GTA 6 marks the death of physical video games – we only have ourselves to blame

As fans complain that the physical edition of GTA 6 doesn’t contain a disc, is there any real chance they can fight back against the takeover of digital downloads?

Grand Theft Auto 6 is clearly a game that’s too big to fail. When it’s released on November 19 it’ll become the biggest entertainment launch in history. Whether or not it beats the staggering 230 million sales of its predecessor will take a decade or more to find out but the long wait for the game, and its frequent delays, has created so much pent up demand that no sales record is now safe. It also means that creator Rockstar Games can do whatever they want and people will buy the game regardless.

Whether GTA 6 has the capacity to disappoint as a video game is hard to say. The Rockstar formula is well established and while there are consistent issues – especially in terms of core gameplay and a central narrative that often gets lost amidst a torrent of side quests and activities – the almost equally successful Red Dead Redemption proves that it’s still massively popular.

As a result, many analysts predicted (many of them gleefully) that Rockstar owner Take-Two would sell the game for a higher than usual price, safe in the knowledge that people would pay literally anything to play it. To Take-Two’s credit, that’s not what happened and the game is no more expensive than other triple-A titles, while it’s Ultimate Edition is a surprisingly modest mark-up. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t taken advantage of the situation in other ways.

The biggest controversy to come out of pre-orders going live this month (other than a silly argument over whether the graphics have got better or worse – based on a bunch of staged promo images) is that the physical version of GTA 6 doesn’t include a disc. It’s just a code in a box, with no indication yet that it even includes a physical map, as all previous entries have.

There are rumours that there’ll be a physical edition released in December, but Rockstar has not confirmed that (and wouldn’t even if it’s true, lest it put anyone off from pre-ordering now). But while some fans are already getting very angry on social media, and there’s already talk of boycotts, it’s hard to imagine that there’ll be enough complaints to dissuade Rockstar from their plans.

Besides, the battle of physical sales vs. digital has already been lost. Only recently Capcom mentioned that 93% of all their sales are now digital and while that percentage varies according to format and publisher, buying a game on disc or cartridge has become a niche concern.

It’s hard to understand why, though, since buying digital has almost no advantages, other than not having to get up to change discs and being able to purchase games instantly. Although instantly is very much relative, given the size of modern games, as those stuck with a slower broadband connection have to wait so long for it to download it would literally be quicker to go down the shops and buy a box copy… if there was actually a disc inside it.

Unfortunately, convenience, or at least the promise of it, has won out against all the many and obvious advantages of owning a physical copy – starting with the fact that you do actually own it, rather than just having a digital licence to use it. For decades publishers have conspired to destroy the second-hand games market and with digital downloads they were finally able to do so, preventing you from selling the games you buy in order to fund the purchase of more.

Publishers also didn’t like sharing their profits with retailers, so not only do they make more money from digital downloads but they can ensure there are no discounts at launch. Whereas 15 years ago or so every major store and supermarket would fight to undercut each other, for the cheapest deal on a new release, nowadays it’s full price or nothing.

The way we buy video games today is exactly how publishers want it and naturally it’s not the interests of their customers that they have in mind, but their shareholders. But this wouldn’t have happened if people had just said no. The situation we have today is entirely the result of ordinary people valuing convenience – even a relatively mild one – above all else.

And we could all have said no. We could have stopped publishers in their tracks and forced a U-turn very easily, simply by refusing to buy digitally. Especially as that sort of economic disobedience has proved highly effective many times before in the games industry.

It’s what killed the ridiculous online passes of the 2010s (an early attempt to stifle second-hand sales), while the proliferation of loot boxes in full price games was stopped only because of gamers rising up against it. Meanwhile, the whole world said a big ‘no, thank you’ to NFTs, even as companies convinced themselves it was going to be the next big thing.

While many people and industries seem to be unquestionably accepting of AI, gamers have been amongst the most vocally sceptic, to the point where admitting your game uses AI is now a sales risk. All these things happened because ordinary people made a stand, but then none of these concepts were selling the idea of convenience, only increased company profits.

Unfortunately for those that value physical media, there’s almost certainly no going back now, at least as far as video games go. In theory, if there was some kind of fight back against GTA 6 and its ‘physical’ edition, then the tides could be turned, but despite all the current anger the chances of that seem remote. What’s more likely is that GTA 6 will draw a line under the whole concept of owning a game as a physical object, no matter how many benefits it brings.

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