Physical media fans are not going down quietly. A new Change.org petition called “Don’t Kill the Disc: Tell Sony to Keep Physical PlayStation Games” has rocketed past 100,000 verified signatures in roughly four days, and the number is still climbing fast. At the time of writing, it sits at more than 100,600 supporters, with over 26,000 people adding their names in a single day. For a petition that only went live on July 1, that is a serious head of steam.
Save Physical Games is Gaining Momentum
The whole thing kicked off right after Sony dropped some news that made a lot of players upset. On July 1, 2026, Sony confirmed it will stop producing physical discs for all new PlayStation games starting January 2028. Going forward, new releases will either be digital only or come in a box that holds nothing but a download code. No disc inside. Just a slip of paper and some plastic.
Only days earlier, Grand Theft Auto VI confirmed it would launch with no disc at all. When the biggest console maker and the biggest game on the planet both wave goodbye to physical media in the same week, people start to feel like the door is closing for good.
The Ownership Argument at the Heart of It
The petition, started by Jade Pearce on behalf of PNP Games Inc., makes an argument that hits a nerve with collectors and everyday players alike. A disc is something you actually own. You can lend it to a friend, trade it in, resell it, gift it, or hand it down to your kids years later. A box with only a download code is a different animal entirely. It is a license, not a game, and licenses can be pulled, revoked, or quietly removed from your library.
That fear is not completely unfounded either. Very recently, plenty of people have watched movies they paid for vanish from their digital libraries, and games have been delisted just weeks after launch. The petition frames disc games as the last real guarantee that the thing you bought stays yours.
Sony’s Own Words Are Coming Back to Haunt It
There is a layer of irony here that fans have not let slide. Back at E3 2013, Sony won over an entire generation by promising the opposite of what it is doing now. The company famously mocked its competition over used game restrictions and told players they could trade, share, and keep their PlayStation games however they liked. That moment is basically legendary at this point. Thirteen years later, Sony is the one taking that freedom off the table, and long-time fans remember every word of it.
It Is Also About Jobs and Small Businesses
The petition goes beyond the collector angle. It points out that an all-digital future quietly wipes out an entire chunk of the industry. Retailers, distributors, disc manufacturers, warehouse and logistics workers, and the whole pre-owned and trade-in market all depend on physical games existing. Kill the disc, and you are not just annoying collectors, you are pulling the rug out from under thousands of jobs and a lot of small shops that survive on used game sales.
To be clear, the organizers say they are not anti-digital. Their whole point is that digital should be a choice, not the only option left standing.
Do These Petitions Actually Change Anything?
Here is the part nobody really wants to say out loud, but it is necessary. Petitions like this, no matter how big they get, rarely move a company the size of Sony. We have seen this movie before. Destiny 2 players recently rallied around their own petition asking Sony not to abandon the game, and so far, that effort has not gone anywhere meaningful. Big platform holders tend to have their roadmaps locked in years ahead of time, and a signature count, however impressive, does not always crack that.
A petition crossing 100,000 names in four days sends a loud message about how many people still care about owning their games. It generates headlines, it gets picked up by media, and it puts the topic back in front of executives who might otherwise assume nobody noticed. Whether Sony listens is a completely different question, and history is not exactly on the fans’ side.
The “Don’t Kill the Disc” petition has already done something impressive by pulling six figures of support in under a week. It taps into a real anxiety about ownership, preservation, and choice that has been building for years. The disc might still be on its way out, no matter how many people sign, but this response makes one thing clear. A huge number of PlayStation fans are not ready to let physical games disappear without a fight.
