GamesIndustry.biz recently spoke to Ubisoft, and something said during the interview seems to have created some sparks across the industry about game ownership.
What was said is not all that surprising really. Ubisoft, like multiple others, run subscription services with theirs being Ubisoft+ that just had a bit of a change into multiple tiers. These services are everywhere now like Xbox Game Pass, EA Play and others. That, and GI.biz spoke to Philippe Tremblay, director of subscriptions at Ubisoft so obviously they're going to be somewhat biased on what they think — it's their job.
From the interview, the bit in question:
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.
The GOG team certainly took notice, mentioning on X (formerly Twitter): "You should feel extremely comfortable with owning your games on GOG (they're DRM-free) :)".
It's worth noting that clearly it's going well for Ubisoft, as Tremblay mentioned October 2023 was their biggest month in Ubisoft+ history. So people are clearly buying into game subscriptions more and more. And related, Microsoft said back in 2022 that Xbox Game Pass had 25 million subscribers. Subscriptions are clearly here to stay.
Also worth noting, to be clear, Ubisoft don't plan to force you into one way or another noting:
"The point is not to force users to go down one route or another," he explains. "We offer purchase, we offer subscription, and it's the gamer's preference that is important here. We are seeing some people who buy choosing to subscribe now, but it all works."
Given how services can just entirely remove your paid-for content, this whole issue of ownership is a concerning one. Like how Sony were going to just remove previously purchased Discovery content from users, although they've since backtracked on that after public outcry.
The thing is, you have to remember, you don't actually own your games on Steam either. This has been well-known for a long time now. As per Steam's Subscriber Agreement under the "A. General Content and Services License" section:
[…] The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.
I'll admit, it's not entirely the same. Valve won't take away your games if you don't pay them every month, it's not a subscription in the same way, and plenty of games on Steam are actually entirely DRM-free and can be run outside of Steam. But still, it's something to remember, ownership has been on the decline for a long time.
A lot of it simply comes down to convenience though right? Plenty of us pay for Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime and so on and so on — so we can just quickly jump into a show or a movie they have available. But then the problem there is, again, everyone wants their own service. There's more popping up all the time, and rights on various shows end up split between them and you end up paying more and more (look at the mess of Pokémon streaming) and never owning a damn thing.
Over to you in the comments: what are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
fenglengshun Jan 17
Subscription can make sense, it's just that I prefer to play games at my own pace, and I hate the idea of paying and then not playing because I got a busy month or weeks. If I buy the game on Steam, sure in effect it can still be the same, but I could get back to the game at any time and mostly not worry it about any removal from the catalogue or needing to subscribe to multiple different catalogues.
Arehandoro Jan 17
Quoting: Purple Library GuyBut I don't really care about the bandwidth. Couldn't an ad blocker just let the ads get downloaded but just make it so they aren't shown to you? Then the website wouldn't be able to tell the difference and you could have an ad blocker that worked. Is that not possible?
It is possible with network ad-blocking, and one of my fav solutions is https://pi-hole.net/
Arehandoro Jan 17
Otherwise, I have a big catalogue of games already, and can either stop playing games altogether or just play from it.
Also, fuck off Ubisoft.
It really undermines the power of Windows, because the users aren't reliant on the Windows api anymore and the game hoster doesn't have to fear all that pesky software freedom on Linux, because they control the computer.
This might motivate gaming companies to bring out "exclusive Linux natives" for their cloud platforms.
Also I'm curious how they plan to scale this up.
The reason video's went to streaming earlier is that they don't consume half as much system resources.
Books can nowadays be streamed on donations as long the license costs stay low enough(proof AO3).
Films still rely on subscription fees.
Games still eat RAM for breakfast.
Servers tend to be low on RAM.
Europe's new "data sovereignty" laws will also significantly affect this development.
When they break 1 million active users at a single moment they will need around 1.6 Peta bytes of RAM with current games, which can cause problems, because they will discover that modern processors can't really handle that.
This will probably start causing problems the next register size shift.
Quoting: HannesWhat bothers me much more is the uncanny valley of full-price games that depend on online services.
There was a recent related editorial on GI.biz that's worth a read.
This is also why I wish the open source gaming scene would've been more developed. I personally like games like Xonotic and Red Eclipse, but of course they're incomparable even to some indie games and of course they're not something an average gamer would really want to play.
Games I won't generally tend to replay and anything important I can buy from GOG.
The only TV and film I want to own would be music or comedy. The only streaming subscription I currently have is Prime (the Wife likes the delivery aspect) but we're ditching that when they introduce ads into everything next month... and then want to charge more to remove them! They really are taking people for fools
Enough's enough.
Quote"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."
https://web.archive.org/web/20120308002030/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Piracy-Is-a-Service-Problem
I think its pretty cool how valve has resisted a 'game pass' despite my earlier thoughts to the contrary.
I think maybe I'll go archive some stuff to dvd, just in case.
Last edited by pageround on 17 January 2024 at 12:43 pm UTC
Quoting: pb"you don't lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there"
Sure, assuming the service is still there or the game's developers have a basic knowledge about data sync (bye bye my Hitman 3 progress on Stadia).
All of us remember the lifetime licenses of MegaUpload.... nothing is forever, Netflix catalog varies, movies available with the subscription of Amazon Video are rent or buy one day suddenly. Sincerely, go fuck themselves, I hate ubi and their policies. I like services like steam because it's convenient, but if I miss my CDs and boxes.
I reduced my Netflix account to the lowest non advert supported tier, when they got greedy. When I need to watch a move, while my daughter is using Netflix, I just find another way.
For now I will continue to support Steam, because they support Linux. It is just too easy to run Windoz games. I also buy from GOG, itch and Humble Bundle.
I will never buy into a game streaming service. Sometimes I go years before playing a game, I only paid for because it was on sale. But they are still there when I finally get around to it.
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