It saves the publisher money and cuts down on reselling, which was cutting into their sales. It simplifies distribution. It gives them far more control, especially if they use their own launcher. Is anyone surprised that they like it when it offers only positives for them?
Also: Many big AAA releases can't even fit on a blu ray anymore. Games are coming up on 200GB+, that will not fit on a disk.
This trend isn't reversing. And the average person buying the game doesn't gaf, so it'll continue.
Of course, there will be some 'protestors' (who will just buy the game anyways) or some """protestors""" (who never intended to buy the game in the first place)
I'll be honest, this discussion is so stale I just don't care at this point. The fight for this ended a decade ago.
And honestly, considering how much more expensive AAA game creation has gotten over the years, and how game price hasn't even close to kept up with inflation, I get it.
There are so many much more egregious behaviors publishers do than this nonsense. Fight them on microtransactions, or making games online-only even for singleplayer content and then shutting down servers. Literally anything than this waste of time.
