Commentary: Sony hits eject on the era of owning games
The next generation might not know the freedom of a game changing hands without corporate permission - but it might not care, says Gearoid Reidy for Bloomberg Opinion.
by Gearoid Reidy · CNA · JoinRead a summary of this article on FAST.
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TOKYO: Anyone of a certain generation will remember trading video game cartridges in the schoolyard, an essential part of a hobby where new titles cost more than a month’s allowance.
But the idea that games are something you can borrow or lend - or perhaps even own - is soon to be a thing of the past. Sony announced it would stop making physical PlayStation 5 discs, which means new titles can only be purchased digitally after January 2028.
The backlash from fans and developers was swift. Hideo Kojima, the auteur creator of the Metal Gear franchise that deals with themes of government control of information, summed up the mood.
“Digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative,” he said, retweeting this week comments he first made in 2021 as the industry began to move in this direction. “We will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved.”
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An X account for Domino’s Pizza, meanwhile, joked that the move made as much sense as selling digital pizzas.
That’s going too far: There are eminently sensible reasons for this decision, but they mostly accrue to Sony.
Like other gaming firms, it’s dealing with bigger budgets, greater competition for eyeballs and the brutal surge in the cost of memory. Downloaded games have higher margins, eliminating distribution and inventory costs and the share taken by retailers.
OVERBLOWN CONCERNS
Much of the concern is overblown. While those cartridges you got from a friend were plug-and-play, discs themselves are these days often little more than glorified passcodes to download the hundreds of gigabytes of data needed before the game even runs.
The vast majority bought are already digital, matching trends in movies and music, which moved to streaming over the past two decades.
Indeed, the publishers of the title set to be the biggest game of all time - November’s Grand Theft Auto VI - already said it will be download only. PC gaming went this way over a decade ago, dominated by online stores such as Valve’s Steam.
Digital-native younger users, who are scarcely familiar with any form of physical media, for the most part don’t care.
DOWNSIDES FROM SONY'S MOVE
But fans are losing one of their last bits of leverage over an industry that is going places many don’t like, and there are clear downsides from Sony’s move.
Chief among these is the effective end of competition. On PC, customers who don’t like Steam can shop at Epic Games Store or GOG, but on PS5 Sony will now be the only retailer.
I still favour boxed titles for the simple reason that I can loan them to a friend, or sell online; I typically fly through the campaign mode of the annual Call of Duty release before flipping it at near-cost. Sony’s decision will end the secondhand market entirely.
And even if most have moved to streaming, movies on Blu-Ray and albums on CD are still things you can buy. People like collections, as the post-Covid boom in vintage secondhand games attests to.
Even physical books are making a comeback these days - not being able to loan a title to a friend is one of the biggest downsides of e-books.
Concern that users’ libraries will disappear isn’t entirely theoretical. Sony has removed live-service games before, while its video store has shown that even purchased digital media can disappear: The company recently said that over 500 movies from StudioCanal such as Terminator 2 would be removed due to rights issues, even for those who already bought them.
FANS ARE UNSURE
Sony is asking for trust at a moment when fans are more sceptical than ever.
They’re already dealing with higher prices (GTA VI will cost a whopping US$80, compared to the US$60 standard price for top titles just a few years ago), consoles getting more expensive due to the memory chip crunch (a PS5 in the US now costs 30 per cent to 50 per cent more than when it launched six years ago), the closure of beloved studios and an industry obsession with turning everything into a subscription.
Despite the backlash, a change of course seems unlikely. Sony is surely positioning itself for a disc-free PlayStation 6, with Microsoft’s next console also rumoured to take that path - though don’t expect Nintendo, which still gets around half of its sales from boxed copies, to follow suit anytime soon.
But if Sony wants to kill the disc, it needs to replace or compensate users for the rights it represents. The template is already there: gamers love the Steam store for its user-friendliness, ease of refunds, and generous sales. Sony should follow that example and make a commitment to keeping older titles available, or at least work with fans who want to preserve them.
Times change: The cartridge in the schoolyard became a disc in a box, and then code on a server. The next generation might never know the freedom of a game changing hands without corporate permission. But they also might not care.
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