Alan Wake 2, one of the stars of this evening’s PlayStation Showcase, has some very interesting news tucked away in an accompanying FAQ released at the same time as its latest trailer: the game will not be shipping on a disc. At all. It’ll be digital-only.
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Remedy explain that the decision is based on two factors: current trends and an effort to keep the price at $60 instead of the $70 more and more games are starting to charge. Here’s their explanation in full:
That sucks! I mean, not for the reasons listed—I, too, hate getting a disc only to have to download the game anyway—but for what it means in terms of what players are able to own and, more importantly, trade in at a later date.
Say what you will about the marginal economics of modern AAA video games retail, but there’s still—at time of publishing, anyway—a functional resale market where people are able to take a disc they’ve bought, sell it to someone else and use that money to either buy a new game for less or, I dunno, just buy something else.
This decision cuts that option out entirely. As it stands the only way to buy and play Alan Wake 2 will be to, in effect, purchase a very expensive license to rent the game long-term, on platforms that need to be supported with an online infrastructure, and which can revoke that license (or have it revoked) at any time.
Which, you know, happens all the time. It has happened to Alan Wake, which a few years back was removed from Steam and Xbox Live because some licensing over its soundtrack had expired.
