GOG dunks on Sony and reminds everyone why PC gaming is so beloved: "You don't need a storefront's permission to play what you bought"

Dunks have been coming in hard and fast since Sony announced it will be ending physical disc production in 2028. Domino's, Ryanair, and KFC are among the brands that jumped at the chance to joke about going all-digital. Games retailer GOG has now entered the fray, going straight for the jugular in terms of what the store offers customers.

Since GOG is a non-physical storefront, you can't get anything on disc directly from the company. What you can do, however, is buy a game, then put it on physical media yourself, for your own safekeeping, which is what GOG advises everyone to do.

"Download the offline installer of any of your games on GOG, save it to a disc, and it's yours forever," the company's official Twitter account says. "You don't need a storefront's permission to play what you bought."

This is an extension of the store's fundamental policy of giving the buyer as much power over their purchase as a digital outlet can offer. In contrast to Steam, where you need to be logged into your account to access your library, GOG gives you a downloadable installer for every game, letting you do what you will.

Digital libraries are precarious when it comes to what you actually own. Games are regularly delisted for a variety of reasons, and once they are, they can become inaccessible unless you already have them on your hard drive. Meanwhile, some users can wind up locked out of a game they wish to play due to criteria such as always online, or regional account requirements.

All of that is minimized when you have a copy to hand, in physical form. The caveat here is that GOG is on PC, where options like this have flourished going right back to Doom being shareware in the '90s. This alternative doesn't apply to PS5 users, but it may guide some people towards using PC instead in the future.

There are YouTube videos and other resources available if you'd like help with putting a game to disc yourself, and then making a label and cover art for it. If these things need to be DIY, then so be it - long live physical media.

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