Recently, Microsoft announced several editions for Avowed, the newest game being made by Obsidian. While they all had goodies that people are sure to like, none actually included the game on an actual disc, and that’s got fans of physical media upset. Truly, it looks like Microsoft has given up on physical media altogether, and that’s bad news for a lot of people.

Much as many of us are loathe to admit, physical media has been on its way out for going on ten years now. Games have gotten too big, and AAA developers have gotten far too comfortable shipping broken games at launch. This means that even if you have a disc, chances are that it doesn’t contain the whole game, and what it does contain is both broken and immediately outdated. Beyond that, most AAA games require an internet connection anyway, even the single-player ones (stupid as that is). This means that all the benefits of having an actual disc have effectively been nullified.

I use digital downloads due to my location and the fact that physicals rarely, if ever, get the sorts of price cuts that digital games do, but that doesn’t mean that I think it’s supe- rior. If my hard drive fails or support for my games ends, that’s it. No more game for me. It’s why I so rarely want to buy games for full price these days. Where once I could be confident that my money would get me a lifetime of fun and access, now I cannot be certain of how much time I have.

I want things to go back to the way they were, but I fear that’s impossible now. Hopefully we get a nice middle ground solution. Some way to guarantee some sort of longevity for our purchases as well as some safeguards against having them ripped away out of nowhere by a publisher or platform holder.

What do you think? Do you prefer physical or digital? Do you think there’s any way to save physical media at this point?

Image from the 2023 Xbox showcase