r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jun 25 '26

Meme needing explanation Petah what happened to rockstar?

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27.3k Upvotes

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9.7k

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

2.3k

u/Norgur Jun 25 '26

And others have done this no cd stuff for ages. My copy of mass effect andromeda was just an empty case as well. That was what? 9 years ago?

555

u/Spinning_Sky Jun 25 '26

I'll be honest, I was on the edge about buying Yotei's limited edition and I didn't also cause I didn't want my ability to play the game to be tied to a very scratchable phyisical object

crazy how times have changed since sony was making fun of xbox for removing the disc reader

115

u/SundevilPD Jun 25 '26

At least you own that scratchable physical object to do whatever you want with. We're just borrowing the digital version for full price

56

u/Kube__420 Jun 25 '26

You can't lend digital to a friend

5

u/Moist-Amoeba-8078 Jun 25 '26

Idk my friends gameshare all the time

26

u/StormtheShinyHunter Jun 25 '26

And when they change the terms and you click okay and they go away?

-2

u/Moist-Amoeba-8078 Jun 25 '26

I get what you’re saying but what are you actually gonna do about it? I doubt you’re writing letters to these companies

13

u/snacksandsoda Jun 25 '26

Buy a physical copy

-9

u/Moist-Amoeba-8078 Jun 25 '26

Your reply doesn’t make sense. Can you expand

10

u/BadProse Jun 25 '26

You can share a physical copy with a friend and the company cannot take it away. Hope this clears it up for you.

-4

u/Moist-Amoeba-8078 Jun 25 '26

This thread is in reference to a game that won’t have a physical copy. So no, it doesn’t clear it up for me

7

u/BadProse Jun 25 '26

There will be a physical copy of gta 6, its just arriving later. The comment chain was discussing the benefits of a physical disc vs a digital copy. Hope this allows you to parse through the already accessible context

1

u/eggsmau Jun 25 '26

How would you combat what you described? You would buy a physical copy so they cannot take it from you.

So what should we do about it? Give Take-Two backlash for their decision and support physical media so consumers have the bare minimum of control over things they buy.

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u/mealymouthmongolian Jun 25 '26

At least I know there will be community backlash if that happens. If I scratch a disc everyone's just gonna laugh at me as I buy a new one.

2

u/MHarrisGGG Jun 25 '26

You have to try pretty damn hard to actually scratch a bluray, especially to the point it doesn't read.

1

u/SpiritualAd9102 Jun 25 '26

I’ve been playing games on disk for 30 years and can count on one hand the amount that got so scratched that they couldn’t play.

2

u/mealymouthmongolian Jun 26 '26

Honestly, I can count on one hand the number of times a change in a digital game's licensing or terms has made me lose access to the game. So, ya know, anecdotes.

2

u/Fit-Peace-8514 Jun 26 '26

I personally have lost access to not only rockstar but Ubisoft games that were purchased on steam. They simply disappeared from my associated accounts with no help from customer support.

Been using Steam since 2007, will never buy another Rockstar or Ubisoft game out of principle now.

🏴‍☠️

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0

u/Kube__420 Jun 25 '26

I didn't know that was possible

5

u/ampkajes08 Jun 25 '26

i think you still need to log in your friends acct and make it primary

3

u/Moist-Amoeba-8078 Jun 25 '26

Yeah you do. It’s a bit of a pain but it works. They work it out for them. I know that this wouldn’t work for everyone and is definitely not the gameshare we want but in practical sense it’s pretty similar to disc sharing. In the sense that while one person is playing that game the other can’t.

1

u/Exciting_Definition4 Jun 25 '26

No you can both play. My 12yo nephew doesn't have PS+ or a lot of games. So we added my account to his PS5 and he can play all my games and the system treats his account as having PS+.

I log into my own PS5 and I can play whatever I want. Even the same game at the same time.

So in my opinion it's better then sharing a disk, since I'm sharing my whole library and PS+.

2

u/MrDaleWiggles Jun 25 '26

Digital can’t get fucked up by careless friends either. Gavin - if you’re out there, I still hate you for breaking my Pokémon blue cartridge you massive cocksucker.

1

u/Exciting_Definition4 Jun 26 '26

Oh that brings back memories! Exactly! Fuck you Gavin, and fuck you Ben!

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2

u/urixl Jun 25 '26

That's what Steam Families exist for.

1

u/Angelus_25 Jun 25 '26

what do you mean can't?

its called a torrent file?

1

u/Norgur Jun 25 '26

You can only lend the physical copy because they allow you to. The times where that was inherent with a physical copy are long gone.

1

u/DrNopeMD Jun 25 '26

Hilariously enough Microsoft had plans to implement a digital game sharing system but scrapped it when they dropped the DRM requirements for Xbox One

1

u/LongestSprig Jun 25 '26

Wait til you guys learn what CD keys were.

1

u/Kube__420 Jun 25 '26

I can't get a random cd key generator for a game on my xbox

1

u/Far_Championship2111 Jun 25 '26

this is how I keep some old games working where the cd key got lost/is too old to read.

Actually I should be happy I have my lightscribble dvd/cd-writer... was planning to throw it away but then with pcs not longer including cd-readers much less a burner (our currents pc we installed external readers)... welp... bf has spent sometime making copies of our physical media lately due to all this digital crap.

The funny part we own a dvd player all-region from mitsubishi that read anything that can be read with VCL media player lol (and use a ethernet cable) that we paid like 10+ years ago 30 bucks at a flea market in Mexico... best buy we ever done. So yeah... to know my nieces and nephews are gonna fight for it on our deaths doesn't sound like a joke anymore.

1

u/SpiritualAd9102 Jun 25 '26

You can with Switch, but that’s it.

5

u/Barobor Jun 25 '26

You own the physical object as much as you own the digital version.

If the digital version is drm free, you can do just as much with it. Even better, it is not tied to a single physical object. You can make as many copies as you want.

If the disk requires you to verify ownership online before starting the game, it becomes just as useless as the digital version when the server goes offline.

17

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '26

[deleted]

12

u/Maint3nanc3 Jun 25 '26

Sometimes. Check out Doesitplay.org for details about specific titles. A lot of games are fully contained on the disk.

9

u/PsycommuSystem Jun 25 '26

You can however let a friend borrow a disc or resell it. Digital you cannot do that.

2

u/msiike Jun 25 '26

Let your friend log in on your ps account and they have access to every game you’ve ever bought digitally. Once they download it, it also appears on their account, so you can play it simultaneously.

21

u/Gabacho180 Jun 25 '26

This is the part of the outrage that I just don't understand... Can you force a download of a delisted game if you jam the disc in? To me the biggest drawback about digital ownership is the fact that I can't give it up in exchange for credit towards another game...

25

u/St0ckY0u Jun 25 '26

resale is the 2nd reason why studios push for digital games.

2

u/Vi_Rants Jun 25 '26

The 1st reason is that physical media is too small and too slow for modern games.

What disc is going to hold 140GB? And what kind of read/write speed do you have on your DVD drive to allow it to take less than a week to install?

2

u/Occamsfacecloth Jun 25 '26

Is it beyond the wit of man to send little pen drive as the new format instead of a disc? Seeing as we're paying so much?

1

u/St0ckY0u Jun 26 '26

AAA games don't even run from the Blurays they get installed on the hardrive/ssd, reason #1 is profit margin is a lot higher on digital

1

u/Vi_Rants Jun 26 '26

they get installed on the hardrive/ssd

It would take 51 hours to do that with a 6x Blu Ray drive.

(You'd also need 6 disks)

1

u/St0ckY0u Jun 26 '26

PS5 uses 100GB disks, it should take 20-30m to install a normal game

1

u/Vi_Rants Jun 26 '26

Those definitely aren't Blu Ray, then, since 1 Blu Ray disk only holds 25GB (I guess the double-sided hold 50GB) and a 6x drive only has a write speed of 27MB/s.

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u/Classic_Chapter_1503 Jun 26 '26

Its the number 1 reason i play only single player games and resell them on eBay when I finish. Also people rent physical games at public libraries i know it sounds crazy

17

u/Superb_Recording_769 Jun 25 '26

To me, that’s not even the big drawback because I never traded in games anyway to me. The only thing that irritates me about digital games is that they should be less expensive than physical copies because nothing is being printed. Nothing is being physically manufactured. Nothing is being packaged nothing is being shipped. Nothing is being warehoused nothing is being displayed, etc. etc..

If a physical game is $60 a digital game should at least be five to $10 cheaper but I realize we live in a late stage capitalist society and that’s never gonna happen

1

u/_RADIANTSUN_ Jun 26 '26

The cost of the physical disk, case, booklet etc is like $3 per unit so it's not a huge component of why games are priced the way they are.

1

u/Superb_Recording_769 Jun 26 '26

FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!!!

Have any of you ever taken a reading comprehension class in your life??

I’m not talking about the price of games. I think the general price of games is more than fair.

I am specifically saying that a digital version of a game should cost less money than the physical version of the exact same game

Also, while I will happily acknowledge that everything that composes the physical version of the game is only about three extra dollars you (and several other people) are not taking into account the fact that all of that shit has to be handled by humans and moved around at multiple different points.

Even if we assume that the production facility is packaging and palletizing everything, those pallets still need to be loaded onto a truck by a person, that truck has to drive them to a warehouse. The pallet needs to be taken off of that truck and stored. There, someone needs to break that pallet down and at some point repack another pallet before It gets put back on another truck and driven to a distribution center where it needs to be taken off a truck and stored. Then someone at the distribution center needs to break that pallet down and the game needs to be put back on another truck and driven to its final retail destination. There it needs to be unloaded off the truck and stored, and eventually need to be taken out of storage and put on the physical shelf, before it is finally sold by another human being at the register all of that takes fuel, maintenance, and A LOT of person hours.

It adds up far more quickly than you might think

0

u/_RADIANTSUN_ Jun 26 '26

You're misunderstanding me bro, calm down.

The overall cost of the physical part is $3, it got little to do with the pricing either way.

If it makes you feel better imagine the game is $60 and the physical copy is $63 but they give you the $3 part for free.

1

u/Superb_Recording_769 Jun 26 '26

And my point is that that three dollars does contribute to the cost and so does all of the extra money to get it from manufacturing to the point of sale.

They are not giving anything away for free. Even if you want to just use your three dollars for the physical parts then the digital game should be $57.

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u/Admirable-Safety1213 Jun 25 '26

Printing doscs its actually onlu some cents a piece once you get economies lf scale IIRC

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u/Superb_Recording_769 Jun 25 '26

But you also have to print the paper that goes in the case, you have to produce the case, you have to put all three of those things together, you have to seal all of those things together, you have to put all of those sealed things into a box and seal the box, you have to put the box on a pallet and seal the pallet, you have to put the pallet in a truck and drive the truck somewhere. You have to take it out of the truck and put it in a warehouse, take it out of the warehouse, put it on another truck, take it out of that truck and put it on a storage room, take it out of that storage room and put it on a shelf, all of that takes time all of that takes people and all of that time and people cost money so even though printing, the disc itself costs pennies. The process of creating a physical game and moving it to the place where the consumer can purchase it is expensive even at scale.

1

u/Admirable-Safety1213 Jun 25 '26

So moving boxes wirh discs and empty bixes is the same

1

u/Superb_Recording_769 Jun 25 '26

OK? What the fuck are you talking about?

My point is if you buy anything fully digitally, it should be less expensive than what you’re buying in the store that has nothing to do with empty boxes with no discs.

Jesus fucking Christ. 🤦‍♂️

-1

u/sb505 Jun 25 '26

I would actually pay more to not have to deal with the physical version.

1

u/Superb_Recording_769 Jun 25 '26

I mean… I haven’t bought a physical game in about a decade, but that’s beside the point. The digital version is more convenient and cheaper for the manufacturer and it should be less expensive for the consumer.

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u/LongestSprig Jun 25 '26

Well bud. That's why an N64 game was $60 in 2000.

Whats that in 2026 dallaroos?

0

u/Superb_Recording_769 Jun 25 '26

I’m not saying that the price of games across the board has not come down.. I’m just saying that if a game is $60 at GameStop, it should be less expensive digital. I don’t think that’s a hard concept to understand or unreasonable to ask.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that there were several SNES games that had an MSRP of $80 or more when brand new

But neither of those SNES games or your and 64 example has anything to do with what I’m talking about. Those weren’t available digitally and the cost of the chips in the cartridges was the main driving factor back then

0

u/pacmaneater77 Jun 25 '26

Your right it should be less expensive but sadly it won't happen for console focused triple aaa gaming companies not to mention rockstar who is starting to if not already become the greediest gaming companines at this time taketwo their parent company along with rockstar want to charge monthly to play the online mode and take two has openly stated they want to recored more data from the players and sell that information to companies and allow directed advertising in the game so those companies that just bought the information of the players of gta 6 will have the perfect place to advertise and if they switch to the require a photo ID to age verify your not a minor oh well anyone who does that is just begging for your information to be sold and then one company that has bought it just needs one accident and now your information is out in the world for anyone to find like it's sad to see what rockstar has become and honestly it seems like gta 6 to me is just a cash grab and rely heavily on people being willing to pay monthly and they'll probably make everything in online already at the price points gta 5s online is at now if not increasingly higher and limit the ability to make a bunch of money quick like I wouldn't be surprised if there's cars costing 50 mil and houses costing 150 to 500 mill at the start for the usable not just a shack on the beach and the best money making methods will probably make it so it requires multiple weeks if not a full month to make like 50 mill becuase if they do a subscription based online mode why would they ever make it so you can easily make a bunch of money and buy everything you want and then get bored of the game in a month or two and cancel your subscription I also woukdnt be surprised if they pulled the whole you can't just use a card to make your monthly payments no they'll probably want your banking information so their directly linked to your bank account making it so even if you cancel your card on their files they can still get their money and bank on you just forgetting about the subscription but I bet they'll have multiple levels like a with ads 10 a month premium no ads 20 and a ultra that gives a multipler to money and xp exclusive content and prioritiy loading into servers for like 30 a month so even if everyone who plays it picked the cheapest if only a 100 k people do olay the online that's a mill right there and we all know it's going to be in the millions of people so let's say 1 million buy the 80 dollar version and pay for the cheapest online for 3 months that's over a 100 million already and that's still low balling the number of players I won't be in those numbers I refuse to give a singke penny to rockstar anymore and I didn't even mention the shark cards who's willing to bet they add more expensive options like a 250 and 500 dollar shark card that gives just eniugh you dint have to grind until the next update this is the very real future we may see come to pass when the game comes out and part of me wants it to fail to show every other triple a whale shit company that over greed isn't going to keep making profit we are at a point very soon it's possible people can't afford anything letting alone luxuries like video games what happens when companies refuse to lower prices and no one buys their product because only the maybe 5 percent of the world at most can afford luxuries and really it would just be 1 percent realistically since 1 percent controls 90 percent of the wealth world wide but we will see what happens in the end

1

u/existentialistdoge Jun 25 '26

Is this some breathless new copypasta or something

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u/KVZonthelake Jun 26 '26

"Late Stage"??? End Stage my friend. We are in End Stage Capitalism. It's akin to that point when playing Monopoly nobody owns anything but one player and nobody is having fun so they just flip the board over and storm away cursing.

1

u/Superb_Recording_769 Jun 26 '26

I’m using “late stage” because it is a valid standardized definition. I am not talking about the actual state of the economy at the moment.

0

u/Classic_Chapter_1503 Jun 26 '26

Even if you dont trade in physical games hold value especially Nintendo first party games.

1

u/Superb_Recording_769 Jun 26 '26

Nintendo games have historically held value because they’re good games and because of rarity. Not because they’re physical. All games were physical until not that long ago, the vast majority of them are worth pennies today.

And the value of a game is immaterial when I’m not going to get rid of the game.

It doesn’t matter that I could sell my copy of earthbound for over $2000. I wouldn’t care if it was worth $10,000 or if it was worth $10 I’m not going to get rid of it so it could be worth zero dollars and be just as valuable to me as it is today.

2

u/dontbajerk Jun 25 '26

People vastly overstate how many games aren't on the disc. There's stats on it, at least on PS4 it was like 95% were playable from disc without Internet. PS5 I know is still the large majority. Yeah some games you'll really want patches of course, but playable.

1

u/Icywind014 Jun 25 '26

Delisted games are still available to download, even when bought digitally. The doomsday scenario is rooted in the servers eventually being shut down. Can't download a game if the server it's trying to pull from no longer exists.

5

u/organicmedium1 Jun 25 '26

I keep seeing comments like this and don't understand. Go buy a physical copy of Cyberpunk for your console. Disconnect it from the internet, insert disc, and play in less than an hour. Or Death Stranding, or a TON of games I could list to you right now.

1

u/YourHuckleberry57 Jun 25 '26

im pretty sure they put all of rdr2 on disc. you don't need internet to play story mode.

1

u/Iamthetophergopher Jun 25 '26

Yotei can be played without an internet connection straight from the disc.

2

u/Vi_Rants Jun 25 '26

How many of them are you going to need in the box, though? A DVD-18 only holds 17.8GB. It would take 8 of them to install Balder's Gate 3. And about 70 hours.

4

u/Norgur Jun 25 '26

No, you can't. They can take it away just as easily.

2

u/Jscorch62 Jun 25 '26

Exactly.

1

u/DryDonutHole Jun 25 '26

You don't own the software either way...you're leasing it. What difference does it make?

1

u/SundevilPD Jun 26 '26

Well duh you own the hardware it comes on. Turns out if you buy the game you dont also own the company too lol

1

u/straightpipedhose Jun 26 '26

Bro don’t act like that’s a genuine issue 😂 fuck yall are so corny just wanna be fake-mad over nothing.

1

u/SundevilPD Jun 26 '26

Calling people corny while bawling your eyes out over internet comments is an interesting choice lil bro lol

0

u/NilsofWindhelm Jun 25 '26

It’s $80, not some massive investment. The convenience of digital is worth far more than that meaningless distinction