xbox accounts, limiting game sharing and resale options.
“Sony very famously said that they were not going to do that, and a lot of people got really excited,” recalled Adrian Sandoval. “Xbox retracted.”
Sandoval said while Sony took a stand at Microsoft’s expense, “Realistically, this is something that Sony has wanted to do for about the same amount of time.”
But Drexel professor Tony Rowe said this move limits what users can do with the games they purchase.
“You can't loan it to a friend, you can't sell it to somebody else, you can't trade it in to get a discount on buying a new game,” he said.
“You lease games, and you are under the whims of the publisher, whether you can continue to play or access those games that you've purchased. You don't have control as a consumer.”
Still, Sandoval admits the move makes financial sense.
“This writing's kind of been on the wall for a while, so it wasn't really a huge shock to me that that was the direction they decided to go,” he said.
“Game production has gotten obscenely expensive,” he added, referring to the “Grand Theft Auto” series from Rockstar Games.
Those games are set in sprawling open worlds, with full voice casts and state-of-the-art graphics. Analysts have estimated a $265 million price tag for 2013’s “Grand Theft Auto V,” and some estimate production costs for the upcoming “Grand Theft Auto VI” to total more than $1 billion. The game will retail for $79.99.
“They absolutely are taking losses on these games,” he said. “Digital production is absolutely cheaper; they don't have to make boxes or anything, and even selling a game like ‘Grand Theft Auto’ at like $100 is probably still undercutting what the cost of that game is.”
However, Sandoval acknowledged the lack of physical game releases gives Sony ultimate control over players’ libraries.
“Part of that agreement is that if Sony needs to take that game down for whatever reason, such as they lose a license for a brand or something, they can take that down,” he said.
IGDA Philly vice chair Jason Corbett worked for local studio PHL Collective on the game “Justice League: Cosmic Chaos,” and said that’s exactly what happened.
“The license expired for ‘Justice League: Cosmic Chaos,’ like, three years after it came out and it's been taken down from the digital storefronts,” he said.
What’s more, games and other media can be removed from users’ personal libraries. Sony recently removed more than 500 movies — including “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” — from its PlayStation movie storefront and users’ own libraries, due to a licensing issue with distributor StudioCanal.
“And that same thing can absolutely happen with digital games,” Sandoval said.
Or as Charles Simmons, a quality assurance analyst, puts it, “Are you gonna say, I'm gonna ‘buy’ a game and then when you take the servers down, will I not be able to play it?”
Simmons said the shift to digital game releases also forces other retailers to evolve their business model.
“You're definitely seeing companies like GameStop shift their businesses more, like they're selling iPads and iPhones and they're taking any sort of physical trade-ins they can that aren't games,” they said.
Rowe, who previously worked as a developer for Lucasfilm Games, currently works with game preservationists. He expressed concerns that getting rid of physical releases could make that work much more difficult.
“Unlike books and movies that have been updated into new formats as time progresses — with films, we went from VHS tapes to DVD discs onto Blu-ray discs and to streaming — there isn't this standard format really for games,” he said.
“So if you have a Nintendo Entertainment System game, you need a certain hardware that will run that software correctly, and so keeping games playable is one part of game preservation and conservation.”
It isn’t the only part, he added.
“It's not just important to hold on to, say, an old game cartridge and keep that on a shelf somewhere. That doesn't necessarily preserve everything there is about the game. It's also documents on the game's development. There's information on how people played games. There's information on how people used to discuss games, and talk about games, or remix aspects of games,” he detailed.
“The vast majority of the games that have ever been released are completely unavailable in any legal form today.”
Simmons thinks there could be a way to preserve some measure of consumer rights and game sharing without physical media, but still believes the shift is a huge blow to gaming culture and community.
“We are losing that culture of being able to say, ‘Oh hey, I've been playing ‘Ghost of Yotei’ and I'm done with it. Do you want to borrow it?’ With digital only, that's gonna be hard to do,” they said.
“I feel like there is a way you could do it, but I do feel like having that physical disc not only [shows] that you're a collector and a gamer, you kind of lose that camaraderie of [sharing] the games that you like with people in your life.”
