If you could not tell, I am incredibly passionate about games, and I am certainly not alone in that. I know so many people who have a deep love for this hobby and art form, and I do not think anything will change that. However, events in the gaming industry, both very recent and those that have unfolded and worsened over the past few years, have certainly soured my love for it. Whether it be the looming dark cloud of full digitisation, developers getting axed by their superiors on a weekly basis, or corporate greed bleeding into the franchises we love, it feels harder to be hopeful about the future of games with every passing day. To be clear, there is nothing I enjoy doing more with my time than sinking some hours into a brilliant game, and that experience will hopefully never go away any time soon. Though at the moment, when things look so bleak for the industry going forward, I feel it necessary to give my thoughts and feelings with everything changing so fast. I try my best to be as positive as possible in all of my posts, trying to see the reasoning behind things and putting a positive spin on even the things I dislike. But when it comes to some of these awful status quo changes, they have to be called out and met with the negativity it sets as precedent.

As the inciting incident for this article, and possibly one of the most worrying prospects for gaming going forward, Sony’s declared abandonment of physical media is the first thing to talk about. If you are not in the loop, a few days ago, Sony put out an ‘important update’ post on their social media, dropping a huge bomb on the industry by confirming they will cease production of discs for PlayStation games in 2028. If you do not collect physical media, this may not come as a shock to you, nor will you feel it is impactful to you whatsoever. However, this decision affects every single gamer, whether they like it or not. This is all about control, and it is the most anti-consumer prospect for the future of gaming that we have ever had. I have talked before about the worrying future of physical media, and in that article I talked about digital ‘ownership’ and how buying a game digitally does not mean you buy the game at all. You merely hold the license to it, and your right to play it is at the mercy of the publisher. If they lose the rights to that game and it is pulled from a digital storefront, in this case the PlayStation Store, you will likely lose that game forever. This may all seem incredibly dramatic and out of the realm of possibility, but PlayStation has shown in the past few weeks that this fear is very real. Recently, a fair few films that people have bought digitally on their PlayStations have been completely pulled from digital libraries, making them unwatchable even though they have bought them. Mind you, not a single refund has been issued at the end of this debacle; Sony has just taken the money they were given initially and run. What is to stop this from happening with games? The answer is nothing, and this is the future we walk into, all thanks to Sony. It is unsettling, and all we can do as consumers in the future is hope that our favourite games constantly have their rights refreshed, which is unfortunately unrealistic. Not only do physical copies remove this fact, allowing for true ownership, but the tangible magic of holding a physical copy of the game, reading the back of it before you buy, is such a wonderful thing. I remember as a kid buying games from town with my parents and not taking my eyes off the box on those long drives home, itching for the moment I could finally play it. Unwrapping new games on birthdays or Christmases will also never be the same, and, likely, kids will just be getting PlayStation Store wallet top-ups rather than physical games. It is all very sad, and some gaming magic is lost with this truly asinine decision from Sony.

Not only does the removal of physical media ruin collecting and leave murky waters for the ownership and preservation of games, but you will also be getting a lot less of them due to a lot of fixed pricing on digital storefronts. When I want to buy a physical game, I generally go onto Amazon when buying new, or Cex when buying second-hand. Usually, there are some great deals on those sites, meaning I can pick up two or three games for the price that I would normally pay for one. To emphasise how dramatic a difference it can be, I just searched for PS5 games on Amazon and found Monster Hunter Wilds for £11.99 (absolute bargain), and alternatively, it is still priced at £64.99 on the PlayStation Store. Of course, there are sales on the PlayStation Store, but if there is a game you want, perhaps an older one, and it is not on sale, tough luck; you will have to buy it full price as if you were buying it day one. This is where true control comes in from Sony, forcing you to buy your games from them only and not getting a great price on sale from a different retailer. Once you have bought it too, you cannot make your money go further by trading it into Cex or lending/ selling the game to a friend either. Buying it digitally means it is stuck in your library until the rights expire. I personally get to play a fair amount of games by getting them second-hand and then trading them in, particularly on Switch due to their sky-high pricing and decent resale value. If Sony’s decision becomes universal across all platforms, I will no longer be able to do that, and will likely have fewer games to write about as a result. It also does not help that games are becoming more expensive, and also less bang for your buck. The long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI has had its grand price reveal of £69.99 in the UK, but that does not get you everything. No, for the complete package and the rest of the content the game has to offer, you must purchase the Ultimate edition, sitting pretty at £89.99! If it were purely cosmetics locked behind that paywall, nobody would be surprised, nor would anyone care too much. But that Ultimate edition is listed as having activities, weapons, vehicles and more, all locked behind a paywall. It was not enough for the game to be $80 standard in the USA; they had to deprive consumers of the full package and squeeze even more money out of people! This, combined with in-game purchases, is going to lead to a devastatingly expensive game in the long run, and unfortunately, due to the franchise’s popularity and, some would say, blind following, people will pay that and therefore set the precedent for future game releases. Say what you want about Mario Kart World being $80 on release, but at least that game does not have the cheek to squeeze even more out of you when you have already been bled dry. The trend of in-game purchases, battle passes, and the like has gotten out of control to the point where GTA VI is now trying to make you pay extra for a car autoshop, which should be a part of the standard experience!

Corporate greed, unfortunately, knows no bounds, and its effects are rife throughout our hobby, seemingly trying tirelessly to ruin it for us. But we are just the consumers, just numbers on spreadsheets relating to how many copies are sold or how many concurrent players there are on any given game. The real sin is how publishers’ and developers’ own workforces are treated in the current industry climate, and how those talented individuals who create some fantastic games are laid off for seemingly no reason other than to cut costs. Today, after rumours have been circulating for a few weeks, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma confirmed that for Fiscal Year 2027, around 3,200 people will be losing their jobs, cutting around 20% of Xbox’s overall workforce. 1,600 of those people have lost their jobs today, mind you, kicked to the curb and just another casualty of corporate cost-cutting. This is all part of Xbox’s new restructure under Sharma, breaking some eggs so she can make the proverbial omelets. Though studios like Compulsion Games (We Happy Few, South of Midnight) and Double Fine (Psychonauts 2, Keeper) are not strictly closing, they have been let go to become independent as part of Xbox’s shedding of assets. Sharma has made it clear that she is trying to rebuild the Xbox brand and deliver more from their heavy-hitter franchises like Halo, Doom, Fallout, or The Elder Scrolls, and whilst that is nice, these franchises have been around for a while. When Xbox ex-CEO, Phil Spencer, acquired some of those smaller studios that have now been sent back into the world, it was done to make lots of smaller and interesting games that served as nice breaks between your huge Triple-A releases. With them gone, priorities have clearly shifted to bigger projects alone, and that is not really a good thing. You look at the likes of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 being supported by Xbox and being put on Game Pass, all for the game to gain massive traction and end up smashing records at the Game Awards. With decisions to step away from this business model, fewer smaller games will come to Game Pass, and fewer people will discover some games which could end up being amongst their favourites of all time. Though success stories akin to that of Expedition 33 do not come around often, this makes the chance of that exposure less guaranteed. Say what you want about Game Pass, but it gets people to play games they would not usually play, and that is important for the health of the industry and its endless creativity. So with this Xbox reshuffle beginning, we have some smaller studios in limbo, not knowing who will acquire them, studios being left to their own devices, and 1,600 employees shoved out of office permanently, all for a stance of only delivering heavy-hitter games. It does not seem like a model in support of gaming going forward, and it seems built on the hope of gaining money by re-releasing big franchise entries. Unfortunately, this is the current nature of the industry, and there will likely be more bad news just like this, not just from Xbox.

Full transparency, though this report has been rather doom-and-gloom, I am still looking forward to plenty of games coming out. With all the Summer game showcases from all the big companies, there is so much talent in the industry, and hopefully a lot of games that utilise that talent to its full potential. Even with some of these rough prospects going forward, I believe the calibre of the gaming market has never been stronger. There is almost too much to play, especially when looking towards Autumn time, and that is a nice feeling to have. The Landscape of this industry has changed a lot over the past few years, and these changes and set precedents are just another chapter within that, but the negativity that comes with them demands attention. Sony, Xbox, all those that hold dominion over the industry should be held accountable for their mistakes, and luckily, in large part, people are doing so. PlayStation’s official X account has been radio silent for almost a week now after its announcement, no doubt in some part due to the heavy backlash they have garnered because of it. Though it has been brewing for a while, Asha Sharma and Xbox are being slammed for this cold business practice, and there will always be hope that this backlash will combat this sort of thing from happening again in the future, at least on this scale. I love games, and I always will, but it would be a lot easier to love them if the industry focused more on the progression and innovation of wonderful experiences rather than just the lining of corporate pockets.