The question of whether games should remain available in physical editions as well as digital ones is slowly becoming a political issue.

The double blow of Grand Theft Auto VI and PlayStation potentially abandoning discs before moving fully to digital formats has angered fans. Old debates about game ownership and player rights in a digital future have reignited once again.

The situation does not look especially promising, particularly if we take Hideo Kojima’s earlier warnings seriously. There are, however, people willing to speak up for preserving physical games at a political level.

One of them is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise. The French left-wing politician recently shared a petition on social media calling for the protection of physical games.

Mélenchon’s apparent goal is to prevent a future in which ownership of games effectively disappears and customers receive only revocable access to content they have paid for.

Avec GTA 6 sans disque en 2026 et l’annonce de Sony de la fin des ventes de disques physiques pour les jeux en 2028, la question de savoir comment on considère ces produits se pose.

Demain, vous paierez sans jamais rien posséder. Ni prêt, ni revente, ni garantie de conserver ce…

– Jean-Luc Mélenchon (@JLMelenchon) July 2, 2026

“With Grand Theft Auto VI launching without a disc in 2026 and Sony announcing the end of physical-disc sales for games in 2028, we need to ask how we view these products.”

“Tomorrow, you will pay without ever owning anything. No lending, no resale, no guarantee that you can keep what you paid for.”

“Video games are not mere merchandise. They are cultural assets, and the law must apply to them as well. With the end of physical games, the games industry wants to impose a fully digital model on us in which access is conditional and time-limited.”

“Buyers’ 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 wrote.

He has a point that, unless ownership rights concerning digital media expand, forms of media such as video games could become increasingly vulnerable.

If we have no say in how games we purchased and care about are preserved, we risk losing the older titles that formed the foundation of the industry, along with every later game that followed in their footsteps.

Put another way, we could lose cultural heritage if the legal and consumer-protection framework around digital access does not evolve alongside the market’s full transition to digital distribution.

Source: PC Gamer, Change.org