The industry is still reeling from Sony's announcement that it's ending physical disc production for PlayStation consoles in 2028. There's been a lot of pushback, and now the developers behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have added their two cents, lamenting the choice as a reductive one for the medium.
"Personally, I find it super sad because I really like video game stores," Guillaume Broche, creative director on Clair Obscur, tells Automaton. "And even if nowadays, I play mainly on PC myself, we have a lot of people on the team who play on PS5 and love to collect physical discs. I think it's part of the beauty of art too – that it's something tangible."
He concedes that in terms of business, he "can understand why it may make sense," but "it's a sad decision" for the overall creativity of the industry. Tom Guillermin, co–founder and CTO of studio Sandfall Interactive, revealed actually doing a physical run for Clair Obscur was something the team had to push for.
"A physical release adds more constraints because you have to account for the production time of the physical items, and you also earn less money per copy," he explains. "But for us, physical was something special. We also felt that the game could be special to players."
Doing a physical run is an increasingly large labor of love. The ubiquity of digital storefronts is pushing game discs into being a more niche interest similar to vinyl, except people aren't really buying game discs. Still, discs are important because they're timeless and collectible, and it feels better to have a game you love in your own two hands.
I've bought several games I love more than once because I got the physical version after playing the digital one. Nobody can turn the servers off on the disc I own, and I like having it on display.
"So even though it made things harder and meant less money per unit, it was important for us to provide players who want to have the physical game in their hands with an option," Guillermin says. "Because that's what we value as players too."
He's not kidding on that last part, because once Clair Obscur was on actual store shelves, Sandfall literally went out and bought it. "After launch, we went to a video game store to buy our own game. Just as a gesture," Broche recalls.
"Another strong memory I have is when someone from Japan sent me a picture [of our game] from a video game store, in Akihabara I think, in Japanese writing and all," he remembers. "I felt like a kid when I saw it. I was like 'Yeah, it's real!' It starts feeling real when you see it in stores."
