News story entirely based on tweets. Garbage.

screw Sony and Microsoft. both deserve nothing

Eyes Linux computers over Microsoft or Sony.

What do you expect them to do, actually talk to real people about the issue? Like do real journalism!? Pfft

1. Build/Buy an AMD machine.

2. Install SteamOS.

Alternatively for 1, you can wait for SteamOS to be working on Intel or Nvidia systems and build whatever you want after that. Or just use regular linux.

Can't talk with real people about this issue, nobody goes outside anymore.

I mean, even talking to people right now is pointless, the change hasn't happened. Lots of people may claim they'll switch, but most probably won't.

Bazzite (which is essentially SteamOS, but on a Fedora, instead of Arch [btw], base) works just fine -- excepting Big Picture / Console Mode, which is still buggy -- for both Intel and Nvidia.

I mean, Valve doesn't sell games on physical media in the Steam Store either that I'm aware.

Does anyone sell PC games on physical media?

These articles feel like cope. Most people aren’t as invested in physical media as our small corner of the internet. I doubt this decision will hurt Sony, and Microsoft and Nintendo will probably follow suit soon enough.

Where do they get their physical releases from on PC?

Look at the url, this isn't cope, it's an ad.

I'm not 100% sure that it's the physical media its self that's the issue, it more so that the digital versions require verification from a server to be playable.

Xbox and PlayStation can shut the server down and your digital game becomes useless.

Steam I think this might be a issue, but I don't remember hearing this happening yet.

GOG you buy the game and get all the files and executables, so if GOG goes out of business your game still run locally.

Last time I bought them was the Close Combat series from Slitherine/Matrix Games, which does war games.

checks

Looks like they stopped last year:

https://www6.slitherine.com/news/important-update-last-chance-to-purchase-physical-manuals-and-editions-before-march-1st

Dear Wargamers,

We want to share an important update with you.

Starting March 1st, 2025, Slitherine will no longer sell physical game manuals or physical copies of our games through our website. This marks the end of an era, and we understand how much these editions have meant to many of you over the years.

There is a trend away from Physical purchases to digital, and a decreasing number of new PC’s even have DVD drives and very few laptops meaning the potential market has been shrinking for years. This, combined with increasing delivery costs, environmental awareness, and more red tape on international deliveries, all combine to make it unviable.

For those who appreciate the tactile experience of a physical manual or a boxed edition, this is your final chance to secure a piece of wargaming history. You have until February 28th, 2025, to purchase from the remaining stock, after which these products will no longer be available.

Last game I can recall buying for PC and physical was Farcry. I never had to many either but the rest were all from the 90s like diablo, and command and conquer red alert. It all stopped when half life 2 dropped which was basically when steam became what it is now and that was 2004.

I think mine might have been Oblivion. Specifically the Shivering Isles expansion. Or The Orange Box. Oblivion and TOB came out in 2007, but Shivering Isles was at least a year after.

I'm sure the last time I bought a physical box for a game was a WoW expansion. I don't recall if it had physical media. Either way, unless you're looking to play games with anticheat, I wouldn't recommend Windows

Aside from Nintendo, how often to today's games actually fit on physical media and not require downloading/patching to play?

Actually asking, I don't have any consoles.

Well they don't always, but you can just use multiple discs in that case. I think final fantasy has done this as well as a recent example, but this has already been done since the days of games still being on CD.

It's interesting, cause i just saw them mention this subject about gamers being mad at playstation in the national news in my country, so if that's anything to go by maybe it's causing more of a stink than we think.

Well you can actually own your games on pc even if they're digital. Games don't have to be physical to be able to own them, but on consoles physical is the only way to own, which is why it's considered important on those platforms. If consoles as a digital platform were as free as pc, it wouldn't be as big an issue.

It’s significantly more expensive than simply having the rest be downloaded via an update.

With developers going under left right and centre, putting an even higher cost on their production is a death sentence.

It’s just a vocal minority. Every single sales metric available to us and publishers says physical is dead.

1. Say “what do you mean I can’t play any of the most popular games that me and all my friends play?!”

Sure, if you only buy gog, in which case you don’t own any AA or bigger games from the last decade or 3. You don’t own your steam games.

That's not because of the discs lol. If you afford to spend 300 million on slop like concord, you can print discs. And a franchise like gta 6 can definitely afford them.

Yeah i know, but at least the option is there, showing that it's possible. And with steam games you can always crack them, or just go the piracy route.

Oh yes, people are flocking to W11, flocking I tell you!

🐧

Right? That's how bad it is. Although how that some major companies are having Linux distros as default installs, M$ it's kinda freaking out a little. It's like, how little can we do to make people happy and still steal their info.

That's somewhat misleading. You can't reduce physical media availability then point at it saying "look people aren't buying it" because they don't have access to it in the first place, by design.

I mean I'm sure since digital media has become mainstream there's a shift, but it was a planned force shift to increase profits.

1. Go to therapy
2. Quit Fortnite, Apex, and League

Most games from my small-to-medium sized collection fit on a single blu-ray disc. Only some bigger AAA releases don't. I think only like 2 games I own have more than one disc - Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2.

It is actually entirely possible to have fully functional physical copies of PC games, albeit with extra effort.

You can buy DRM-free games, and burn them onto blu-ray discs. Of course, you're gonna need a blu-ray drive, but at least you're completely free to do what you want. You can also buy blank cases and print cover art for them. Again, a lot of extra effort, but it works and is fully independent from corporations.

It is because of discs, actually. Every single extra dollar it costs to manufacture them is like 5% of the revenue from the sale of the game that the publisher loses out on. That’s huge.

They haven’t reduced availability of physical Xbox and PlayStation games though. Ever. They’ve been making them, people just don’t buy them.

Just try and sell Linux gaming to people when GTA6 is coming out for PC and Linux can’t play it. Good luck.

GTA 5 runs perfectly on Linux out of the box. So do all AAA releases. What are you basing your assumptions that GTA 6 won't work on? Have you even played games on Linux in the last 6 months?

Unless you're talking about GTA 6 Online, your comment makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And if you do in fact mean GTA 6 Online - again, go to therapy and cure your addiction to predatory money extractors.

I'm sure they'll be fine compared to the 30% that sony/steam takes.

I'm actually surprised they'd be willing to supply multiple disks. Thanks for the info.

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Valve has said if they / Steam go out of business that there would be a window for you to download all your games DRM-free.

My friend in middle school had Skyrim on a PC disk.

There used to be CDs that came in cereal boxes, occasionally a game would be on two disks.

Also starcraft was on two disks for the installation, though I believe the second disk was for expansion to the main campaign.

Oh, Starcraft! I can only afford 1 copy but want to play with my friends... install multiplayer only on secondary pcs. or was that warcraft 2, or both

Telling people to stop playing the games they want to play because you don’t like them sure is something.

So because they already lose 30%, they can afford to lose another 5%?

Me a few weeks ago: Oof, the Steam Machine is a tough sell.

Me this week: Lol, Sony is going to lose customers to Valve.

Windows 11 in the headline is missing what is happening right now. Steam OS being generally available very well might change the landscape of living room gaming. Playstation is about to be reduced to a peripherals brand.

I was there too. I remember installing Doom from floppy disks. I've just never had an Xbox or Playstation, so I have no context for how those medias have evolved over the years. I assumed at this point they were mostly digital already.

I don't see why not, they could before couldn't they? Even if you want to stick to the cost argument, i don't have to care about that, cause i need to look out for myself as a consumer. If they can't provide a way for me to own the game, i'll simply take my business elsewhere. There's a reason i opted to buy a disc edition ps5 instead of a digital edition, because i didn't want to be locked to their storefront. That hasn't changed one generation later, so if that's the only option i'm just not going to buy it. Also, you claim physical is dead, but the situation is more nuanced when you look at the sales on a per game basis. There are definitely a lot of games that sell more digitally, but there are also first party titles like rift apart that have a 75%/25% physical/digital ratio. I think they're definitely taking a risk alienating those first party customers by going digital only, but we'll see what happens i guess.

You absolutely don’t have to care about the profitability of the companies who make the products you enjoy……unless of course you want them to keep making more of those products.

As for games like rift apart, that game had a physical copy bundled with consoles for a long time. Anything bundled isn’t worth counting.

Also where did you get your physical:digital split for that?

By Sony’s own figures, over 85% of all first party titles sold are digital.