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- Dan Houser: If consumers want physical copies, companies should provide them; digital updates improve overall game quality.
- Lazlow Jones loves the ritual of discs but praises digital convenience, like downloading games to an Steam Deck for flights.
- Working on physical media like the American Caper comics is a different creative process and deeply fulfilling, they say.
- Rockstar announced Grand Theft Auto 6 will not ship on disc; Sony plans to stop producing discs after January 2028.
- Sega president Shuji Utsumi values physical games; director Hideo Kojima expressed sadness at Sony's decision.
Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser and longtime Rockstar writer Lazlow Jones have chipped in on the physical video games debate.
This topic has been raging ever since Rockstar Games announced Grand Theft Auto 6 would not ship with a disc. This news was quickly followed by Sony revealing it would no longer produce physical discs for games after January 2028.
Houser and Jones, who now both work at Absurd Ventures, were speaking to IGN at SDCC about current projects – including the American Caper comic series. They were also asked whether they liked their games to be physical or digital, to which the pair provided the following opinions.
“I don’t know that I care, but if people want that, companies should provide it,” said Houser. “I think the ability to update games – as critical as people are on digital releases – the ability to update and fix problems in games have been very useful to the quality of games.”
Lazlow followed up with his own perspective: “We all love that feeling of getting a copy and putting the disc in the console, but I also have to say I really like being at the airport and going ‘oh cool, I can download some games to my Steam Deck for this 12 hour flight”.
Lazlow then linked their opinions on physical and digital video games to their current jobs working with physical media, namely comic books. He said: “We’ve worked in digital together for a lot of years, and making a physical product in a comic book is a different creative process. But also, it’s really fulfilling to have a physical thing that you can say [you made].” To this, Houser added that he loved physical media.
This topic of physical and digital games has stirred up plenty of discussion, with key figures from across the games industry chipping in. Sega’s president Shuji Utsumi, for instance, said that physical games were still valued at the company, while Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid director Hideo Kojima expressed sadness at Sony’s decision to wind down physical disc production.
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