We Can Save Physical Games!, Game Pass or Fail, Gaming's Duh Moments! - The Shane Satterfield Show Episode 23

specifically set up if you guys want to support this show and you have shown me through your patronage that you absolutely do i appreciate it so much i really enjoy doing this show big thanks to everybody who does anything to help us if you're pledging at five dollars per month you get this too this show is also exclusive to our youtube all access members so if you're pledging at that higher tier there you're getting this show as well i love doing it you guys apparently love watching it let's get to this week's episode greetings and welcome to boss fight which gives me a chance to talk about one of the hot topics in the games industry for the week and obviously this week there is no bigger topic than playstation announcing that beginning in 2028 it is going to kill all physical versions of playstation video games now The weird thing about this is that so many people who buy and play games have given up on physical games and have stopped buying physical games at this point now.

Some people have been doing it for almost a decade, and we see in the data year after year after year that a higher percentage of consumers buy games digitally instead of buying games physically and what has happened is that this has opened the door for one of the big three and obviously it's playstation to make a decision like this where it's basically killing physical media i don't want to get into why this is stupid on sony's part i don't want i'm not here to analyze the actual act.

What I'm here to do is to present a solution to this problem if people really want it.

And that's the thing.

People have to actually want it.

It's very easy to get caught up in Internet discourse and join along with everybody else who's angry about something.

But ultimately, you have to make decisions in your life that will work towards that goal.

So can we really save physical games? I believe that we can, but we have to be really smart about it.

Now look, I don't want to cast dispersions against anyone who has been buying digital video games all along.

I understand you had your reasons for buying digital and you probably never thought it would come to this, but to be fair, people like me were telling you it could come to this.

The reaction I'm seeing the most out on the wilds of the internet is kind of a Pandora's box opening up for piracy.

Players who once had moral compunctions that kept them from pirating games now seem to feel like it's open season.

This could have so many unintended consequences.

Dealing from an industry to try and save it doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you really think about it.

If you're doing it to try to send PlayStation a message, I get that, but I think that that message will ultimately be not that they need to keep discs so players won't pirate its games.

It will instead look at it like, let's abolish discs and increase prices so that we can recoup that extra money that is now being lost to piracy.

Where is the ESA on this? The Entertainment Software Association.

Now look, they are on the publisher's payroll.

And if you think the publishers are behind this, they might be.

I don't think they want physical games either.

And the ESA works for the publishers.

So as of right now, I believe Kotaku reached out to the ESA today.

and the ESA did not want to issue a statement.

Just the idea that thousands of video games could be made and then disappear into the ether should have the ESA on red alert.

But it's just crickets because it has become completely beholden to the publishers hoping to squeeze every last penny from us.