Sony Playstation Wants To Make It Even Harder for You To Own Your Games

Have you ever heard City to City by Gerry Rafferty? It’s an excellent album, and should be recognized well beyond the song that made it a hit, Baker Street (though it is incredible). Things get moving with a pumped-up tempo, like in the titular song, City to City, and they can slow down sweetly and harmoniously, like in Whatever’s Written In Your Heart (one of my favorite songs of all time). I recently went to redownload this song on my phone via iTunes recently and, lo and behold, it wasn’t there.

I knew I had purchased it years ago and removed it at some point to clear space, but it still wasn’t there. However, I was still able to buy it on iTunes, instead of being told to redownload it. From what I could gather, Apple lost the rights to the album at one point and had to rebuy them, so I had to rebuy them. It was eye-opening in an embarrassing way, because I’d certainly had a similar situation happen before and just repurchased Frank Stallone’s Far From Over without giving it a second thought (I KNOW).

It is also one of those situations where I realized the problem far too late, regarding certain media. I’ve been buying physical copies of movies and TV shows I love (or simply want to own) for years now, so I’m safe on that front. I even course-corrected regarding physical comic books, switching back from digital after more than a decade. But the biggest digital library I have, easily, is that for my video games.

I’ve been purchasing digital video games for years and can easily fall sway to a sale. Oh, I can get Fallout 4 for $3.99? I’ll play it at some point (no, I won’t). The Lego Marvel games are all on sale for $4 a piece?! That starts to add up, but they’re for my kids, of course. Maybe not today, but eventually (okay, that I’ve made good on)! I’ve bought so many digital games that a bunch could be removed, and I’d likely never know. And it sounds like something Sony is banking on.

The company announced this morning that it will be entirely phasing out physical games by 2028, according to THR. The move comes on the heels of the revelation that the long-awaited GTA VI will not include a disc in physical purchases and will also cost an absurd amount of money. “This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” Sony said in the statement. “This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.” The latter part… really makes me feel responsible for this. That said, I know I’m not alone. Plenty of folks have taken advantage of the convenience of online purchases.

The whole thing is very worrisome and makes it feel clear that ownership of games will be a thing of the past in a short time. Sony, like a lot of companies, makes games through third parties. What happens if they lose the rights to the game they made with another company? Licensing rights don’t last forever, so what if Sony one day loses the ability to produce anything with Spider-Man in it? What happens to all of those games?

Luckily, the next generation seems primed to fight back against this kind of stuff. They have made trends out of physical media and analogue devices. Hopefully, that continues. And folks can also stock up now. I received my first Nintendo Switch last year, and I’ve predominantly purchased physical games for it (though I’ve certainly perused a sale or two). There will hopefully continue to be options to actually own things, but you may just have to look somewhere other than the company that helped get us those spinning discs to begin with.