What Happens When Physical Games Disappear?

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Matt: All righty, everybody, this is another edition of the Web News, and like many other creators, we're gonna be talking about the physical disc situation over at PlayStation. Now, I'm not gonna be touching on the sort of common points that I've seen, 'cause I've watched a few other videos on this. I have a kind of a, what I hope is a unique take, a unique, uh, thought on this. But, uh, just if you don't know what's going on, basically this headline, if you're watching, says it all. is right from the PlayStation blog, "Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles." And the post is very, very brief. Um, and it's literally just these few paragraphs here, and then right at the bottom, unrelated but still a little bit of a, a stab is, "For po- for important updates on PlayStation Store for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita announced today, please click here," because those stores are also getting a shutdown. It's a big old mess, uh, for [00:01:00] gamers lately. Anyway So I, I wrote up sort of a little introduction thing that I'm gonna read. I'll present my opinion, and then Mike says he has a good rebuttal 'cause we've, we've kind of did some prep and talking, this. So let me just go ahead and read that and then share my opinion.

So Sony has announced a major shift for PlayStation beginning in 2028. New games releasing on PlayStation consoles will no longer be produced on physical discs. Instead, players will purchase games digitally through the PlayStation Store, while boxed retail copies will simply include a code for digital redemption. Much of the discussion surrounding this announcement has been focused on digital ownership and game preservation as well, and I do wanna point out that those are incredibly important conversations. But today I'd like to explore a different question: what does this mean for gaming culture? Physical games have always been more than just a way to play.

Game cases are instantly recognizable on the shelves of collectors, in the backgrounds of streamers, and [00:02:00] lining the aisles of game stores. They've become part of the g- part of gaming's identity, and as the industry moves forward to an all-digital future, I think it's... I mean, personally, I think it's worth asking what we lose when we lose those physical symbols.

When those physical symbols disappear, what's gonna happen? And I have a, a, a thing that sounds unrelated, but I promise it is related. I have a, kind of a weird argument to this. So you know how in the audio space there's sort of, like, people who like music, and they listen to audio and stuff, and then you have audiophiles? And audiophiles are super, super, super into the tech and the quality and how they listen and everything. And so for audiophiles, they have... don't use the consumer side of things. Like, there's kind of two ends of the spectrum for, let's say, audio/music fans, and on the one side is audiophiles, where they get the really high-end headphones.

They're worried about the cables and the materials that the cables are made of. They're [00:03:00] worried about the player. They're worried about the DAC that's in the player. They're worried about the file that they're listening to. They're worried about if it's streamed or not, the bit rates, uh, the speakers, whether things are grounded correctly.

The list goes on and on and on. They're really, really obsessed with it, and it's specialty equipment in varying degrees of, of cost That is provided effectively to audiophiles to listen to these, to music or listen to podcasts or listen to whatever in an extremely high an extremely high fidelity. And then you have the consumer side of things, and t- it's the opposite side what The consumer, the consumer side of things is trying to make music and podcasts and audio as accessible as they can. They're trying to spread it to everybody as po- like, as much as possible. They're trying to lower the price to also make it accessible.

Maybe it's free and ad-supported, things like that. They're trying to get it everywhere, and they're trying to lower the bandwidth it takes, lower the storage that it needs. They're trying to make it so that [00:04:00] consumers at any budget can get into audio, get into music, get into audiobooks. The list goes on and on and on. And they're kind of opposites, right? Like, an audiophile really cares about the quality, and I mean, short of, short of, uh, I guess worrying about their budget, they, they, they care more about quality, but they're gonna pay. They're not, not gonna use budget headphones, for example, right? Like, they're gonna pay $300, whereas a consumer that doesn't care about audio quality is gonna pay $100, let's say. And that's two ends of the spectrum. But then there's the area in between. There's the area in between there And both ends of the spectrum are not really rivals. They actually benefit the middle. So for example, you might have Spotify and you might decide maybe you do some research into things, and I'm not a big music guy, but let's just say you do some research and you determine, you know what?

I, I would actually like to listen to something that's a bit higher quality. I'm not an audiophile, I'm in the consumer space right now, but I'd like to try. Maybe you look it up and you [00:05:00] just say, "You know what? I think I'm gonna try Tidal." So you think you're gonna try Tidal. So you go and you b- you, you buy a Tidal subscription, and you try it out, and you go, "You know what?

I really like how this sounds, but I feel like I'm not getting the full potential out of Tidal. Maybe I'll try some, some better headphones. Maybe I'll try a dedicated MP3 player and things like that." And Tidal is still, is still very kind of consumer i- inspired. Like, you could just download it on your Android phone and use it. But then there's also specialty music players that I've seen over the years, MP3 players that also play from Tidal and even from Spotify to an extent, 'cause Spotify has a high d- high fidelity mode. The point that I'm getting at here is that that's the gray area. You're not going for the, you know, the cheapest, most accessible, things charge the fastest, they last the longest on battery.

You're not going for that. You're, you're just slipping right into the middle of the two ends where you're becoming a little bit of an enthusiast, whether that be through experimentation or passion for music or whatever. You're just starting to get a little bit enthusiastic about it. You're becoming an enthusiast. And [00:06:00] that gray area exists because of the two sides. side allows us to say, "Hey, could stream things now. Let's get apps going. Let's get good batteries. Let's do all this stuff." And then the audiophile side comes in and says, "Hey, we want all this quality. This is how you get the best quality from streams.

This is how you get the best quality from local files. This is how you get the best quality from headphones." And then the techies, the people, the engineers, audio engineers and everything, of course then can make a range of products. They're inspired by both the audiophile side of things, and then they're inspired from the other, the consumer side.

And so you might have a really nice pair of headphones that isn't quality, but it has amazing battery life and it's enthusiast grade. So you've benefited from both sides, right? You've benefited from both sides is the point And so what, what about for gaming? Well, we don't really say gamer file, but let's just...

I'll just use it for the sake of this, this argument here today. [00:07:00] The gamer file I would classify, and this is just me classifying, I'm not speaking for the, for all gamers or anything. But gamer file to me is sorta like the collectors, right? They have collections. They have a bunch of shelves. They have a really nice setup.

They got the RGB, right? If you take a picture of a, quote, unquote, "gamer file's room," like, you, you know it right away. You see the lines, the, the, the, uh, the... There's basically aisles, but there's really, like, shelves just lined with games. You see a nice computer, maybe a nice little clean console setup. There's disc, you know, maybe kicking around on the desk or something like that. Like, you, you can tell that this is sort of a gamer file's room. And collectors, that's streamers, that's, uh, game preservationists, that's gaming historians, people that are content creators as well that make unique content on YouTube and other places as well.

Art, people who make gaming art, where they're inspired by Assassin's Creed, and so they make some fan art for it. Like, those are kinda like the gamer files. And then you have the consumer side of gaming, which is how do we get [00:08:00] gaming into as many hands as possible? And most recently, that is, hey, our games.

Don't buy a console. Don't buy anything. Use just your TV. Use just your phone. Make sure you have a good internet connection. Pay us a subscription. Stream off a Game Pass, or, uh, I think you can stream off a PlayStation, at the PlayStation Plus Premium tier, I think you might be able to stream to the PC. So if you have just, like, a business laptop and it doesn't have a very good GPU and things, it's not very computationally powerful, it's not a gaming laptop, you can still stream, right? Like, hey, stream. Go ahead, stream your games. You don't have to buy a console. But if you want a console, like, you can kinda start getting into that enthusiast a little bit, right? And then, hey, you don't want to take up a lot of space, but you did buy an Xbox or you did buy a PlayStation, okay, don't use disc.

Just download it from us. Go ahead, do that. Like, go, go ahead. You're fine. And, and you can slowly kind of work into that in-between area, right? Where there's the consumer side and the, the kinda gamer file side. And we see that even with equipment. I mean, we see fancy headsets on the streamers that are meant for gaming.

They're not audiophile, [00:09:00] uh, quality, but they're, like, gamer style. And then you see other people that are just maybe wearing earbuds with a little microphone, and they're just talking using that or even just using the DualSense 'cause it, it, it does both the microphone and speakers for you in a party chat. And so my thing is, is, like, you might, you might think, you know, discs... Like, what, what are discs doing? What are physical discs doing? Well, physical discs are like an immediate sort of like relic. Like, you immediately see it and you're like, "Oh, I know what that is," right? And game preservationists love them because if they actually include all the game files on the disc, which many games do, many don't, but many do, then there's like a physical way for you to own it. There's a physical way for you to own it. More importantly, there's a physical way for you to preserve it. If the PlayStation Store goes down, Baldur's Gate 3, the physical copy, is purchasable. You can... You have Baldur's Gate 3 on the disc, right? it goes further than that because g- because physical games, uh, the, the number that's thrown around is that 80% of consumers [00:10:00] will, will, have chosen digital, and that 20% of gamers are using physical.

So 80% digital, 20% physical. We're web developers. We, we, we make websites. If we were trying to make a website or a web app for the masses, we use a website called Can I Use to check, hey, I'm gonna install, I'm gonna use this feature. C- how widespread is this feature? And if you're worried about widespread adoption of your website, widespread accessibility of your website, and you see that a feature only has 80% adoption, you might be, "Uh-oh, okay, hang on here. We gotta make... We have to have a, a, a workaround," right? We have to have a workaround. Maybe we won't use this new feature. We'll use an older feature that has like a 90-plus percent, uh, install base or adoption rate. That's a... You know, there's that. And so 20%, like 20%, at least in the web development space, matters. And my worry is that- We're throwing away, like, a physical part of gaming, [00:11:00] thing that's super recognizable. It, it, you know, it, it, it is... It's a decoration on, on the back of shelves, fully recognizable. know what it is, and it gives the player choice. I mean, somebody might say, "I wanna buy a physical game" as an alternative to the digital store. Like, I do this. It- I went... I wanted to go buy Spider-Man 2. I took a look. It was on sale on PlayStation. This was about a year ago. It was on sale on PlayStation, took a look at there, was like, "Okay, it's 40 bucks or something." Went to EB Games website, it was 30 bucks. "Okay, guess I'm buying the disc," and there you go. if we get rid of this, unless it's released to EB Games with a code, which is not guaranteed, unless it's released to EB Games with a code, I have no alternative. And we've handed over all of the power and everything, in PlayStation's case, to the PlayStation Store, and we've left behind, and we've lost that relic. in 10 [00:12:00] years, 20 years, uh, like, are we mini- are we trying to make, are we trying to make our gaming setups, like, super minimalistic? Like, people who collected physical loved having the, the c- the cases on the, on the wall. Like, they loved having the cases on the shelves, and there were still tons of copies sold physically. We, we know that. 20%, people say, "Oh, it's only 20%." 20% is a lot of money. 20 percent's a big part of your market. And I would also like to question one final thing as well. this gonna threaten, is this gonna threaten culture and just gaming in general in certain jurisdictions? don't have an exact example, but I would, I would estimate that there are maybe countries or certain jurisdictions out there that don't have good internet can get PlayStations into their country, and they don't have the bandwidth to download 100 gigabyte games.

Maybe it's just... Maybe it's not even the country. Maybe it's just super remote, right? Just, or a super remote part of a country, [00:13:00] and they, they purchase the disc because at least 60, 80, or 100 gigabytes of the game is on the disc, or maybe even the whole game's on the disc, and it alleviates a little bit of that. And so are we gonna leave that part behind? Like, my, my whole point is, is that A lot of people think that the physical game is like, it's kinda like a, it's kinda like clutter, right? Like, oh, it's around, I have to like manually switch the thing, and it's a bit like analog, and it's old. And I get that. But that, to me, that's a part of, that's a part of gaming culture, and consumer market figured out minimalism.

If you wanna be a minimalist, you don't even need a console anymore. Controller, TV, done. that, and subscription, and done. That's it. Good internet connection, you're playing games. They've already figured that out, and the, the gamer files, they, I would estimate, want, a lot of them want discs, or at least the option for [00:14:00] discs in various reasons, and now that's taken away. And so I think it's more of a cultural issue, gaming culture issue, than it is... I shouldn't say it's more. I, I personally am worried about this myself, but there is really good conversations going on in the other spaces that I mentioned earlier in the episode

Mikhail: Okay. Let's, uh, let, l- let me preface my rebuttal by saying that I'm doing a little bit of a devil's advocate play here. Um, not from the perspective of I agree or d- or, uh, I, I disagree with Matt, or I disa- or I agree with the Sony's decision, right? Like, I don't agree with Sony's decision. Let me be very clear on that.

I think this is a really annoying, uh... I think this is, like, a slap in the face for gamers, 100%. My rebuttals come from just pure capitalistic logic, um, and from gamers themselves First rebuttal, uh, [00:15:00] disc games, in my opinion, have been dead for years. Like, M- Matt, you brought it up several times. S- like, a good portion of games ship with partial disc, uh, games, right?

Like, you can't actually play the game even if you have the disc. Not every game.

Matt: Not

Mikhail: There's still a bunch of games... Not every game, absolutely, agreed, but a good portion of games, like a good chunk, a good, uh, uh, a, enough, enough to, to matter. Secondly, the games that do ship on disc, there's a portion of those games that ship so broken that even if you can play them, they're garbage because our culture, our gaming culture, has pushed it so that companies ship...

Like, first-day gaming is usually bug-ridden nonsense. Like, it's just kind of a nightmare. Uh, and usually you have to wait X amount of time for the game to be patched before you have, like, a really good experience. Like, Cyberpunk probably is the number one example of that. Um, but [00:16:00] there's other examples.

Like, even, even Baldur's Gate 3, uh, yes, the disc does ship with the game on it. Is it the best experience? No. Uh, there... Like, the patches that have come out after have made the game much more playable, much better. They've patched out a bunch of game-breaking bugs. Like, it, it's just... We've come to the... We're, we're in the era, and this is probably the last 10 years, honestly, of broken shit and the acceptance of broken shit.

And so gaming companies are willing to, you know, release broken stuff, and we've accepted it as consumers, right? Like, we can, we can awe and, and, and yell about it all we want. We can, you know, scream from the rooftops. We have accepted this as, as a consumer by buying those games on day one. We have absolutely accepted it.

We're okay with it by giving them our money, giving, giving them their money because they've given us no [00:17:00] other choice. If we were to have stopped buying their games because they were shit for day one, they would have fixed this problem. We did not. And that has happened, again, probably over the last 10 years, slowly degrading physical media as a necessity to the detriment, absolute detriment of the gaming community because right now there's a huge resurgence in old games and the joy you have of, like, picking up a game at a store, bringing it home, plugging it in and just playing it, that is...

I, I like the... You know, the nostalgia there is huge for me because that's how I played, right? Like that... When I went to, you know, Blockbuster Video or Rogers Video we had in, in Canada, and I would rent a game and come back home, and, like, you'd literally plug it in and play right away. There was no download time.

There was nothing. That is a thing of the past. That's been a thing of the past for a while. Um, and that's gonna be gone. Like, well, like it, it's already pretty much gone, but it's gonna be completely gone by 2028 it sounds like for PlayStations, [00:18:00] uh, which is sad for me. And the other part of this is like for me personally, and I think for a lot of people, that 80/20 rule, right?

Like the 80/20, uh, argument that you had. I'm pro- I'm part of that 80 for the last, I don't know, six years probably, six, seven years I haven't bought a physical game. Uh, mainly because I have a pretty small condo. I don't really have anywhere to put them, and I don't game that much. My intention has always been that once I have a den, like once I have a gamer room when I buy a house, uh, I would switch back to buying games 'cause I, I do have a pretty good physical media collection of older stuff.

Like I have a bunch of Sega Genesis games, I have a bunch of PS2 games, I have a bunch of PS3 games, I have a bunch of... Some PS4 games, and that's kind of the era that I started to buy digital. Um, and it looks like that's not gonna work out for me. Like I'll still probably buy like classic games, like older games, but the future will probably be me just buying [00:19:00] the digital copies and/or, or even just using the subscriptions.

Matt: Would you say that that's, that that's you losing some of the culture that you were anticipating taking advantage of? Because if we think

Mikhail: I think so

Matt: like the PS3, like we just said, is, is gonna lose its store on a certain date. I don't

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: too hard into that 'cause it's another whole story, another whole thing to go into,

Mikhail: Yep

Matt: is gonna lose its digital store.

But you could still have a PS3 if you, in that den, wanted to have a PS3. You have a PS3, you go buy some discs and there you go. There's an alternative there. What's the alternative? I think the PS3 is what? 20 or something like that? Close to 20? Okay, let's just say it's 20 years old for the sake of

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: What's the PS6 gonna have in 20 years?

Mikhail: Nothing. It'll be just a dead box.

Matt: down

Mikhail: Yeah, it'll be a dead box.

Matt: That's

Mikhail: have no doubt in my mind. Yeah,

Matt: a

Mikhail: I think

Matt: That is a huge problem

Mikhail: Well, to you or to gamers, but not to the company

Matt: That depends though. That depends because we, we've, [00:20:00] we've started seeing movement for the Stop Killing Games getting pushed through, extent, through California courts. The thing is, is that right now the Stop Killing Games movement, as far as I've c- as far as I've followed it, is trying to stop games, co- game companies from shutting down servers, which makes the games inaccessible.

Like it... If you're, if you're playing a

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: is always online, they shut the server down, now that game's not accessible anymore, and they're trying to stop that. one thing. But if... Look how many millions of PS2s are still around, and look how many PS2s and PS2 games are still sold at flea markets and sold

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: game stores and things. another whole thing too, is that a, a physical

Mikhail: No resell. Yeah

Matt: if it's, yeah, even if it has

Mikhail: That's amazing to them. They love that

Matt: Of course, but that Like from a capitalistic perspective, what they're, what they're, what I would estimate they're doing is we have a RAM crisis. They're trying to lower the price of the PS6. They know that the PS6 is gonna come in well over $1,000. This is all speculation. But they... I would [00:21:00] estimate that they, they know that the PS6 is gonna come in well over $1,000 for Canadian.

So what are they gonna do? They go, "Okay." As Sony, as PlayStation, they subsidize it 'cause they know that you're on their ecosystem. So they go, "Okay, we're gonna get our money back 'cause, you know, Matt and everyone else who buys our console, or most of the people, are gonna buy a fair bit of games. They're gonna pay for PS Plus, and we're gonna get people into our ecosystem.

We're gonna make up the difference. So we'll take a loss of $100 on the console." Let's say the console right now due to the RAM crisis is $1,500 internally. That's what they think they're gonna have to charge Canadian, Canadian dollars, $1,500. Okay, 1,500. Well, how do we shave that off? Well, we could shave 100 off and get rid of the disc drive.

Okay, cool. So we shave the disc drive off. Okay, great. So that's gone now. All right. So now we know that the only place you can purchase games is the PlayStation Store, or you can buy the code, which is, by the way, redeemed on the PlayStation Store. So they do ship codes to EB Games and things. Now they're doing that. now they're, or they're, now they're still dipping into that. If I go to EB [00:22:00] Games and I purchase the next Ratchet & Clank, if assuming there is one, and I enter the code in, I'm redeeming it, and it'll be in my library, and it can be downloaded then from the PlayStation Store. So they're taking, they're taking control of that

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: And so it, it's like that, that goes into that ownership conversation

Mikhail: Mm-hmm

Matt: it goes into that ownership conversation, but it also goes into the culture conversation like you're saying with your den. Like, you wanted to buy physical games to kind of

Mikhail: Yeah.

Matt: Like, you're not gonna be going

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: game every night and like putting it in the, in the console. Like, that's crazy

Mikhail: Yeah, it's more of a decoration, more of like a collection. Like I, I wanted to become a little bit of a collector of physical media again because I liked my collection before. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, my, my thing is, at the end of the day, I, I'm very against this, and I will probably speak with my wallet on this personally.

Like I'll, uh, like, you know, maybe I won't even buy a PS6. There's a very high chance that I, I, I'll just skip it because I'm pissed off about [00:23:00] this.

Matt: Right

Mikhail: There's a chance. I don't think gamers as a, as a group are going to be like that because they've never in the history of time have gr- risen together. I mean, the Stop Killing Games thing is happening.

Maybe there's something there, but like they've never really w- voted with their wallets. Every time there's been a complaint, microtransactions, boo, microtransactions, most profitable thing ever in gaming. Gamers love it. They're just throwing money at it, no problem, like any time. Battle Pass, what the fuck is this Battle Pass?

I bought a $60 game. Why do I have to pay $30 more? They love it. Gamers just buy... Like, you know, there's-

Matt: would say that, that, that's the... A lot of time those are referred to as whales. Like, those are, uh, people that buy everything, all the battle passes. They buy a lot of things in the shops, the digital shops. Those are often ca- o- often considered whales, and those whales disproportionately spend a lot of money. Like, like if I spend $10 on Fortnite, a whale might spend 100, so it's a 10 to one. I don't have exact numbers in front [00:24:00] of me for that, but the whales are definitely spending a bunch of money. I remember there was a story way back in the day, Mass Effect 3 had an online mode, and they kept it online because someone had spent over $100,000, and it was a couple of whales that were do- that were handling it.

I think it might've been one person that spent o- 100,000 some odd dollars, and there was a few other people that were spending tons and tons of money on it. So that, that, that makes the, the servers and the, any support that they were offering it profitable

Mikhail: I, I think yes, partly it is whales, but battle passes and small microtransactions, I don't think that that's fully whale economy. Like battle pass especially I would say is not whales. That is mostly just gamers that enjoy the game and they purchase it to get the extra content. Like people will, will buy battle passes en masse for the most part, for popular games.

So like yes, the whale conversation is true, but regardless, pretty much every time it seems that there is an outrage and people are outraged by something in the gaming community, it's usually a very small [00:25:00] percentage, and it can be seen from the 80/20 agreement as well. So in my opinion, that 80-- like you're saying 20% of people won't like, you know, can't do this, uh, you know, they'll stop buying games because they're not physical.

I disagree with that. I think that they do it because it's there and they like them, but it's going to be far less than 20% that will stop buying games. I think that the people that will s-- I think it's going to be probably in the, well, definitely single digits, but probably less than 5% if at best that will be like actually boycotting this.

Most of those people will be like, they'll grumble, grumble, and then buy their console and buy their favorite games on the, on the, on the PlayStation Store and continue with their life, 'cause that's just how it is, and that's what PlayStation is betting on. And that's why they're doing it in 2028, because they're seeing the trend, right?

Like so they, they're, they're looking at the numbers and being like, "Okay, last year it was, you know, 78%. This year it's 80%. Maybe next year it's gonna be 82%, 84." [00:26:00] Like if they get up to 85%, then it'll be an even smaller number that they'll have to convert, and that loss for them is going to be nothing compared to the gain of no more used games in five, six years when the console is aged out, right?

Like that's a huge win for them because now they're just continually getting funding into their store because people need to buy games without being able to sell them. I-- It's-- This is a capitalistic decision. Obviously gamers are going to huff and puff, but I, my issue with the gaming community has always been that we are very bad, very bad at coming together on a topic and

Matt: What,

Mikhail: actually doing something about it

Matt: you're aware of has n- has been good at that?

Mikhail: I don't know. I, I'm trying to think of one. I don't know. I'm p- not really part of a lot of communities, so like gaming is one of the communities that I'm part of. Sports is another one that's probably awful at that as well, honestly. Like, whenever something bad in sports is like w- bet, [00:27:00] the bet apps, for example, in the sports, everyone's like huffing and puffing about it, but they're still watching games, and they're still going to games, and like they, you know, no one's gonna boycott sports,

Matt: But

Mikhail: or not enough people

Matt: that's the consumer market though. Like,

Mikhail: Yeah.

It is the consumer market, yeah

Matt: the physical games, you know, they obviously touch the consumer market 'cause they're still accessible. You still just go to the

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: it, put it in the console. I mean, you go. But the thing is, is that, like, h- caring about and trying to preserve games and, and have physical games, that's a very gamer file thing. And I,

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: I had one friend who, who mentioned, you know, the PC, PC market has already switched. The PC market already largely switched to digital. They used to have those really big game cases in the early 2000 and the '90s and things, those really big game boxes, and they had four or five disks in there and g- you know, CD keys eventually and things like that for anti-piracy, and they had all these things.

And those went away 'cause, like, I mean, they're huge. Like, those boxes are massive. People would throw them away, even myself included, 'cause it's [00:28:00] like have five games, it'd take up a whole shelf. Like, they were huge

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: and they were all different sizes and things. It was part of the culture, and we kinda lost that, and that is a little bit sad, like, for sure.

But there was always the option of like, okay, you know, we're gonna stay physical for a bit, and then it slowly went digital. But I think the difference there with the PC market is the PC market is largely digital, the PC market's largely digital across multiple, across multiple stores. This is, this is all that PlayStation is now. If you wanna get a game, it's more or less from the PlayStation Store,

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: a code for the PlayStation Store. And you could argue, well, like, you can go to Nintendo. I, I guess, but if, if you're really into games, you know that Nintendo is kinda playing their own game. They don't really compete with Microsoft and PlayStation. A- and, and, uh, realistically, Xbox is, is all but dead. So It, like Xbox is not competing with PlayStation. They're in charge

Mikhail: I agree, I agree. I, and like, one, one other thing I'll say [00:29:00] is that we've already gone through this with computer games, like PC games. This has already happened. Like you can't

Matt: a different, there's different launchers is my point for the PC. Like,

Mikhail: Sure

Matt: If you want DRM-free, you go to GOG. If you wanna, if you wanna, like, claim free games, you go to Epic. If you

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: Ubisoft, you go to Ubisoft Connect. You know what I mean? There's even the Xbox launcher.

Like, there's multiple ways for you to purchase games on PC, so we, we still have the digital distribution

Mikhail: Sure, yeah. So for pr- for game preservation specifically, PC is way better obviously, 'cause you can download the files and, and continue to, to play them. For some games, I should say. Not all games are like that.

Matt: GOG, for example. GOG

Mikhail: Yeah, all games on GOG, yeah.

Matt: supposed to be distributing games, but for people

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: about distributing or, uh, they would, you know, they would take the files that you get from GOG DRM-free

Mikhail: Yeah.

Matt: preserve them somewhere

Mikhail: Yes, correct. We can't do that with PlayStation. That's never been possible with PlayStation other than the fact that you could buy CDs. I get that. Um, I... Maybe there'll be [00:30:00] something that they come up with that will be preservation related. I don't know. Or I, in my opinion, I think they're just not gonna care,

Matt: I don't think they're

Mikhail: because yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't think they're gonna care.

I think they're just gonna take the money because it's gonna be great money for them for not preserving games. There might be a, a point where, like, because there's no used game market, that might actually lead to them extending the console's lifetime because of the income that they would be generating from the store sales as you go.

'Cause, like, if there was no, for example, PS Vita market for used ga- Like, you, you couldn't buy a physical PS Vita game today.

Matt: Yeah

Mikhail: could be an argument to say that people would still buy games on the store unless it w- you know, we know it's cracked. We know that people pirate games on the Vita. I get it.

But, like, if that wasn't the case, we know that people would, would probably buy more games on the store, and they would extend the life of the Vita store versus now most people are just buying used games on the Vita. [00:31:00] Um But most of those are collectors. I don't know. I'm, uh, th-that, that argument is not that great, honestly, like just saying it out loud, uh, because most people buying used Vita games are probably just collectors, and then they're the ones that are gonna be affected the most because of this, honestly

Matt: collect- collectors, collectors or not though, like, I mean, I, I recently, like, refurbished a couple PSPs. I've been playing some PSP games 'cause I had some of my backlog that I wanted to sort of complete, 'cause I'm a pretty

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: and, and I, you know, I kinda go down the checklist and just for fun.

It's not taken, you know, super seriously or anything. And, and I have... I've recently purchased, I mean, from flea markets and things, a whole bunch of PSP UMDs

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: that they take away the PSP store or whatever, oh well, I'll just have this UMD. Like, you know, I'll just put the UMD in the back of the, of the console and away I go.

And then that, you know, like, that concludes my PSP experience, right? And y- And I know that there's, like, you know, some questionable ways to get some PSP games and some questionable ways to get some, some Vita games and things that we won't [00:32:00] discuss here, but,

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: length. But there's some questionable ways to do it.

But the thing is, is a part of gaming culture is also keeping some things OEM, and s- and now, like, it's, the OEM is saying, "Okay, this thing's dead." And I'm not saying for them to necessarily keep the servers up forever, also, like, I don't know what the, the best solution is. how do you, you know, how do you handle something like this?

Mikhail: Well, like ideally you would just put the games on the disc and have actual complete games when you're releasing them, like, like playable games when you're releasing them. Because the discs, as far as I understand for the PS5, can store around 100 gigs. There's not that many games on, out there that are over 100.

There are a bunch obviously, but like there aren't that many that are over 100 gigs.

Matt: Well,

Mikhail: So you can't...

Matt: though. Baldur's Gate did two discs. Uh,

Mikhail: There we go, yeah

Matt: which is a Sony game, Spider-Man 2, they- they're one disc and they're fully on the disc. 'Cause... And I know that firsthand 'cause I kinda read that and I was like, "Eh." And I just recently actually started playing Spider-Man 2, and as I said, I bought the disc, and man, did that thing take a [00:33:00] long time to install from the disc.

I was like,

Mikhail: Yeah.

Matt: crap. This is, this

Mikhail: Yeah, like that's the other ar- whole conversation where I mean, we don't have to get too far into it, but like the, the UX, like the actual experience of discs kinda sucks. So that's why it led to the digital market being so easy.

Matt: sure, but it's not, it's... So th- this is, this is, like, a kinda my thing, is that how many audiophiles are out there buying the very best headsets, the very best DACs, the very best MP3 players? They're probably not even using MP3s. Probably using FLAC

Mikhail: Mm, flak. Yeah, they're definitely using flaks

Matt: They're using all kinds of stuff. They're using all, all, all sorts of different technology. How, like, those technologies are not for the masses.

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: Those are not for the masses. And like I said, audiophiles contribute directly to the culture of music, even down to the consumer side. They influence each other. What I'm saying is, is that we're taking something here away from those gamerphiles in the name of, "Oh, [00:34:00] but the consumers want ease." Yeah, they have it. If you're a minimalist gamer, consumer- the consumer side's got you. They figured it out. If you're a gamerphile, it, I mean, until today, I guess, or till 2028, they had you.

They had you sorted out

Mikhail: I, I don't know if I agree with that argument, like the audiophile and gamerphile argument, because audiophiles, yes, like they're kind of the same class as gamerphiles, I get that, but they're actually getting a superior experience. Like, they're actually getting... Like the, the, the headphones, the m- MP3 players, that...

They're, they're physically better. Like, they're physically better in every way than the consumer. Versus the gamerphiles are getting, I would argue, a, a worse experience from a U- like an actual gaming perspective. They're getting an experience of owning a physical media, but that physical media is not better than, like from a game pers- like from gameplay perspective especially, or even like a game loading perspective, than the digital [00:35:00] copy.

Like if, if somehow the disc version was better than the digital version in, in some minor way, because, uh, if, if you're comparing the audiophile versus the regularphile, like it would have to be some minor way of like not completely game-changing, but like s- like let's say the, the graphics fidelity was better.

Let's say that from the, on the disc version. I would agree with that argument. But it's not. Nothing

Matt: better for, for people that are the game preservationists

Mikhail: Yes, it's better for the collectors and stuff like that, but it's not better for the actual consumers of the game. Like, it's not better for the actual game

Matt: right, which is why, which is... I understand what you're saying, where,

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: audiophiles are, like, they're, like, innovating, innovating the, uh, audio space. Like, the

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: But here's the thing. How many games have come up that have been lost to time but have been preserved and found and whatever due to game preservationists?

A lot. Game historians, a lot. And you could say, here's the thing, you could say, "Well, that doesn't really affect the consumer market." You're right. You're right. Not directly. [00:36:00] Some stuff trickles down, right? Some stuff trickles down, of course. Like, there's gonna be almost immeasurable influence on each other.

The gamerphiles are gonna affect the consumers, consumers are gonna affect the gamerphiles, of course. But I don't, uh, what I'm trying to do is say don't rob Peter to pay Paul

Mikhail: Yeah, but they're gonna rob you. They're gonna rob Peter. They, they, they're robbing. They are gonna rob, and, uh, the only way we could stop it is, in my opinion, like, a actual non-purchase. Like, if the people st- don't buy stuff. Which, which could happen

Matt: would have to come down actually more to more, more like regulation stuff

Mikhail: Well, that's a stop killing games thing. Like that, that would be the...

Matt: one

Mikhail: But, but yeah, it's one example of that. But it would have to be like maybe, yeah, they would have to have physical media. I don't know. I don't know what, what they could possibly say to require physical media. Um, the stop killing games sounds to me more like until the company's dead, you have to maintain the game.

Matt: It, what,

Mikhail: So

Matt: i- what it is, is [00:37:00] it's basically like don't shut the servers down.

Mikhail: Yeah, while you're alive

Matt: there are, there are, uh, some specific things that have come out of California. I'll, I'll include a link to that in the, in the

Mikhail: Yep.

Matt: just 'cause we're not

Mikhail: Mm-hmm

Matt: for the sake of this, uh, Webflow or this Webflow, this, uh,

Mikhail: Web news. Mm-hmm

Matt: like there are specific guidelines, you know,

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: this, and this person does that, whatever. Like there's some, there's some

Mikhail: But it's not physical media is what I'm trying to say. Like there's no, there's no guidelines specifically for physical media in there

Matt: But my, my point here is, is that you know how game streaming and game, like let's plays, you know, became very, very popular on YouTube?

Like that's part of gaming culture. And one of the concerns was, "Oh my God, like, if people watch the games, they're not gonna be buying the games. Oh my God, what do we do?" And then a bunch of, a bunch of dev- developers like came out and said, "Hey, we actually get a bunch of sales from this because this

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: live or whatever he's doing, making a little funny video with it." And then people look at it and go, "Man, that looks fun as heck," and then they, they buy it. Some people 100% are gonna watch the long play and they're not gonna [00:38:00] buy it, But I also would argue that maybe that person wouldn't have bought it anyway.

Mikhail: Yeah, I agree with that

Matt: and they just would've came in. But showing FriendSlop, which is like kind of the new trends that come every month or two or whatever, FriendSlop games, FriendSlop games get big because they're funny, somebody streams it, and then it's like, "Oh man, this is funny as heck." And that injects money into the gamer economy.

Mikhail: Yep.

Matt: And, and

Mikhail: But how does physical media come to play in this?

Matt: So physical media is a part of gaming culture, and gaming culture has a, know if it is measurable, I'm gonna call it immeasurable, an immeasurable impact even on the consumer side. So what I'm saying is, is that if you start to rob from gaming culture to be like, "Let's be just fully minimalist," it's like, okay, then get rid of the consoles. Just sell us a, just sell us a TV and just sell us a controller. Get rid of the console and that's it. Like if you r- you know what I mean? Like the console's part of gaming culture too. People look at the hardware, they like the design, there's like [00:39:00] different versions, there's different versions in different countries, there's different paint jobs that

Mikhail: Well

Matt: official one of ones and things like that.

Won on contests, like the Taco Bell Xbox is a different color green or whatever, right? Like, like that is a part of gaming culture. Them releasing the Xbox Series X with a 25th anniversary green, translucent green with a controller as well is a part of gaming culture. Like this stuff, it seems unrelated.

You're like, "Yeah, but I just want to download my game." But this stuff powers the entire gaming industry. Like all this stuff trickles down from the gamer file down.

Mikhail: I, I will say that if they could do what you're saying and have a TV that just has the cons- like streams a console or something like that,

Matt: But they do

Mikhail: like Sta- Stadia and stuff like that. If they could do it en masse efficiently and it, like perfect experience, they would do that.

Matt: But here's

Mikhail: And they would, they would cut out the console

Matt: the, I, I don't agree with that. I have had that argument before. I don't agree with that, and the reason why I do not agree with that is because then everyone would have consoles [00:40:00] and not PCs. There are still people and s- there are still manufacturers of components for, for PCs, not business PCs, gaming PCs, and they make fancy stuff.

So not only are they computationally intense, they're very capable, very, very expensive as a result of that, but then there's also hundreds of dollars put into many builds for aesthetics. a look at my custom loop. Take a look at my RGB. Take a look at the case. like... That, see what I'm trying to say?

There's a gaming style.

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: buy a gaming computer or a, um, excuse me,

Mikhail: But

Matt: business computer, I wouldn't go to Alienware because

Mikhail: yeah

Matt: is a part of the gaming culture. There's a reason why Dell doesn't just go, "This is our business computer, and in the same case, but with, uh, more fans is our gaming computer."

It's a different thing. It's a different piece of the culture. It has, like, an immeasurable impact on the industry

Mikhail: Yes, agreed. But also, [00:41:00] the gamers that buy computers are actually usually the people that are anti-console

Matt: That's fine.

Mikhail: Yeah.

Matt: There's

Mikhail: I'm just trying to...

Matt: Like, I

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: intact. I want the minimalists to have their part intact.

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: files to have their part intact. What I'm saying is, is like, don't, don't be like, "Oh, because people are more minimalistic, we're removing this." That's what I'm trying to say.

This is a staple of the gaming industry, that's it. Like, if no one is buying discs, fine. 20% is freaking huge. Even 10%, you could argue, is huge. Here's the thing,

Mikhail: Is it?

Matt: distribution even. Limited distribution. Heck, there's a whole company that spun up called Limited Run physical collector's games.

Mikhail: But if you think about the

Matt: aware, it's a successful company

Mikhail: It's a whole thing though to support that 20 or 10% that you're talking about. It's not just like releasing physical media, it's supporting the disc drive, it's supporting the integration of the disc [00:42:00] drive, it's supporting all of the te- like software that needs to be, that needs to come to actually download the files from the disc, from the disc to the software.

Matt: They've

Mikhail: on the PS5. On the PS5, but not on the PS6

Matt: Sure, but then, but then you could argue that why make the PS6 have better graphics? We, we have to put a better GPU in here just 'cause you guys want better

Mikhail: That sells consoles. That, that sells consoles

Matt: Well, it, it wouldn't if they just didn't do it

Mikhail: Well, they, they need a differentiator. No, no,

Matt: forward

Mikhail: no one would buy the PS6 if the PS5 had the same, like if it had the same graphics, they wouldn't buy the PS6. Like they needed to, they... Unless the games are exclusive, but why? Why would they do that? There's no reason for them to do that. Just leave the PS5 then.

There's, it's too much money.

Matt: The, 'cause,

Mikhail: They-

Matt: dominate a news cycle when you have a new console

Mikhail: Sure, you dominate a new cycle, but like the, the PS5 is already dominating. They're already making money on the games, and you have to spend so much money on the actual, like, investment of that console. Like, if there was no reason [00:43:00] for gaming, for gamer, gaming companies to make a game for this console because there's no new technology there, let's say, then they would continue to make it on the PS5 because the distribution there is already so big

Like the, I, I, I don't think that like if, if the disc drive was driving sales in any way, shape, or form,

Matt: Sure

Mikhail: then they would invest in the disc drive. But from their, from their stats, it's not.

Matt: Right

Mikhail: not enough sales behind the disc drive. Like th- this would only be for those like 20% or maybe even less that, um, that want that preservation and want the collectors, and they just obviously don't care about those people.

That they've made that very clear with this statement. They've, they, they're very direct like, "I, we hate you. We want you to die hopefully, and we only care about these people." Yeah, yeah, that's a little bit intense, but like they are very much making a direct statement at them being like, "We're don't, we don't [00:44:00] really care about what you guys think."

Matt: Well, the argument there though is you're saying, "Oh, it's so much work to support the physical games." Why are physical games the same price as digital games? Shouldn't digital

Mikhail: I...

Matt: then be cheaper?

Mikhail: No, no. Why, why would they, why would they be cheaper?

Matt: Because it's cheaper.

Mikhail: Yeah.

Matt: Because it's

Mikhail: It's cheaper...

Matt: to support them.

Mikhail: Correct. Yeah

Matt: you don't have all this other stuff. Or why aren't physical games more expensive then? Which would naturally then make physical, digital games cheaper. Like if they, if they came out and said, "You know what? Our

Mikhail: But then no one... Even less people would buy them. Even less people would buy them then. Like, there's still, they...

Matt: it's

Mikhail: But, but they're, the, the strategy for the PS5 as far as I understand it was we, they thought that the, the physical games were still gonna be a big part of it,

Matt: Sure

Mikhail: So they had to make it so that the physical games had made any sense.

If they were more expensive than the digital games, no one would've bought it. If that's what they wanted, they could've done that. But they didn't because they thought that the strategy was that ph- people would still [00:45:00] buy the physical games and they wanted those people to come in. But what they've learned over time is that people stopped buying the physical games

Matt: But like, let me ask you a question. So like you go to Corsair, for example, to buy some PC fans, some PC cooling fans. You buy the gamer version, which is usually RGB. But when I went to go do that, there were two versions. There was a, a version that was, I wanna say, roughly $30, and then there was another version that was $20, and then there was another version that wasn't RGB but had LEDs at a fixed color for $10. And there was different airflow amounts for them and stuff, all these different stat differences, but they were the same voltages and all that, all that nonsense. So like that... Like, but Corsair doesn't say, "Okay, I'm gonna cut, I'm gonna cut the top one 'cause it's not meant for everybody." Like, if we're talking about in terms of accessibility, in terms of market accessibility, widespreadness, I guess, would just have either no LEDs and

Mikhail: I agree

Matt: cooling, or you would have fixed LEDs at the very least

Mikhail: I, I think that's a good argument. I, I, I would agree with that. Like, I think Corsair is [00:46:00] probably doing us a favor by doing that because they're supporting more SKUs, which costs them more money, and most likely by lowering the amount of SKUs, they know which SKUs are popular and which aren't, so they could save money there and they're doing this for the gamers.

I agree. I think there's multiple companies, Noctua being one of them, like there's, there's a bunch of companies out there that do stuff inter- for gamers specifically without, like, a full-on monetary incentive. Obviously, they still make money on it. They still have to make money on it, but they, they could do things that are more aggressive.

Uh, but there's also a lot of companies that do-- that don't. Like, there's also a lot of companies that refuse to cater to that, and they just look at the bottom line and will only release SKUs that benefit them, and that's it. So yes, there's a spectrum of that, and PS, PlayStation is no longer part of that spectrum.

Like, they, they no longer are catering to that crowd anymore Due to the numbers, which sucks. I don't know if it's gonna change. Like, there is a, there is blowback.

Matt: think it's gonna

Mikhail: they... I [00:47:00] don't think it's gonna change. I thi- I think they're, they, they, they, like, went off social media for a couple days, I know that, after getting the blowback, so that's something.

But, like, I think the only blowback that they would listen to is if the, like, people stop buying or something like that, personally.

Matt: of course

Mikhail: Yeah, that's the only thing that they would, that they would listen to. Um, not... 'Cause w- there's been so many of these outrage moments in not just gaming, but, like, Reddit and all that stuff that led to nothing, that I think these companies have just realized that, like, vocal outrage means pretty much nothing now,

Matt: Well, see the

Mikhail: which is frustrating

Matt: it might not affect it at the root, but there's a, like the... not this particular outrage, but for example, companies like Limited Run are in existence because they're aware of this niche, and the niche in the norm, like not during this outrage, pr- pre this outrage, is loud enough, not even protesting or anything, they're just talking about buying physical games and where they bought them and what

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: got and all [00:48:00] this stuff, what they're

Mikhail: Yep

Matt: Like for example, I'll give you like just a prime, prime personal example, very brief, is, uh, I, like a formative game for me is, is Oblivion. Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, amazing. I played it on the Xbox 360, I played it on PC, played the shit out of it. I had a physical copy on the 360 'cause that's what you did back then.

That was the norm back then. Okay, released Oblivion Remastered. Fantastic. Played it. I have Game Pass, so I downloaded it. It was convenient to download the digital version. But I wanted Oblivion, and I acknowledge that even though I, quote-unquote, "have it" by downloading it and having it through Game Pass, I don't have it. I purchased the physical version, physical, I think it was the digital deluxe version that even has special weapons inside, but I can't even get to them 'cause I kept the case in, in the wrapping. I kept the case in the wrapping and I'm using the digital version to play. So I acknowledge the consumer side.

I'm benefiting from the consumer side. But as more of an enthusiast or even gamer file to an extent, [00:49:00] it's like I want to own Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered

Mikhail: No, I get, and I get that, but that's n- that's not going away as far as I understand. Like, uh, collector's editions aren't going away

Matt: No, but there won't be a disc

Mikhail: Correct. But I think even now there's some collector's editions without discs in them

Matt: No, no, this isn't a collector's edition, to be clear. This is a special edition, but it's literally just the disc with, like, a code in there for, like,

Mikhail: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: something.

Mikhail: But I think

Matt: "Hey, everybody, we released this digitally, and take a look at this. You can buy it physically now."

And I'm like, "Hey, I fucking wanna own Oblivion, the new and the old version, so I'll buy that."

Mikhail: Fair enough. No, that, that, and that's fair, and you might not do it, like, moving forward. But I think the other part of this is that, like, they're still gonna be releasing boxed versions. They're still gonna be releasing collector's editions, and most people will just transition to the non-disc collector's editions and not even notice a difference 'cause they don't even open them, like you're saying

Matt: I, I don't like this. I don't like change. That's one big thing, but I-- And I've had time to think about this, and I still don't like it

Mikhail: Yeah. I, I don't know. It's just, it's [00:50:00] one of those things where, like, I... They can do it because they can get away with it, and that sucks. That's the, that's the shitty part is, like, I hate that they can get away with it. Yeah.

Matt: it. They're gonna do

Mikhail: Yeah.

Matt: with it

Mikhail: Yeah. I wish that people would be able to come together and vote with their wallets, um, but that's a big ask because what happens when the next GTA comes out on the PS6 and you can't play it because you're, you know, standing by your morals?

It's tough

Matt: Well,

Mikhail: Can't really blame people

Matt: is like I wasn't even mad when they announced, oh, GTA VI isn't gonna come out on disc. Like, I'm, I'm for the spectrum of gamer file to consumer. So GTA, they're not getting in with the discs. maybe they will down the line. There was a rumor, then that got re- that got redacted or something, who knows? But at launch there's not gonna be disc versions. Okay. Then GTA's just not [00:51:00] doing that. Like, I'm fine with a company saying, "I'm gonna go minimalistic," but this is the platform doing it. I was unaware that you had to get approval from Sony to literally make discs. I thought it was as long as Sony goes, "Yeah, you can put our game, put your game on the PlayStation Store," and once you did that, it's like, "Oh, okay, I better call up the PlayStation disc maker and make a physical copy if I made it."

And I'm fine if you don't do that. I'm fine if you will. But now the platform's gone, that's

Mikhail: Yep.

Matt: me.

Mikhail: Yep.

Matt: crazy to me

Mikhail: I mean, they're signaling what the PS6 is not gonna have. Like, that's a very...

Matt: gonna have it, no

Mikhail: Yeah, there's no chance that it'll have a disc drive. Like, they're just, th- with that announcement, they're signaling that to every game studio and everyone.

Matt: I don't think the next Xbox is gonna have it either

Mikhail: I don't think so either, yeah. The P- the, I guess the only saving grace is probably the, the Nintendos will continue to have it

Matt: COD. Oh, boy

Mikhail: Because people still for some reason buy Nintendo physical copies way more than, as far as I understand, way more than PlayStation and [00:52:00] Xbox. I don't... Maybe it's from a collector's point of view. Maybe, yeah

Matt: a mobile thing 'cause like even me, like for the PSP, it's kinda like I do have

Mikhail: You'd rather have, yeah.

Matt: where you l- I

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: them to my PS3, plugged in a

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: cable, and then frigging transferred it over. So I still have

Mikhail: Yeah.

Matt: or that PSP,

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: games loaded on there from there, from that

Mikhail: Mm-hmm

Matt: But even then, it's like on the go, it's like what if that game messed up, like the files got messed up, so now I gotta like I can't redownload it, like I can't like get

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: get it back again.

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: a, you know, a UMD it's like, well, you can just... I mean, I have the UMD. Like, like we're not

Mikhail: I don't know.

Matt: UMD

Mikhail: It's possible, yeah. But I think that's it. I think we're, we're both disappointed in this decision. Um, I think I... Yeah, I don't know. I g- I'm jaded. Yeah, no, I, I'm jad- I'm very jaded against the communities that I'm a part of. So yeah. I just, I have no belief that people can make d- can, can make changes now, which is [00:53:00] unfortunate

Matt: It is, uh, a bit of a weird time, let's just say that. Bit of a weird time, kinda sucks, but

Mikhail: Yeah, it does

Matt: That's, I don't know, that's the industry now. Let us know what you think. If you, if you're still here, you're still listening, you're still watching, let us know what you think about this whole physical games thing. Is it good, bad, ugly, in between? Do you agree with my sort of, you know, enthusiast versus consumer grade Do you disagree? Let me, let us know. And that's it. That's the web news. We're signing off

Mikhail: Goodbye