Modern gaming has been a place of wonders and horrors, especially as a fan. There are recent releases that have proven the flexibility of the medium and the storytelling power of good game design, with everything from AAA publishers to indie developers releasing truly great pieces of work. Conversely, game studios are shutting down successful developers and using their ownership rights to shut down servers and pull games from digital platforms when it suits them — regardless of whether players had purchased them or not.
It’s a back-and-forth between the players and the overall industry that has fueled plenty of recent controversies. One of the biggest was set off when Sony announced it would be halting physical disc production in 2028, prompting fierce debate among players online. While it’s a decision that makes sense on a purely financial argument, it undercuts one of the great joys of being a fan and cheapens the artistic expression that the medium has become known for.
One of the repercussions of entertainment shifting increasingly into the digital space has been a major drop in the number of physical releases that have been put out over the years. That’s especially true in gaming, where companies like Sony are using the massive distance gulf between physical game sales and digital purchases to justify ending physical media support. While plenty of gamers were frustrated when Sony made that announcement, financial disclosures like this one reported on by IGN highlight just how ubiquitous that format has become.
Capcom has been having one of the best years of its history thanks to the success of returning favorites like Resident Evil and fresh success stories like Pragmata. In that time, a staggering 93.3% of their Q1 2026 sales have been digital, leaving under 7% of their total sales to be on physical media. While there are questions about how much of a factor digital sales for older games may factor into that calculation, it’s easy to see why places like Sony would begin to see physical media as something of the past. This isn’t to single out Capcom, who have released truly great games this year. Moreover, it’s to illustrate the underlying math behind decisions to end physical media.
There’s an argument to be made that this sort of data suggests the average player is also embracing digital copies over physical media. That’s certainly the case when it comes to older games that are out of circulation or on sale through online storefronts. There are also external factors beyond the baseline game sales, like the availability of DLC and the dwindling number of physical locations, to account for. Overall, gamers may not be happy with the shift away from physical media, but the strong digital sales suggest that they’ve made peace with that reality on at least some level.
One of the things that’s especially frustrating about the “digital only” era of game development and release is the way it quietly undercuts the enduring power of games. When a game can be pulled from digital storefronts and made inaccessible through legal means outside, it effectively becomes lost art. Servers can go down and take countless hours of pre-release work and post-release engagement with them. Player creations can be fully lost to the sands of time just because a publisher decided to skip out on re-upping a music license. All of these are reasons games can just be pulled if they’re entirely digital, taking away the timeless nature that art is supposed to represent.
On a baseline level, art — even art meant for a consumer audience — is meant to be enduring. It’s supposed to represent the creative impulses of the designers, captured in a shining moment in time and preserved for untold numbers of players to discover at launch, a year later, or even decades afterwards. Gaming has always faced an uphill climb to convince many that it constitutes as an art form, but seeing the vivid creations of developers from around the world has helped make that case stronger than ever.
Having the ability to save that art that connects with you, to purchase it from the owner and add it to your own collection, is one of the great thrills of being a fan. That’s what digital media offers more than anything. If a game truly connects with a player, they can purchase it and keep it with them, allowing them to reengage with it or share it at their leisure. It’s a key factor of commercial art, or at least was before the primarily digital age took over. This is a conundrum impacting film, television, and music as well. However, resources like the Criterion Collection and limited-edition LP releases have blunted some of the impact on those mediums. Even if the line is limited and the piece becomes hard to find in the future, it still remains out there for audiences to connect with.
There’s no equivalent for modern gaming and, due to the wide-ranging nature of the industry, it seems unlikely that one could rise up. Especially with digital sales making up so much of the purchases in modern gaming, it’s next to impossible for a company to decide to go that route. From a business perspective, it makes sense. However, it undercuts a key aspect of game appreciation. It allows for lost media and can quickly destroy countless hours of work and passion. It cheapens the medium to say there is not intrinsic quality in owning a copy of a game you own. I understand why publishers and developers see the advantage in cutting out physical copies, but I’m afraid of what it says about how the gaming industry sees itself.
