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  1. Games

Former Valve writer says PlayStation killing physical discs is no conspiracy: "You, the consumer, have made your choice, and the choice is for digital"

News
By Ashley Bardhan
Published 20 July 2026

But what if I don't like the consequences of my actions?

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Left 4 Dead writer Chet Faliszek hears you crying about PlayStation's decision to end physical game discs in 2028, and he's shoving your own fist in your mouth to make you stop. You caused your own suffering, he wants players to know.

"You, the consumer, have made a choice, and your choice is for digital," Faliszek says plainly in a new YouTube video on the subject. "I keep seeing this, like, 'Oh, they should do memory cards. They should do…' Right now, today – the games we are talking about are available at retail today. The used games are available at retail today, and you aren't going into retail and buying them."

Unfortunately for the thousands of commenters spamming Sony's last trailer for Marvel's Wolverine with emoji pitchfork and torches, he's right. Circana industry analyst Mat Piscatella just revealed only seven PlayStation games managed to crack 100,000 physical sales in the US this year.

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Even worse, "Anybody who's reporting software sales right now, and they're doing digital and retail, they're all under reporting," Faliszek says, "because they're not reporting Steam. Let's not even get into mobile. And what was Game Pass? Game Pass was digital only. You as the consumer have forced the large corporations hand, and you've told them 'Stop with retail.'"

Once you, apparently, regretted your decision to invest almost entirely in digital, you didn't start buying Crimson Desert discs while you could, nor did you abstain from making digital purchases altogether. Now it's too late, says Faliszek.

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"You should have started protesting Game Pass, and stop buying Xbox games, and stop buying digital," says the frustrated writer. "But you didn't, because it's easier."

The Steam Machine isn't doing exclusives because Valve thinks "restricting where people can play" doesn't work.

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TOPICS
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Ashley Bardhan
Ashley Bardhan
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Senior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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