Frank Cifaldi, a video game historian, believes recent policy changes such as Sony‘s decision to abandon disc releases leave archivists with no option but to resort to piracy. Cifaldi is the founder and director of the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF), one of the largest non-profit organizations focused on game preservation, which has worked with many major names in the gaming industry, including Sony Interactive Entertainment.
On July 1, Sony announced that no new PlayStation games will include physical disc releases. The change will take effect in January 2028, though Sony has confirmed that support for currently released and in-production discs will not end. Cifaldi’s comment does not directly target the Japanese company’s decision, but it comes amid ongoing backlash and concerns over the future of physical video game hardware and ownership rights.
PlayStation Will Continue Supporting Physical Games After 2028
Sony’s controversial decision to stop physical PlayStation game production after January 2028 comes with a notable asterisk allowing some leeway.
Piracy Might Be the Only Way to Go, VGHF Founder Says
As the director of a historical video game preservation institution, and someone who has dedicated his entire adult life to this cause, this is accurate. We have attempted to work with the industry’s trade organization to find a legal path forward, but they refuse to offer a meaningful alternative.
— Frank Cifaldi (@frankcifaldi.bsky.social) 2026-07-01T18:45:54.133Z
Recently, a user on BlueSky said, “Piracy is the only extant form of media preservation that exists in games right now.” Reacting to this claim, Frank Cifaldi said, “As the director of a historical video game preservation institution, and someone who has dedicated his entire adult life to this cause, this is accurate.” He also added, “[VGHF has] attempted to work with the industry’s trade organization to find a legal path forward, but they refuse to offer a meaningful alternative.”
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The argument is that if publishers and producers continue refusing to release physical versions of their games, like how Take-Two decided to remove discs from GTA 6 boxes, the only way to preserve them is by pirating them and transferring them into preservable, independent formats. It is true that most of VGHF’s public archive consists of digitized games and game-related media such as magazines. However, these games and media are stored on the organization’s own servers and website, meaning they cannot be manipulated or removed by big corporations in the same way the PlayStation Store recently decided to delete over 550 movies.
That said, the current state of game preservation raises questions on moral and legal grounds. Technically, a publisher or license owner must grant permission to a third-party organization to extract the code from its game or store it outside the designated storefront, even if the sole purpose is to preserve that piece of work. However, Cifaldi suggests that most companies are not cooperative in this regard. Things like Sony’s decision to kill physical games, therefore, leaves archivists with no choice but to either resort to methods that fall outside the law or give up on collecting and preserving physical video game media.
Preserving games has long-faced challenges, most of them rooted in the fact that old and rare games like some early-day N64 titles are often confined to physical discs or cartridges. Without a copy in good condition or the source code, preserving a classic title can be nearly impossible. Now, however, a reverse challenge seems to be facing archivists: many games may only exist in digital form. In theory, this could eliminate some limitations and make preservation easier. However, companies’ growing interest in DRM and their unwillingness to let buyers store digital goods in personal libraries could eventually make video games more vulnerable to being lost in the digital realm. It could also make them more susceptible to censorship. In such a system, authorities could delete a game with the press of a single button or cut off millions of buyers’ access to a product at will.
