Juan Alberto García, the Spanish streamer better known as IlloJuan, spent a couple of minutes on a recent stream showing off his Grand Theft Auto V Collector's Edition, the big physical box from the original 2013 release on the PlayStation and Xbox 360, and, honestly, it's hard not to feel like the video game industry took a massive step back after watching it. The streamer proudly showed off the SteelBook, the physical map of Los Santos, and the New Era snapback with the fictionality city's logo stitched across the front, which he called "mortal", a Spanish slang for something so cool it is almost criminal. He also showed off a physical copy of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, among other PS2-era titles he has in his collection, including Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Afterwards, IlloJuan went ahead and said everyone's thoughts out loud, saying that this kind of thing is going to get lost after a while after the video game industry chose to prioritise other things.
Literally just two console generations ago, a Collector's Edition used to always mean a literal box of real, physical stuff bundled with the game. In GTA V's case, the top-tier version ran $149.99 in 2013 and came with that New Era Los Santos cap, a heist-style security deposit bag with a laser-cut logo key, a fold-out blueprint map of Los Santos, a metal SteelBook case, and a pile of in-game bonuses on top. Even the cheaper $79.99 Special Edition of the last Grand Theft Auto still gave you a physical disc, the SteelBook, and the Map, which is way more than what you're getting with the $100 Ultimate Edition of Grand Theft Auto VI.
These days, paying $79.99 for the Standard Edition, the exact price of that 2013 Special Edition comes with no disc at all and even the boxed copy on shelves is just a download code in a plain case. It's entirely digital, including the freebies, such as the exclusive vehicles, a few guns, some clothes, a couple of shops, two side missions, and a month of Grand Theft Auto Online's GTA+ service that drops half a million in fake dollars into your account.
You get none of the elaborate box that you get to keep, the cap that reminds you of better times, and anything else that you can put on top of a shelf.
GTA V vs GTA VI
— | Grand Theft Auto V (2013) | Grand Theft Auto VI (2026) |
|---|---|---|
Entry price | $79.99 Special Edition | $79.99 Standard Edition |
What that price got you | Physical disc, collectible SteelBook, fold-out blueprint map, in-game bonuses | Digital download only, no disc, no physical extras |
Premium tier | $149.99 Collector's Edition | $99.99 Ultimate Edition |
What the premium tier added | New Era Los Santos snapback, security deposit bag with logo key, plus in-game extras | Digital vehicles, weapons, apparel, businesses, two side missions, a month of GTA+ |
Physical collector's items | SteelBook, cap, map, deposit bag | None |
What you own afterward | Objects you can hold, wear, and resell years later | A license tied to your account and store |
What your Grand Theft Auto money bought in 2013 versus 2026.
To be fair, plenty of old old collector's editions were overpriced clutter, plastic statues and art books that went straight into a closet, and even back in 2013 you can find people online saying they would never actually use the bag, key, or hat. The physical era produced a lot of landfill too. What makes IlloJuan's example land is that the stuff he is holding is the good kind, wearable, tasteful, and genuinely usable. It's not necessarily that people want to see the return of physical media. It's just that they don't want to see it go, especially the well-made and ownable versions that, according to Rockstar Games co-founder, Dan Houser, companies should keep making more of because there's obviously a demand for it.
Unfortunately, the reality here is that industry did not walk away from physical extras because fans stopped wanting them. Even though the streamer himself admitted he couldn't remember when the last time was he went out and bought a physical game, times changed primarily because the financial math did. A cap and a metal case cost real money to manufacture, ship, and warehouse, and none of that scales to a game expected to sell to tens of millions of people on day one. Digital extras cost almost nothing to copy and can go on circulation forever.
When Take-Two Interactive says its priority is pulling more value out of players, a warehouse full of snapbacks is the exact opposite of that. IlloJuan's "this is not what gets prioritized" is really a sentence about margins.
Perhaps the fight now shouldn't be bringing back physical discs anymore, even if some studios are still choosing to make them. Rather, it's making sure that the license lives on beyond the servers and storefront deciding to keep it alive. It's the same kind of anxiety for this very real and immediate future that's currently pushing fans to rebuild old games on modern PCs before they disappear entirely.
With that said, none of this nostalgia will slow GTA 6 down when it makes it digital-only launch on November 19. It will sell to everyone, regardless, but we can't deny that lloJuan sitting there holding the last version of GTA you could actually put on a shelf stings.