The overwhelming talking point this week surrounding the Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-order announcements – and details of the game’s price and varying versions – has undeniably been the game box and what’s inside it. Or rather, what’s not inside it. Because the GTA 6 physical edition doesn’t actually come with a disc, only a download code.
It’s a deviation from the norm, to say the least. While physical editions have taken a back seat in recent years due to a growing digital market, and fewer people than ever actually walk into actual brick and mortar stores to buy games, there’s still an expectation that physical copies are more, well, physical than this GTA 6 version. People want their discs, for reasons of ownership, preservation, and more.
So why has Rockstar and Take-Two done this? Why take the leap to a digital code in the box, rather than stick with more traditional norms? I contacted some of the industry experts in an effort to find out.
To start with, it’s worth noting that digital codes in boxes are becoming more commonplace, especially in the US.
“Grand Theft Auto 6 will be far from the first or only digital code in box product being sold at retail,” Matt Piscatella, senior director and video game analyst at Circana, pointed out. “It’s been a fairly common practice (at least in the US) for several years now. But this is the highest profile release to do so (but of course it is. This is the highest profile release that has ever existed).”
Piers Harding-Rolls, analyst at Ampere Analysis, agreed.”I think this just follows an existing trend rather than necessarily prompting publishers to follow Rockstar’s approach,” he said. “Commercially it just makes sense in terms of cost of goods to go digital code-only in a physical case. I’m sure that will be disappointing for some players, but it’s possible there will be collector editions to come nearer to launch.”
While the practice itself is more normal than you might have assumed, that doesn’t mean – as Harding-Rolls touched upon – this move by Rockstar won’t have significant consequences. The biggest of these is a sledgehammer blow to the second-hand or pre-owned gaming market, because without a disc, there’s nothing to trade in.
“The first, and most obvious [consequence], is killing the second-hand market,” said Rhys Elliot from Alinea Analytics. “The whole value proposition of a physical disc, from the player’s side, is the pre-owned and rental markets: more control over your library, the ability to sell a game on or rent it cheaply. But more control for consumers means less control for the publisher. A disc can be resold or rented a hundred times, and Rockstar earns nothing after that first sale. So the entire second-hand and rental economy is value flowing to players and retailers instead of to Rockstar.”
There’s also the benefit of digital pre-orders, which can provide a more immediate injection of cash into Rockstar’s pocket. As Elliot put it: “Digital pre-orders capture full payment upfront (on PlayStation, you pay in full the moment you pre-order a digital game), which is better for Rockstar’s forecasting and cash flow.”
There being no second-hand sales of GTA 6 means all money earned by purchases of Grand Theft Auto 6 will be money in Rockstar’s pocket. However, this decision hides an even bigger bonus for Rockstar and the PlayStation and Xbox Stores the game is being sold on.
“The bigger prize hiding inside that, though, is price control,” said Elliot. “Physical pricing is more elastic and far more beholden to supply and demand, which is why pre-owned discs routinely undercut PlayStation’s and Xbox’s digital stores. As long as cheap second-hand copies exist, they set a price floor Rockstar can’t control and they give every player a permanent ‘just wait and buy it used’ option. Remove the disc and Rockstar and the platforms own the entire price curve, including how high they hold the price and how slowly they ever discount it.” Without a second hand market, Rockstar can set the price and be sure it stays there.
These are not the only benefits of going discless. Not having to worry about lasering discs weeks from launch means Rockstar can work on the game for longer. “There’s less need to have a semi-ready game six weeks from launch,” The Game Business’ Chris Dring said. “These discs need replicating and distributing, and that takes time. Rockstar can now use all the time exactly how it wants right up until release.”
And most agree that one enormous upside of the code-in-a-box decision is the ability to avoid game leaks.
“I suspect the bigger thing is around leaks,” Dring added “If the game is on a disc, it could find its way to market ahead of the game’s official release date. There are ways to get around that, but sometimes the safest option is the simplest approach. Make sure there is no disc version.”
As Elliott added: “This is the most leak-averse studio in the industry by my count, and it won’t want physical copies ‘falling off the back of a truck’ ahead of the street date, which, as we know, has always been a risk with discs. I suspect that’s part of the calculus here. And the code-in-box approach with scheduled pre-load handles it neatly: the actual game data only unlocks at launch via the servers, so even a leaked physical copy reveals nothing before release.”
So there are a multitude of major reasons why Rockstar could be going discless for Grand Theft Auto 6 – some fiscal, others secretive. Whether or not it becomes the norm for other big-budget releases in the future – not just in the US – remains to be seen. But Grand Theft Auto is nothing if not a trend-setter. Maybe, in the minds of developers and publishers, going discless is the way to go.
