Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser and his longtime collaborator Lazlow Jones had a sit down with IGN at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 where one-half of UK's richest gaming moguls was asked about the death of physical media and some are saying that he took a swing at Sony Interactive Entertainment over its decision. The version of his answer doing rounds on the internet is that he loves it, everyone loves it, and companies should provide it if people want it. The truth? He did say that, but it wasn't quite as an ambiguous defence of physical media as some are making it out as.
What Was Asked and What He Actually Said
| Moment | What Was Said |
|---|---|
The question | Whether he has an opinion on physical versus digital, and whether he wants his games on discs |
His first answer | He does not know that he cares, but if people want it, companies should provide it |
His follow-up | Digital updates are valuable for game quality |
Lazlow's response | The tactile appeal of physical, balanced against digital convenience for travel |
His later comment | That he loves physical media and thinks everyone does, in the context of comics and paper |
The sequence of Dan Houser's comments on physical media in the IGN interview, in the order they were given.
Asked directly whether he wants his games released physically, his response opened with something close to indifference, saying:
I don't know that I care, but if people want that, I think companies should provide it. But I don't know that I personally care.
He later says that he loves physical media, but he was more referring to comic books. Houser and Lazlow now run Absurd Ventures, which publishes physical comics among other things, and the affection he expresses for the feel of physical media comes while talking about paper and flicking through printed pages.
Still, he does make a point. He argues that if people want physical media, companies should provide it. It is also, and this is the part nobody using the quote seems to have noticed, an argument about consumer demand rather than an argument about ownership or preservation.
Sony's entire justification for winding down disc production is demand. The company's position, backed by allegedly fabricated and inflated sales data, is that people have overwhelmingly stopped buying discs. Based on Houser's principle, companies should keep on selling physical media as long as there's a demand for it, and Sony is just following demand. The company looked at whether people wanted discs, concluded they largely do not. You can argue Sony helped create that decline by making digital the default, but that's a different case entirely.
The stronger case for discs is about what happens when a store front closes, when a licence expires, when a server goes dark and a game you paid for simply stops existing. We got a recent example of this when the PlayStation Network went down for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 users around the world for roughly 12 hours on July 24.
Ultimately, Houser's view is interesting as the perspective of someone who helped build this industry with his work on, among other things, Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2.
So take the comment for what it genuinely is. Houser expressed a reasonable principle about supply following demand, offered a fair point about the value of updates, and said something warm about physical media while discussing comics.
At the end of the day, GTA 6 is still not launching with a disc.
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