Lords of the Fallen 2 Boss Calls GTA 6 Physical Disc Decision 'Unfair'

GTA 6 and Sony have taken the first major steps toward a digital-only gaming future, and as physical media takes a few blows, the CEO of Lords of the Fallen 2 has declared that this isn’t fair to smaller studios and publishers. Rockstar’s GTA 6 recently became the most high-profile AAA game to eschew a physical release altogether, sparking significant controversy.

The future of physical media in gaming has been in question over the past couple of weeks, sparked by the most anticipated game of the year. GTA 6 opened pre-orders on June 25, with a bold declaration that it would be a digital-only release, containing just a code in a box at retail, with no disc version ever coming. Shortly thereafter, Sony announced plans to discontinue physical disc production entirely in 2028, and rumors began to circulate that Microsoft is working on a disc-to-digital conversion system, as Project Helix is claimed to be digital-only. Fans have not been happy with any of this news, and now even studio heads are voicing that this is potentially unfair to companies that want to give fans what they want.

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GTA 6’s Physical Disc Decision Claimed ‘Unfair’ by Lords of the Fallen 2 CEO

Joining the discussion about the future of physical media, CI Games CEO Marek Tyminski weighed in on Twitter, stating that making GTA 6 digital-only is unfair to smaller studios that still choose to release a physical version due to the costs they incur. Tyminski states that physical sales are ultimately harder to justify due to “less revenue per unit to developers, longer lead times, and unnecessary costs in a demanding industry where many already lose money,” but the studio still plans to launch physical copies of Lord of the Fallen 2. Naturally, producing a case and a disc to sit on a store shelf will make the unit cost per game sold a lot lower than a direct-download digital release, which can hurt the bottom line for studios smaller than something like Rockstar Games, which is so large that it can likely eat that cost simply due to sales volume.

Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.

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The CI Games CEO even goes into a breakdown of what a typical monetary split looks like for each game disc sold. Tyminski says that retail takes roughly 25-35%, distributors 10-20%, and actual physical production costs roughly $10, leaving studios with about $26 per game sold, without accounting for sales or price drops. Compared to the roughly $49 that Tyminski reports a studio can receive from a digital-only sale at the highest margin, that is certainly a small number. The CEO closes out his series of posts by stating, “From a pure ROI standpoint, the choice is obvious.”

Tyminski’s statements do trend with what other developers have been saying in recent days. Notably, Baldur’s Gate 3 developers spoke out following Sony’s announcement, saying that while the physical edition of the game may have been ridiculously expensive to produce, it was still worth it and made people happy. However, when it comes to the sales breakdown detailed by Tyminski, it seems that publishers will definitely have to weigh how much those physical editions mean going forward.

GTA 6 isn’t the first AAA game to go digital-only, but it’s certainly the most high-profile one to do so if it sticks to it. Alan Wake 2 was also a notably digital-only release until fan requests showed enough interest in a physical release that Remedy and Epic Games deemed it a worthwhile venture. Meanwhile, Hellblade 2 remains another AAA game with no physical release, as fans clamor for a boutique company like Limited Run Games to take over from Microsoft and issue a disc. Whether Limited Run and other third-party physical media sellers take some of the burden off studios that would like to give fans physical copies while keeping costs down remains to be seen.