Across social media, people are actively encouraging others to to pirate video games, after Sony announces plans to ditch physical releases.
To say Sony’s recent announcement that it will no longer be releasing physical games after next year has proved unpopular would be an understatement.
It’s almost impossible to find anyone outside of Sony who wholeheartedly supports the decision, as online reactions primarily consist of a mix of sadness and outrage.
We’ve already explored what sort of ramifications this could have on the wider industry and while time will tell if Sony will offer any sort of U-turn, you’ll find no shortage of people loudly advocating that everyone turn to piracy for their gaming needs.
Across X, many deem piracy as being mandatory for preserving video games and ensuring they remain playable, as well as arguing that if nobody really gets to own their games anymore, then piracy isn’t stealing.
Some even admit that their opinions on piracy have changed due to Sony’s decision, such as Zhakaron: ‘We live in a world where console platform owners can just remove games from your library on a whim and they are encouraging people to get onto subscription services where they own nothing. Physical copies, pirated or not, are more important than ever now.’
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Likewise, Barnacules says they used to be critical of piracy but ‘that’s changing now that the industry keeps moving forwards a future where we pay more than ever and own absolutely nothing.’
It’s not just capital G gamers saying these things either. Author and journalist Laura Elliot says, ‘If it’s impossible to fully own a game you’ve paid for then pirating a game is simply the natural solution until companies start to respect their customer base.’
YouTuber Dead Domain, meanwhile, calls piracy ‘a moral imperative for video game preservation. Entire chunks of the history of the medium would be either prohibitively expensive or outright lost if not for it.’
It’s a similar story on Bluesky as well, with numerous comments on how ‘piracy isn’t theft.’ One Joe Latham calls Sony’s decision ‘such a fail’ and ‘anti-consumer greed,’ adding, ‘There will be backlash, and a rise in every alternative, including piracy. Respect your customers or you will lose them.’
‘With Sony announcing they’re putting an end to physical games, piracy will be the only way to own PlayStation games. Anything else they can take away at will,’ says exegetic.
Even some game developers are advocating piracy, such as David Szymanski, the developer behind Iron Lung (which was turned into a movie earlier this year).
‘My stance on piracy has remained consistent over my entire career: I’d prefer if you paid money for my games, but if that’s not going to happen for whatever reason, I’d rather you pirate one of my games versus never playing it,’ he says.
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Frank Cifaldi, the director of Video Game History Foundation, a non-profit organisation all about game preservation, is in favour of piracy too, addressing how the industry has failed to offer any meaningful preservation alternatives.
‘If platform owners are deciding to eliminate physical media and older digital storefronts, then we’d also like to see trade groups like the Entertainment Software Association offer meaningful solutions for archives and museums to legally preserve digital-only content and make it accessible for research,’ reads his official statement on the matter.
‘The industry needs to meaningfully come to the table on this issue, because asking museums to download a copy of Grand Theft Auto 6 and hope it’ll run in 50 years is not a preservation solution.’
There is at least one petition that aims to convince Sony not to abandon physical releases, with its introduction reading: ‘A disc is a real game you own. You can lend it, trade it, resell it, gift it, collect it, or pass it down to your kids.
‘A box with only a download code is not the same thing. It is a digital license in plastic packaging. You do not own it. You are renting access that can be revoked, and people have already had purchased movies deleted from their libraries and games pulled from sale weeks after launch.’
The petition also repeats a common talking point in that those advocating for physical releases aren’t opposed to digital releases in principle; they just don’t think it should be the only option for customers.
At the time of writing, the petition has secured over 9,000 signatures, but that’s nowhere near enough to cause Sony to think twice.
As we’ve said before, if Sony does U-turn, it’ll no doubt be a very half-hearted compromise, like limited physical releases or a separate disc drive add-on for the PlayStation 6.
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