Gabriel Stanford-ReisingerUbisoft isn’t going to stop selling physical games, as there’s always going to be a dwindling but still present collector edition market. He is aware that physical sales will continue to drop over time, but believes that the market of people wanting to physically hold a disc isn’t going away completely.
The news was dropped in a lengthy discussion with Chris Early on the Ubisoft Blog touching on Ubisoft+, the result of the company agreeing to handle UK streaming rights of ABK’s games post-acquisition. Whether he truly believes in a collector edition market or he’s just looking at it in an “another dollar” way is unclear, but we’d hedge that it’s a combination of both.
Game developers and publishers have been slowly but surely phasing out physical copies in favor of digital-only releases or digital download codes found in retail copies. It’s grim for those who prefer to have a case in their hands, but it’s the natural progression of the medium.
“There’s a collector edition market. There’s the aspect of gifting physical items and allowing access for people to be able to easily purchase a game in a store and gift them to their friends or family. Some people will always want to own the physical disk. I just don’t think it’s going away. Do I think physical sales might get lower over time? Sure, but will it ever completely go away? I don’t think so.”
What do you think? Are you glad there are big devs who want to keep selling physical editions? Let us know below!