Sony’s recent decision to stop production of new physical PlayStation games starting in January 2028 has sparked backlash from gamers around the world. The slogan is widely shared on social networks such as X, Instagram and Reddit: “Payment is not ownership and piracy is not theft”and posts on this topic have already collected more than a million views.
According to the French gaming media, the slogan reflects the growing dissatisfaction of users due to the industry’s transition to exclusively digital distribution. Players point out that for years physical discs and cartridges represented real ownership of the game – they could borrow, sell, exchange or keep them in a collection, and games often worked even decades later without an Internet connection.
Shutting down physical games caused a wave of discontent
Digital distribution, however, changes that relationship. Even when a user buys a physical edition, many modern games require a constant Internet connection, large additional data downloads, and linking to a user account. If the publisher shuts down the servers or loses distribution rights, the player may permanently lose access to the title he paid for.
According to Sony, around 80% of PlayStation game sales in recent quarters have come from digital downloads. Such a model brings the company more profit because it eliminates the costs of disc production, distribution and used game market, while at the same time it allows full control over prices and subscription services.
A large number of players believe that this violates basic consumer rights. On social networks, many point out that physical games were not only a way of playing, but also a part of personal collections and memories. Some warn that the complete transition to digital distribution could further encourage piracy, because users feel that they are no longer actually buying the game, but only a temporary license to use it.
Experts warn that the abolition of physical editions would affect the entire chain of the industry: from video game stores and used market to collectors. More and more new releases today only contain the download code for the game in the box, without the complete content on the disc, a practice that has long since become standard on the PC platform.
Players are not rejecting digital editions entirely. Their main demand is that the games they pay for remain permanently available, that they can freely give them away or resell them, and that access does not depend exclusively on the publisher’s account or server. So far, Sony has not officially commented on these criticisms or responded to questions about the future of digital game ownership.