"Everyone agrees this is a serious problem"
While it's not really all that relevant to us PC lot, you've still probably heard word from Sony "How To Lend Games To Your Friends" PlayStation about them no longer printing new games to discs come 2028. It's awful for a whole host of reasons, and of course the concern of preservation comes at the top of the list. This move from Sony in turn prompted a response from the Video Game History Foundation's Frank Cifaldi, who had some bigger fish to fry than just what Sony are doing in calling on the Entertainment Software Association to help facilitate more "meaningful solutions for archives and museums to legally preserve digital-only content."
Cifaldi opens the statement by acknowledging how this is a hit for those that like buying their games physically, is a knock on consumer rights, and obviously detrimental to the resale market. But he also notes that "from the perspective of professional preservationists, this doesn't have as much of an impact as you might expect. The reality is that the vast majority of video games produced over the last two decades were not made for dedicated home video game consoles, let alone pressed to physical media. And even when they were released on physical media, a day-one digital patch was all but guaranteed, meaning it may not represent the game that people actually played."
— Video Game History Foundation (@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social) July 1, 2026 at 7:47 PMStatement from VGHF director Frank Cifaldi on the discontinuation of physical PlayStation media, and the closure of the PS3 and PSP digital storefronts.
There's further issues in the fact that, especially with early access releases, there might be multiple versions of a game that people play that are also worth preserving. Remember when Hades 2's ending changed post its 1.0 release? We should have easy access to that previous version too, as plenty enough people will have experienced it. For Cifaldi, what it comes down to is wondering when the ESA, a trade association in the US that represents massive studios that has actively lobbied against preservation efforts, will help archives and museums legally preserve digital-only games.
"Everyone agrees this is a serious problem, but the ESA has repeatedly opposed the efforts of cultural heritage institutions to reform digital copy protection laws to make it easier to do this work," the statement reads. "The industry needs to meaningfully come to the table on this issue, because asking museums to download a copy of Grand Theft Auto VI and hope it'll run in 50 years is not a preservation solution."
It's that last line that feels particularly pertinent, given that alongside the end of physical games announcement, Sony also shared that the PS3 and PS Vita stores are closing (for good, this time). Sure, games will apparently be available for download for the foreseeable future, but that's not exactly much of a reassurance. Doesn't feel ideal that, as Cifaldi notes himself, that piracy is currently the reliable method of preservation for things like games we have right now.