Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser speaks out clearly on the current uproar surrounding physical media.
For several weeks now, tensions have been running high in the gaming community. In early July 2026, Sony announced that production of physical discs for video games would be discontinued in the foreseeable future. Shortly before that, GTA 6 had already caused a stir by not releasing a physical version of the game.
Since then, the community has had only one topic of discussion for virtually every trailer released by Sony:the end of game discs.
Meanwhile, big names in the industry have also weighed in on the debate.& nbsp;Hideo Kojima warns that this shift could lead to a loss of control, and former PlayStation bossShawn Laydendescribed Sony’s decision as “pretty dramatic.”
Now Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser is also weighing in on the latest developments. In an interviewwith IGN, he indirectly criticizes Sony’s decision, even though the issue isn’t as emotionally charged for him personally as it is for many others.
When asked, “Do you want your games to be released on physical media? Or do you not care?”, Houser responds first:
I don’t know if it’s important to me,but if people want it, I think companies should offer it. But I don’t know if it matters to me personally.
And I also think that the ability to update games—as critical as people may be of digital releases—that is, the ability to update games and fix issues, has really been very beneficial for the quality of games.
A little later, however, he also says that he loves physical media, especially now that he and Lazlow have been working so much with comic books. Lazlow knows all too well the magic that physical copies of games hold:
We all know that feeling when you get your copy and pop the disc into the console. But I also have to say that I really like being at the airport and thinking: “Oh cool, I can quickly download a few games onto my Steam Deck for this 12-hour flight.”
The “digitization” of games has its advantages—there’s no denying that. But for Houser and Lazlow, as a developer and a manufacturer of entertainment media, respectively, holding a physical product in their hands at the end of the process is still something very special.
Is that feeling just as important to you as a consumer? Feel free to let us know in the comments. We also recently asked you how many physical games you still own. You’ll find a link to that poll in the box above.
