In a move that has once again sparked backlash within the gaming community, Sony now seems to be placing advisory stickers on PlayStation 5 consoles, warning players that physical games will soon be discontinued.
I mean, I don’t think that Steam sells any physical media either.
Granted, Steam isn’t the only place to buy PC games, but I went looking in an earlier thread that was talking about the PS5 physical disc shutdown. I could think of one retailer, Matrix Games — they specialize in milsims — that still sold physical media. It looks like they shut that down last year, had a “last call” for orders for games on physical media.
Starting March 1st, 2025, Slitherine will no longer sell physical game manuals or physical copies of our games through our website. This marks the end of an era, and we understand how much these editions have meant to many of you over the years.
There is a trend away from Physical purchases to digital, and a decreasing number of new PC’s even have DVD drives and very few laptops meaning the potential market has been shrinking for years. This, combined with increasing delivery costs, environmental awareness, and more red tape on international deliveries, all combine to make it unviable.
For those who appreciate the tactile experience of a physical manual or a boxed edition, this is your final chance to secure a piece of wargaming history. You have until February 28th, 2025, to purchase from the remaining stock, after which these products will no longer be available.
Physical Editions Still Available
Here’s the full list of titles still available in physical format:
Combat Mission: Battle For Normandy
Combat Mission: Black Sea
Combat Mission: Cold War
Combat Mission: Final Blitzkrieg
Combat Mission: Fortress Italy
Combat Mission: Red Thunder
Combat Mission: Shock Force 2
Command: Modern Operations
Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa
Flashpoint Campaigns: Southern Storm
Gary Grigsby’s War in the East 2
Gary Grigsby’s War in the West
Panzer Corps 2
Rule the Waves 3
Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe
Strategic Command WWII: World at War
Strategic Command: American Civil War
Strategic Command: World War I
The Operational Art of War IV
War in the Pacific: Admiral’s Edition
If you’ve been considering adding one of these titles to your collection, this is the time. Stocks are limited, and once they’re gone, they’re gone for good.
We thank you for your unwavering support and passion for wargaming. Together, we’ve kept the spirit of strategy alive, and we look forward to continuing this journey with you in the digital age.
And that wasn’t a large portion of their library — like, you couldn’t get physical-media versions of most of their games even then.
PC allows you to (mostly) own your games once you buy them, at least the offline functionality. Sure it’s legally still just a “license to play the game” but technically you can back up your Steam library, move it to a new PC, whatever. Steam can’t really “take the game back” from you (again, at least the offline functionality).
Meanwhile on console if Sony decides to remove some game from their store, well, that’s it. IIRC it will even become unplayable on your console if you have it downloaded.
Same difference as buying & downloading MP3/FLAC files vs subscribing to a streaming service.
Steam can’t really “take the game back” from you (again, at least the offline functionality).
I mean…sort of. Steam will only run in offline mode if you first run it in online mode and ask Steam to allow the machine to enter offline mode. I imagine that this is to keep people from simply installing games on many PCs and then taking them all offline.
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Yeah, sounds like a maximum of one host can be offline for an account, and I imagine that they fingerprint hosts.
Some games don’t require Steam to be running. Like, Steam just downloads them and launches them, and they still work even if you launch them without Steam running, don’t use Steamlib. For those, yes.
There are other PC game vendors who do explicitly support this mode of operation, like GOG.
I mean, I don’t think that Steam sells any physical media either.
Granted, Steam isn’t the only place to buy PC games, but I went looking in an earlier thread that was talking about the PS5 physical disc shutdown. I could think of one retailer, Matrix Games — they specialize in milsims — that still sold physical media. It looks like they shut that down last year, had a “last call” for orders for games on physical media.
https://www.matrixgames.com/news/important-update-last-chance-to-purchase-physical-manuals-and-editions-before-march-1st
And that wasn’t a large portion of their library — like, you couldn’t get physical-media versions of most of their games even then.
PC allows you to (mostly) own your games once you buy them, at least the offline functionality. Sure it’s legally still just a “license to play the game” but technically you can back up your Steam library, move it to a new PC, whatever. Steam can’t really “take the game back” from you (again, at least the offline functionality).
Meanwhile on console if Sony decides to remove some game from their store, well, that’s it. IIRC it will even become unplayable on your console if you have it downloaded.
Same difference as buying & downloading MP3/FLAC files vs subscribing to a streaming service.
I mean…sort of. Steam will only run in offline mode if you first run it in online mode and ask Steam to allow the machine to enter offline mode. I imagine that this is to keep people from simply installing games on many PCs and then taking them all offline.
checks
Yeah, sounds like a maximum of one host can be offline for an account, and I imagine that they fingerprint hosts.
Some games don’t require Steam to be running. Like, Steam just downloads them and launches them, and they still work even if you launch them without Steam running, don’t use Steamlib. For those, yes.
There are other PC game vendors who do explicitly support this mode of operation, like GOG.
Huh, that’s fair. I mostly play non-DRM games (or I guess games which don’t check steamlib to start?) so never noticed this.