As more and more games are sold digitally, UK Supermarket giant Tesco has announced that is going to stop selling boxed videogames in its 2,800 stores.

It was reported that throughout June the four biggest games – Diablo 4, Final Fantasy 16, Street Fighter 6 and F1 23 – sold 83% digitally, with just 17% being physical.

Tesco use this shift toward downloading games as their primary reason for no longer stocking physical games. Instead, they’ll continue to sell whatever stock they have left and will not replace them with any new titles, so it may be worth keeping an eye on your local Tesco for some bargains.

The supermarket chain will continue to stock digital points cards, though.

It’s hardly surprising news. Digital has been the dominant sales method for a while now and various stores have been trying to handle the change. In an interview with Gameindustry.biz, Nick Arran, CEO of UK videogame store GAME, said: “As we saw what was happening with the pandemic, with digital racing ahead more than anything we had forecasted… Customers rushed to online, and although some came back, it’s not been all. You can see from market data that online is 75% of the market. Before the pandemic, it was 45%.”

But Arran also cited trading in old games as making something of a comeback, in part due to the cost of living being so high. Its certainly one of the reasons I still like to buy physical: I’ll usually complete a new release to review it, and then sell it or trade it in for the next game and so on. This is especially true of Nintendo titles because they only drop a small amount of value.

“This is where digital can be problematic. You can’t trade in a digital game, so us championing physical, driving that trade-in that allows the consumer to continue to play more games, or buy more toys or whatever. You’ll see us talking about trade-in. It’s really coming back into its own again.”

Nick Arran, speaking to Gameindustry.biz.

The shift toward a digital future seems all but inevitable at this point and it makes perfect sense for places like Tesco to ditch boxed copies for something more profitable. But I remain confident that physical editions will continue to have their place in the industry, though upcoming games like Alan Wake 2 being digital only could be enough to persuade many companies to abandon boxed games.