French left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon declares 'Players have rights too!' over the death of physical discs
Overview & Key Takeaways
"Videogames are not mere merchandise—they are cultural assets."
The latest double whammy that both Grand Theft Auto 6 and PlayStation will soon be ditching disks and going digital has angered fans and roused old discussions of what ownership of videogames and players rights will look like in a digital future. Spoiler alert: it's not great, that's if Hideo Kojima's preminitions are anything to go by. But there are some who are willing to put up a fight.
One such person is none other than La France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who recently took to social media to say the following: "With GTA 6 without a disc in 2026 and Sony's announcement of the end of physical disc sales for games in 2028, the question arises of how we view these products.
"You will pay without ever owning anything. No loan, no resale, no guarantee of keeping what we've paid for. Videogames are not mere merchandise—they are cultural assets, and the law in force must apply to them."
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As it turns out, Mélenchon is sharing a petition to save physical videogames in hopes of combatting a future where game ownership doesn't actually exist. "With the end of physical games, the videogame industry wants to impose a fully digital model on us, where access will be conditional and time-limited," he continues. "The buyer's rights will be denied. This is the triumph of total commodification: you pay full price for nothing more than a simple revocable right of access."
Mélenchon is right, and he's saying what we're all thinking. If ownership rights of digital media aren't expanded upon then mediums such as games will suffer for it. With no control over how we preserve the games we buy and cherish, we run the risk of losing older games that serve as the foundation for our industry and all the rest that follow suit, or as Mélenchon puts it, "our cultural heritage".
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