Rockstar CEO Has No Worries Regarding Grand Theft Auto VI As A Digital-only Game; '...It's Over 90% Digital
"You can't play new video games without being online"
"ColonelFancy" Mike Lind
8/9/20262 min read
To the surprise of very few people in the gaming community, Sony's decision to stick with a future to move to digital video game distribution by 2028 is one they have doubled down on making, regardless of petitions and boycotts. Regardless of the controversial choice, many companies have produced their sales figures, indicating that this was something seemingly destined to happen.
How does this affect what is aiming to be the largest video game release in the modern era (if not ever) in Grand Theft Auto VI? Take-Two Interactive's CEO Straus Zelnick still does not view this as an issue. With a few exceptions, most major third party companies have remained hush-hush about one of the major game publishers and holding companies in video games opting out of physical discs, but Strauss is far from affected. In an interview with The Game Business, he downplayed the ramifications of a digital future, as GTA VI has already pulled in $1.39 billion dollars in pre-order sales.
When asked about the advent of the retail market and going hand-in-hand with game releases, Strauss seemingly brushed off worries. "Our business is well over 90% digitally distributed as it is. It's already a digital business,” he stated in an earnings call on August 7th, courtesy of PC Gamer. "So in certain instances, especially if it’s a big game, discs—and note I said discs—don’t really make sense for the consumer. Also, most instances you have to register online to play anyhow. So if you’re already connected, who cares if you download digitally? It’s all the same and it’s much more convenient."
There is some truth to what Zelnick is saying. But a handful of key factors about what led the industry to this road are overlooked by phrasing digital access as convenience. Big box stores have placed less of an incentive on selling physical copies of games, like Target and Walmart. Sony themselves have shut down factories responsible for printing blank DVD and BluRay discs. These means also save Sony money on formatting readable discs, increasing profits, because anything to save a penny.
And yes, there is an incentive for the consumer to save themselves a drive to their nearest location to purchase their games via retail. But it is easier to utilize the storefronts on Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation. Despite the seemingly accessible nature of physical discs for video games, it's worth noting that the discs and game cards are almost essentially just physical license keys. Once you have loaded your game into your slot, it would still require a download or software update, putting a question mark of how much the games are even on the physical media. And in the wake of the Stop Killing Games act, a movement aimed at ensuring there would be offline modes for online exclusive games to preserve access, failed to push forward in the California courts, the certainty of game ownership remains a dire question in the growing digital age.
If anything has been seen, it hasn't stopped the market from speaking what the publishers had wanted to hear for ten years; the populace is mostly okay with it.
SOURCE: PC Gamer, The Game Business