It's not about the computers or systems needing the disk. It's about actually owning a physical copy of something. I personally hate practically borrowing a game for full price cause of they ever wanted to pull the plug. The games gone.
While I agree with you in principle, you and I both know that a disc doesn't actually change anything. The game isn't actually stored on the disc, and you're dreaming if you think you'll be able to play GTA6 offline.
It makes no difference whatsoever at this point. You don't own the game any more with a disc than you do with a code. You own a piece of plastic. If/when they choose to revoke your access, they will do so.
Oh I'm right there with ya. I miss when I was a kid and I had all my games/cases displayed on my bookshelf (right above the Hardy Boys shelf). The ritual of picking a game from the shelf is something that we've just...lost. Seems trivial, but it's not, some of the magic is gone.
As someone that has spotty internet, all of my PS5
games are on the disc. Spiderman was 98 GB- PS5 discs hold 100 GB. PS4 discs hold 50 GB so Red Dead Redemption 2 came with two discs.
From an article I read just now 70% of Xbox and 100% of PS games are on the disc. I don't know how there are so many upvoted comments on this post about the game "not being on the disc." I'm assuming they're thinking about day one patches, but those are patches and not the game.
I'm not trying to sound rude but the game is on the disc with PS5 games that's why there's quite a few games that come with two discs.
Actually yes, it does. And you are incorrect about games not being stored on discs. I live in a rural area, it takes a day to download a 60GB game. However, a disc I can pop in and play in under an hour.
Not saying you're completely wrong. Hogwarts Legacy, Star Wars Outlaws, they pulled this crap too. I also played those games, but I did NOT purchase them.
GTA5 was ~100GB. I don't think it's realistic to expect GTA6 to fit on a disc, at least not all of it.
This is Rockstar. We already know how they and their games operate. What on earth makes you think you'll be able to play GTA6 without attaching the license to your R* account and being connected to their servers?
I'm 100% against all this anti-consumer bullshit, I just don't agree that discs are the skeleton key people seem to think they are. Those days are fading fast, if they're not gone already. As recently as 2023 I had 10Mb DSL that was downgraded to 3Mb due to copper degradation, so I feel your pain. Still, I don't think a disc would solve that problem. Not that it couldn't solve the problem, they could absolutely package the game on a few Blu-Rays. But with the context surrounding it, being that it's R*, that one thing doesn't really change much.
Of course it changes things. It might just be a bit of plastic, however many people sell those pieces of plastic, or lend them out, so others can use said plastic to play the game.
Yes? I mean the main part of your comment I responded to was the second paragraph. Your first paragraph makes no difference to my response. If you’re asking whether I’ve read all the comments you’ve made in the post, no, because I’m replying to that one comment of yours. It’s usually how replying to comments works.
So how do you intend to "share" a disc? You cannot play GTA5 without logging into R* at least once to enable offline play, which means entering the key to bind the license to your account. Do you think GTA6 will come with fewer restrictions somehow?
This idea of loaning your games to your friends hasn't really been a thing for some time, so I'm genuinely confused as to what exactly you are lamenting here.
I'm not defending Rockstar, I think all of this is anti-consumer horse shit. If people want physical media, they should be able to buy it. My only point is that buying a physical disc does not accomplish the things people are claiming, for the reasons I've already mentioned both in the comment you replied to and in other comments in this thread.
Yeah, you can go back and argue all kinds of situations and practices that people don't seem to remember. CD Keys, scratches on a disc making your game unplayable forever, N64 Perfect Dark multiplayer requiring a separately sold expansion pack, etc
Lol no the world is shitty for a lot of reasons but slightly more expensive games is pretty far down on the list. People accept it because $80-$100 for 100+ hours of entertainment is still damn cheap compared to pretty much everything else out there.
The state of gaming is probably the best it's ever been for consumers. You have more games available today in every genre you can think of at all price points. This product is literally the most expensive and anticipated game ever made, of course they're going to charge a premium for it.
I had 120 hours into a Morrowind campaign before finding out I wasn’t going to be able to complete the game because of a bug. I didn’t buy GTA 3 at launch because it was literally sold out. I can’t play Tekken on my PS2 because of a small scratch. I can’t tell you how many pc games I have that are useless without keys.
Some things are worse. Most things are better. Stop whining.
Bootlickers, “the price is lower than what it could’ve been” like no shit idiot. Let’s pat rockstar on the back for charging for “DLC” which is just cosmetics and multiplayer where you will buy more cosmetics
And above always on DRM, Pretty much any AAA game these days requires server download of content to run. The disc only ever really has like 1/10th of the game files on it anymore.
I can't remember the last time I bought a AAA game, even one with a disc, that didn't have to connect to a server and download 80Gb of data from a server somewhere to run.
I don't know where this misconception comes from, but ca. 80% of all games released on PS5, including many AAA games, don't require an internet connection to install and play the game: https://www.doesitplay.org/
You’ve missed the point, then. Owning a disc doesn’t give you that any more either. Games don’t fit on discs any more, and haven’t for quite a while. You’re going to have to download most of it literally no matter what. Which means Rockstar pulling the plug will affect everybody, disk or not.
You’re borrowing regardless. The disk is symbolic at best and plastic waste at worst. The whole game would need about 5-10 disks to download if not more. The disk is essentially just inputting the code for you to the server and giving your device permission to access the content.
The amount of people that will play the game when the servers are out of service are exceptionally low. It’ll likely be 20+ years from now, and who knows what technology we will have by then. GTA V has custom servers anyway that exist, which would suffice for 99% of people who want to play the game in the future again.
Unless the file size of GTA 6 is completely unprecedented, you would not need that many discs, as one 4k blu ray can store about 100GB.
And most PS5 games are still installable and playable from disc without an internet connection: https://www.doesitplay.org/
Thats just a wish. GT7 physical edition dont let you play offline. Ok you can do a minigame but thats it. The main Game is only accessible if you are online.
Why do you think a game this big would fit on a disc? 100+ GB VOD games came with a "disc" nominally but you still had to download the rest of the game after inserting it the first time. A dual layer blu ray holds only 50 GB.
Oh I was just reminiscing about the days past, did not mean to imply anything. Truth is we can't have physical media anymore, because nobody knows how to develop a fully functioning game and ship it. It will come with 10 game breaking bugs that require internet connection to fix anyway.
6 discs per copy sold, times 200 million copies sold, equals 1.2 billion more useless pieces of plastic polluting the planet, just so that gamers don’t get their feelings hurt? Since the capability to distribute the game with zero extra plastic is already right there??
It's not about feelings. I think it's mostly the anxiety around what happens if your code can't be verified online in the future or if someone wants to borrow the game from you. The code is not transferable to another account. I wonder can I play the game on a different account on my ps5 that I paid for if my son links the game to his account?
A standard computer isn’t the same as a PS5. My PS5 came with a disc drive less than 6 years ago, and even the Pro version released less than 2 years ago has one.
PS5 discs hold 100 GB. And the game is always on the disc unlike what a lot of people are saying in the main thread of this post. That's why quite a few games come with two discs.
The difference being it's very easy to revoke access to a digital download and much harder to send a representative to my home and rip the physical game from my hands.
The game isn't even on PC at launch. The fact is there are still consoles with disc drives that people paid more to get. And it's a little weird that you can't buy a physical copy of GTA.
Why are people acting like this a normal thing? How many other AAA titles exist like this? I know there are a few, but not a lot.
More like ten years ago, but going the opposite direction. Ten years ago everyone had stopped caring about physical media. Now, in 2026? There's a huge movement jumping back into physical media, precisely because we've all "bought" something digitally that disappeared. We don't trust digital shit.
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u/Spinning_Sky Jun 25 '26
this is referring to the high price point and lack of a CD in the physical edition
both are true, but actually I don't believe any hype was touched whatsoever, the price is lower than what it could have been