After the physical disc version of "GTA 6" was canceled, angry netizens began to list the nine major sins of not having a physical version on social media:
Collectors lose physical sustenance: For an epic IP like "GTA", there is no physical package that can be held in the hand or placed on the cabinet, and collectors lose a great sense of ritual.
The social bond is broken: you can no longer lend the game board to friends or family members, and the joy of "sharing after completing the level" no longer exists.
The secondary market has completely disappeared: the inability to resell or trade games means that players have no way to "recover". Without second-hand physical disks, new players will never be able to buy cheaper next-generation second-hand games.
High reliance on accounts: Your entire game library is tied to a single account. Once an account is banned, stolen, or regional policies change, players will instantly lose all access rights.
Slavery to the network and servers: The purely digital version means having to face extremely large downloads that can easily reach hundreds of GB. To make matters worse, once the online store or authentication server crashes, players may not even be able to enter the single-player mode.
"Buying ownership" turns into "renting a license": Players angrily pointed out that the pure digital version means that players do not actually own a game at all, but only purchase a "digital license that may be withdrawn at any time."
Serious imbalance between price and value: This is also the most psychologically unbalanced point for players - the digital version saves all physical costs such as disc burning, cover printing, logistics and transportation, and offline retailer sharing, but the final selling price is exactly the same as the physical version. Players paid the same money but got less.
For a work like "GTA6" that may trigger global carnival, the physical version often also carries unique fan culture such as map posters and manuals. The concentrated complaints from players show that everyone is still resistant to the "all-digital future" that console manufacturers are trying to promote. After completely depriving the physical circulation value, how manufacturers can compensate players with services and price concessions is still an unsolvable problem.