In brief

• Activision "floated" the idea of stopping the production of physical game discs in 2007 during the development of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, a former Infinity Ward employee said.
• Robert Bowling, who spent six years working on Call of Duty, said it has only been game publishers pushing to cut discs as they attempt to maximize profits and fight back against resellers like GameStop.
• He said that the only reason Sony has announced its plan to cease disc production now is that consumer habits have flipped, as more gamers buy digital over physical.

Video game publishers have attempted to stop physical disc production and go fully digital for almost two decades, a former Infinity Ward employee told Decrypt. Ultimately, he said, the movement was an attempt by publishers to maximize profits and fight back against the resale market.

Robert Bowling, former Infinity Ward creative strategist for the Call of Duty franchise from 2006 to 2012, told Decrypt that he first heard conversations about cutting discs as far back as 2007—during the production of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

"At one point, it was floated by an executive at Activision [the Call of Duty publisher] that if we went entirely digital and stopped printing on discs, they could avoid the resell conversation entirely, and they'd control the market for their games," Bowling told Decrypt. "It would also evade the disc fee charged by Xbox and PlayStation to have your game on an Xbox disc or PlayStation disc."

Bowling added that behind the scenes, publishers were attempting to convince GameStop to share its revenue from second-hand games. That battle was won by GameStop, so publishers looked to cut discs to kill the resale market entirely.

"It was at that point that I raised the concern that we'd be trading the freedom and joy of collecting games purely for a profit increase," he said. "That felt counter to our culture as gamers and game developers."

It comes amid controversy over Sony's decision to discontinue discs as of 2028. The move has attracted pushback from consumers, with more than 387,000 people signing a "Don't Kill the Disc" petition. Meanwhile, PlayStation founder Ken Kutaragi came to Sony's defence, claiming that it's a "mentality issue" if gamers are upset by the decision to cut discs.

After six years at Infinity Ward, Bowling went on to work on several other major titles like Battlefield V, Apex Legends, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as a creative consultant at Electronic Arts. In 2021, Bowling co-founded Midnight Society to build crypto extraction shooter Deadrop, but left in 2025 as funding ran dry. Now, he is studio head of //18.bravo, which is currently developing a first-person shooter.

Bowling told Decrypt that throughout his two decades in the video game industry, publishers have been the "only ones" pushing to cut physical discs. This is because, he said, publishers are motivated by increasing their profit margins, by reducing production costs, and squashing the second-hand game market.

"It speaks to the divide that has formed in our industry between those who see games as just a software product and those who see them as something more like art, entertainment, as collectibles, and a lifestyle," Bowling said.

The only reason Sony didn’t make the move back in 2007 is that consumer habits have since flipped, he said, as more gamers buy digital over physical.

Sony argues that purchasing a digital game from the PlayStation Store does not constitute ownership of that game, according to court filings. Rather, Sony says, Store purchases equate to a license that can be revoked at any time.

"Whether our players actually own the games they purchase from us matters," Bowling said. "As developers, we are making games to be purchased and enjoyed. We want you to own, share, and cherish those games. It's publishers, like Sony, that are pushing the pure business side of the industry, and ignoring how impactful the end result is to our lives."

Activision did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.

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