Clair Obscur developers see Sony's no-disk announcement as 'a sad decision', because they 'like to go outside, buy a game, and come back home with it'

Sony won't be producing game disks anymore—a decision that's been met industry-wide with a mixture of frustration and ambivalence, depending on which side of the fence you fall on. Personally, I don't think a videogame company or distribution platform having final say over whether you concretely own something is healthy, even if I am admittedly arm-deep in Steam purchases. It's a controversial enough mandate that it even got a french politician riled up!

It's also something that makes the creators of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 a little melancholy, per a recent interview with Automaton: "Personally, I find it super sad because I really like video game stores," says CEO and Creative Director of Sandfall Interactive Guillaume Broche. "We have a lot of people on the team who play on PS5 and love to collect physical discs. I think it's part of the beauty of art too – that it's something tangible that you can touch.

"I completely appreciate that people want to have their rows of DVDs and games and just feel that they own them. So I think it's a shame. I mean, business-wise, I can understand why it may make sense, but I think in terms of the artistry of video games, it's a sad decision."

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Tom Guillermin, the studio's CTO and co-founder, concurs that while physical releases are a bit of a pain, they're still vital to the joys of the hobby: "A physical release adds more constraints because you have to account for the production time of the physical items, and you also earn less money per copy.

"But for us, physical was something special. We also felt that the game could be special to players, and that they would want to, as Guillaume said, hold it in their hands."

Broche adds that it was pretty special as the guy who helped create his own game, too, sharing an anecdote where he was shown Clair Obscur in a Japanese videogame store: "I felt like a kid when I saw it. I was like 'Yeah, it's real!' It starts feeling real when you see it in stores."

Alan Reynaud, lead character and concept artist, adds: "Even now when I'm going to the supermarket or something, if I see our game in a store, it always makes my day. It's a bit selfish, because it's our game, but it always makes me go 'Oh!' Knowing that may not be possible again makes me a bit sad. And maybe it's the child in me, but I like to go outside, buy a game, and come back home with it. It's a nice feeling."

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Technical artist Alexandre Breton also says that: "It's not just because it's our game. I think what's cool [about physical games in general] is that a few years later, you'll have your box, and you can hold it and look at the title and remember all the memories that are linked to the game."

I'm inclined to agree—and sure, we can do as GOG suggests and just burn our own disks (depending on where we've bought the things), but game preservation is swiftly becoming a hot-button topic due to, well, an increasing amount of franchises going always-online. The death of physical media is one more grim step towards a future where publishers, platforms, and payment processors have final say in what you buy, and for how long.