There's absolutely no denying the fact that physical sales of video games are now dwarfed by digital ones – the market has shifted dramatically away from boxed products to instant downloads. While this is tremendously convenient for most players, there are still those who prefer the physical experience.
That's certainly the opinion of Revolution Software's Charles Cecil, who has been speaking to GamesIndustry.biz about catering to "loyal" customers who expect boxed games, even in 2025.
"People talk about physical being dead, and for most games they probably are, but we have such a loyal, wonderful community, and they want physical versions of the game," Cecil says, before recalling conversations 15 years ago where people were saying physical media was all but finished.
"It should have been obvious that for things that people care about, they want a physical version," he adds. "They want the tactility. When I was a teenager, you'd go into somebody's room and the first thing you'd do is you'd look through their record collection, and that defined who they were. You don't look through their digital playlist, you look through their physical records. And in this particular case, you'd look at people's games, you'd look at their figurines and you'd immediately know what they were into."
Cecil, whose company is famous for the million-selling Broken Sword series, feels that physical media is a way for people to define their "tribe"; real-world collections remain a key signifier of how committed and engaged a person is with a particular series, artist, movie or game franchise. "Having a box on your shelf is quite important," says Cecil.
You can read the full interview here.
Revolution recently remastered the first Broken Sword adventure, and is about to launch a crowdfunding campaign to do the same with the second, Smoking Mirror.