Alan Wake 2one of the stars of tonight’s PlayStation Showcase, there’s some very interesting news tucked away in the accompanying FAQ that was released at the same time as its latest trailer: the game won’t be shipping on disc. At all. It will only be in digital form.
The remedy explains that this decision is based on two factors: the current trend and an attempt to keep the price at $60 instead of $70. More and more games are starting to charge. Here is their full explanation:
Why is Alan Wake 2 a digital release only?
There are many reasons for this. For a large number have switched to digital only. You can buy a Sony PlayStation 5 without a drive, and Microsoft’s Xbox Series S is just a digital console. It’s not uncommon to release modern games as digital-only.
Second, the non-disc release helps keep the price of the game at $59.99 / €59.99 and the PC version at $49.99 / €49.99.
Finally, we don’t want to ship a disc product and it requires downloading the game — we don’t think this will make for a great experience either.
Is there a disk-based version of Alan Wake 2 in the works?
There are currently no plans to release Alan Wake 2 on disc.
So bad! I mean, not for the reasons listed—I also hate getting discs just to download games—but because of what it means for what players can own and, more importantly, trade-in later. this day.
Say what you want about the marginal economics of modern AAA video game retail, but nonetheless—at the time of publication—a functional resale market where people can pick up the discs they’ve already bought. buy, sell to others and use that money to buy a new game for less or, I don’t know, just to buy something other.
This decision eliminates that option entirely. Because it’s the only way to buy and play Alan Wake 2 would, in fact, buy a very expensive license to rent the game long term, on platforms that need to be supported with the online infrastructure, and could revoke that license (or be revoked) at any time when.
Which, you know, happens all the time. It happened to Alan Wakeremoved from Steam and Xbox Live several years ago because some license for its soundtrack has expired.
You can read more in the FAQs—including details on the digital collector’s edition bonus, because this is a digital-only game—here. Can any of you think of another digital-only game release? I know astronaut 2 Released to retail without a disc version, but a disc copy used to in that case at least made and shipped to anyone who supported the game early in its development.
