GOG has long been a champion of game preservation. Its Game Preservation Program works tirelessly to get old PC games running on modern hardware, offering downloadable, DRM-free, offline installers. The storefront has also partnered with Big Box Collection to host printable game covers and 3D scans of physical game boxes.
Now, in an interview with GamesRadar+, GOG's senior business development and partnerships manager, Marcin Paczynski, said the DRM-free storefront has ambitions to bring physical media back to PC games. "Ideally, my dream would be to be able to buy physical versions of those games on GOG," Paczynski said. "You go to your shelf on GOG, you click on the game that you would like to receive a physical copy of, you order it, and it gets to you. That would be a perfect scenario."
The idea faces hurdles. Physical distribution would require "additional approvals" from publishers, and logistics add complexity. "Because we are talking about physical media, we need to think about logistics," Paczynski explained. "We need to think about storage." He added that the idea has floated around GOG for years, and he hopes it will eventually happen.
The push runs against a broader industry trend. Cost and simplicity are often cited as reasons for Sony's decision to stop producing physical PlayStation 5 games. Industry veterans reportedly suggest companies like Sony could save $10 or more per game copy sold after going disc-free. Microsoft's disc-to-digital initiative also appears geared toward preparing the Xbox ecosystem for a disc-less future.
Source: TechPowerUp News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing