There’s something beautiful about a compact disc. First, there's its circular shape, which symbolizes the unending cycle of death, rebirth and a life of gaming. Then there's its art, a teaser of the wondrous beauties to be witnessed upon a game’s installation; the physical solidity of the thing — the fact that you can hold a disc in your hand and just stare at it for a minute, letting the feeling sink in: “This game is gonna be fucking awesome.”

But games on discs are slowly becoming obsolete. The first things to go are expansion packs, which, especially on consoles, are starting to be available exclusively as downloads. Something just doesn’t feel right about this. The vicious behemoth some blindly call “the Internet” is already devouring physical, paper-bound books as we know them. Why does it have to prey on games, too?

Now, the matter is obviously different for games than it is for books. When a book is put online, the format in which people read it changes. Yet no matter how you go about buying the game, you still play it on the same screen. What the disappearance of the disc means for gamers is an end to the wondrous process of buying a video game and anticipating playing it.

Some of my favorite childhood moments were spent in Best Buy. I would rush into the store and make a mad dash for the game I wanted. Once I got my grubby little fingers on it, I would turn it over in my hands, reading every single letter printed on the shiny and colorful new box, right down to the distribution info and seizure warnings. Once I had scanned it thoroughly, I would walk up and down the aisles looking at the vast array of other games and watching the bigger kids play demos, all the while clutching the box tightly to make sure nobody tried to steal it.

As soon as we got back to the car — if I could wait that long — I would rip off the plastic and open the box, finally beholding the disc itself. As I did with the box’s text, I would diligently scour every page of the instruction booklet, stopping only when we got home and I could finally experience the game first-hand. These were fun times.

But today’s youth are simultaneously spoiled and deprived by their own impatience. Sure, when you download a game right to your system you can play it right away, but where’s the fun in that? Nobody plays any one game forever, so it’s not like you’re losing any play time by going on an adventure to the store to pick the game up yourself.

Also, the last thing gamers need is a way to become even more sedentary. In the world of yesteryear, you could always buy a game on Amazon.com without leaving your house. But at least you had to get off the couch and go over to the computer. And then, when the game arrived, you had to open the door to get it, possibly even getting some much-needed fresh air in the process.

But there’s also an economic aspect to those sneaky game publishers’ decision to move online: They’re killing the used game market. Sure, you’ll still be able to sell your old Xbox and Gamecube games, but for how long? As newer systems come out, the market for retro gaming becomes narrower and narrower. And the older the system, the harder it is to find a functioning console.

Games that are downloaded can’t be bought and sold after the initial purchase. They’re on your hard drive, and that’s where they’re staying. It’s a sinisterly clever move by the game companies, who are basically assuring themselves financially by making everyone who wants to play a game on their own console buy their own copy. You can’t even borrow from a friend anymore.

The advent of the downloadable game is going to have unforeseeable consequences on stores like GameSpot and the local Get Your Game On, so I won’t attempt to foresee their futures with any particular degree of specificity. But suffice it to say this: A store that sells video games will have a hard time making it when video games are no longer sold in stores.