"Gamers Need To Get Comfortable Not Owning Their Games" - Ubisoft

[Moonface]

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Ubisoft's Director of Subscriptions Philippe Tremblay stated that gamers need to get comfortable with the idea of not owning their games:

One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That's the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That's a transformation that's been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don't lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That's not been deleted. You don't lose what you've built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it's about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.

"I still have two boxes of DVDs. I definitely understand the gamers perspective with that. But as people embrace that model, they will see that these games will exist, the service will continue, and you'll be able to access them when you feel like. That's reassuring.

Source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-new-ub...heir-games

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How do you feel about the idea of not owning your games? Do you not really mind it so long as you can access the games you want to play, or do you intend to strictly stick with owning as many of your games as possible?

[Maniakkid25]

Uh, until you can get the infrastructure set up so that streaming games becomes a viable option for ALL people, fuck right off.

The fact is, people are willing to stream movies and music because it's convenient, and actually works. Did Stadai flaming out spectacularly not teach you that the tech is not at the point that streaming games is a viable option? Frame drops, laggy inputs, drops in connections, and those are just the easy ones! And that's in North America, where we have a first world infrastructure! You really think Brazil has the infrastructure necessary to make streaming games a reality? I point to Brazil specifically because Brazil notoriously is getting price gouged for their games, leading to endemic piracy. A streaming service for games would be the PERFECT solution for that; rather than paying for the import of a game, you're just paying for a service!

Tell you what, Ubisoft: you pay for my switch to Fiber Optic, and I will happily stop buying my games. Until that day comes, fuck right off.

[queenzelda]

Ubisoft needs to get used to my never supporting their platforms of games ever again either. I will never stream a game, atmo it's just not viable. Not everyone has best wifi ever, especially people who have spectrum internet, their service is ass, and I can't afford to upgrade on their rates. Besides that, there is Cincinatti bell, but their customer service is so much worse. There's just no way we could get good enough service where we are unless we get more competition. Which is most of the problem unless Electric Jesus is gonna save us from that, but he can barely save twixter from drowning atmo. lmao

[Moonface]

In their defense, I don't think gamers "not owning their games" necessarily means those games are all streamed. Correct me if I'm wrong but Xbox Game Pass is a subscription based model but that doesn't involve streaming the games. Ubisoft+ also doesn't involve streaming, so that gives me the impression that Philippe Tremblay is wanting more people in a subscription model where you download the games rather than stream them.

I think this statement is going to backfire badly for Ubisoft though, given the industry responses that have started to come out in light of it:

Whatever the future of games looks like, content will always be king. But it’s going to be a lot harder to get good content if subscription becomes the dominant model and a select group gets to decide what goes to market and what not. Direct from developer to players is the way.

Getting a board to ok a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit.

There is nothing wrong with that but it may not become a monopoly of subscription services. We are already all dependent on a select group of digital distribution platforms and discoverability is brutal. Should those platforms all switch to subscription, it’ll become savage.

In such a world by definition the preference of the subscription service will determine what games get made.

Trust me - you really don’t want that.

TLDR ; you won’t find our games on a subscription service even if I respect that for many developers it presents an opportunity to make their game. I don’t have an issue with that. I just want to make sure the other ecosystem doesn’t die because it’s valuable.

You should feel extremely comfortable with owning your games on GOG (they're DRM-free)  

This one is a pretty notable one in that it illustrates the current state of subscription models in gaming:

Subscription growth has flattened, and sub services on console and PC platforms accounts for only 10% of total video game content spending in the US.
I get that some people want to protect their preferred model, but the idea that subs will become dominant is unsupported by data.

For me, whether it's a subscription that gives me the ability to download games or stream them, I'm not keen on the idea in any form of "borrowing" my games from a service. I don't even really like the idea of digital purchases because there's no guarantee that game will be available to download forever, so eventually I could just lose access to my purchase if I lose the downloaded data. Part of the reason I prefer physical games is knowing that as long as I have the disc, I will generally be able to play the game. Even if the server hosting the patches was to get nuked, the worst I would have is playing a game without patches, which is better than potentially no game at all.

[Mr EliteL]

I'll never use a subscription/streaming service to play games, heck no. I have got a few digital games but I can play them whenever I want and don't have to be connected to the internet to play them (only exception is Genshin), I consider them something I own unless something happens to the console they're on. The majority of my games are physical and I consider that I own them as well so Ubisoft's statement does not apply to me, thank you very much.

If somehow gaming does turn to subscription/stream only types then that means I'll be jumping off ship and getting myself stranded on my little island of past joy as I'll ignore all future games. Thankfully doesn't look like gaming is going that way though, so good.

[queenzelda]

Yea, I don't like not owning my games physically, that and most consoles don't have a lot of memory to begin with. I actually really need a 1tb mini sd card for my Switch, it would be nice if I could store my games on a ssd, but it's not possible.

[Moonface]

Yea, I don't like not owning my games physically, that and most consoles don't have a lot of memory to begin with. I actually really need a 1tb mini sd card for my Switch, it would be nice if I could store my games on a ssd, but it's not possible.

Not sure if you're mentioning wishes for an SSD in the hopes it would resolve your storage problems but my PS5 is lucky to hold more than five full games on it given that most AAA games want to hit 80GB+ of storage. I ran out of space on my PS5 way faster than my PS4, and without being able to store every game I own on the drive it would mean if all my purchases were digital I'd be scrambling if X amount of years down the line that library of digital games stopped being available for download.
And SSD's were supposed to help prevent the bloating of game sizes by reducing the need for duplicate data that was present in games stored on HDD's.

[Dragon Lord]

Ubisoft needs to get comfortable with gamers not buying their games any more.

My PS5 storage is like 60GB from being full, but thankfully I have an additional 2 TB internal SSD in it, so plenty of more space to go.

[Kyng]

I mean, technically, I don't 'own' any game I've ever bought on Steam... which means I don't 'own' the vast majority of the games I've bought since 2010 . Instead, I own a licence. (Come to think if it, it was the same with physical games... we just never read the terms and conditions, which were all but unenforceable anyway!)

With that being said, with their subscription model, Ubisoft are going further down this route than most. At least with Steam, my licence to play my games is permanent (or rather, it lasts for as long as the service itself exists). And I think the existing system on Steam works far better for me: I tend to play only a few games, but replay them over and over. So under a subscription model, I'd end up paying for those same few games over and over again - instead of a one-time purchase, like it is now.

So yeah, I can't say I'm a fan.

[Moonface]

I still have two boxes of DVDs. I definitely understand the gamers perspective with that. But as people embrace that model, they will see that these games will exist, the service will continue, and you'll be able to access them when you feel like. That's reassuring.

The hypocrisy of this line from the OP after seeing just now that Ubisoft are outright revoking licenses for The Crew so that nobody can download it and mod it if the community ever finds a way to make the game functional offline or with dummy servers. This along with expecting people to pay $130 for a game almost makes me wish this entire company would just go under because they bring nothing of value whatsoever to the gaming industry anymore.

[Maniakkid25]

Why do you think my reply said they can fuck right off? Ubisoft doesn't care about its players, or the communities it builds. In a lot of ways, its worse than EA (at least EA doesn't shield abusers that we know of). They absolutely deserve to go under, but they won't, because they are too big to be able to fail, at this point.

Ubisoft wants games to be a service, rather than a product. They want this because, if it's a service, they can charge you more money. That's all there is to it. My mind immediately went to streaming because that's their wet dream; to have people dependent on a little box for all their gaming needs, so they can charge you for its use. And they can fuck. Right. Off.

[Moonface]

Ubisoft wants games to be a service, rather than a product. They want this because, if it's a service, they can charge you more money. That's all there is to it. My mind immediately went to streaming because that's their wet dream; to have people dependent on a little box for all their gaming needs, so they can charge you for its use. And they can fuck. Right. Off.

I just went to their store page for Star Wars Outlaws to double check, and they are absolutely pushing their Ubisoft+ streaming/subscription service as the option to go for, even over the more expensive editions of the game. The top of the page just has "$69.99" or "$17.99 /month + play 3 days early!" to try and grab people before they even scroll the page to learn other editions of the game even exist, the editions section is highlighting the Ubisoft+ option to catch eyes over the others, and there's a Join link locked to the top of the page that's more prominent than the game logo that scrolls along with it. I'm sure if they could pull it off they'd make everything Ubisoft+ exclusive. I'm surprised they haven't decided to just make it that games like The Crew remain playable if you're a Ubisoft+ member and anyone who isn't just gets booted out of the servers once they close them down to everyone except subscribers.