It's going to horribly impact game collecting.

The transition to digital only is the endgame here. You're witnessing the last console generation that will even use discs.

Companies, for decades now, have loathed the concept of "consumer ownership" and have been frothing at the mouth for the tech to catch up and allow their dream of digital-only, fully-controlled SaaS garbage.

The WB-Discovery merger has brought light to a lot of fears that those of us against pure digital landscapes have been warning everyone about for 15+ years now...they want the ability to remove whatever titles they see fit. They want to be able to erase them entirely should they choose.

That kind of control, the ability to add and remove content (and monetize all of it in between) has been their wet dream since the days of Betamax. Only now does the infrastructure allow it to be commercially viable.

I personally am buying whatever titles I want in disc form while they're still putting full games on them. Because that shit with the barebones installer being put on the disc is where they're going at a rapid pace.

I've also restarted collecting blu-ray and 4k discs, since they're making it quite clear that they have no qualms about removing titles from digital availability whenever it suits their objectives.