Ubisoft: ‘Get Comfortable’ With Not Owning Games - You Will Own Nothing

Article (Archive)

In a recent interview, Ubisoft’s Director of Subscriptions, Philippe Tremblay, spoke at length about the state of play in our increasingly digital global landscape. He laid out the present and future of streaming services, particularly covering the recent changes made to the Ubisoft+ service, which has undergone a slight rebrand.

In his words, ‘millions’ of users have flocked to Ubisoft’s cloud-based streaming service since it launched, and there are expectations that the number of users adopting these subscription-based models will swell as time goes on. He stressed that gamers should get comfortable with these services and that despite some users still clinging to physical games, a consumer shift ‘needs to happen’.

Digital Is The Future

In recent years, we’ve seen the concept of cloud gaming and subscription services explode. From PlayStation Now to Xbox Game Pass and from GeForce NOW to EA Play, it seems like there are countless services that you can pay a monthly fee for to unlock a host of ever-changing games. There are tens of millions of people – if not more – with multiple subscriptions, covering the field and gaining access to hundreds of titles.

Ubisoft recently amended its service – Ubisoft+ – with a slight rebrand. The core offering is now known as ‘Ubisoft+ Premium’ and it operates alongside other tiers, such as ‘Ubisoft+ Classics’, which gives players access to back-catalogue games – but nothing brand-new.

In the interview with GamesIndustry, Philippe Tremblay spoke about the usage of Ubisoft+ and how consumer trends have evolved:

There are multiple behaviours. There are definitely a lot of people who come in for one game and then decide to buy it after the subscription ends. That’s part of the reality and that’s ok with us.

He referenced the ‘tremendous value’ of subscription services, pointing out that subscribers of the Ubisoft+ Premium service get access to the latest games from the moment they’re released – and that typically means they’re getting the highest tier of that game, too.

There’s still room for more gamers to get on board, though, as Tremblay explained:

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.

Soon, Ubisoft will onboard Activision Blizzard games to its subscription-based offering as part of the recent deal with Microsoft to acquire streaming rights for the games. Over time, subscription services are soaking up a staggering portion of revenue in the games industry – will this peak soon, or is the growth of these services persistently exponential?

For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that GAME in the UK could stop trade-ins

 

[The Last Stand]

I feel many people are disappointed with Ubisoft now since they was a time where they made beloved games with minimum BS.

 

[Safir]

Aren't vinyl records bigger than ever now?

Vinyl records aren't bigger than ever, they're just growing a lot. Variety says vinyl sales hit 1 billion USD in 2021, having grown by 61%, and the last time they were at 1 billion was 1986 (not adjusted for inflation). Streaming subscriptions were at 9.5 billion USD and they had also grown, by 23%.

Now video streaming is losing money (because they make shitty content) and Ubisoft (also in the business of making shitty content) probably will, too. But music streaming companies don't make their own music, and they pay rightsholders per stream so they don't care if some of it is shitty, and consoomers don't care either (it's short-form content, not games or tv series; if a song sucks, the service can just not play it as often, or play just enough to sell subscriptions with fast forward).

What the hell is this non-sequitur? Why does he start talking about cloud saving in the middle of discussing trying to pull customers away from ownership?

To be fair it might be "lightly edited for clarity" by j*urnos.

What he's saying is gaymers should not prefer owning a game on a permanent basis for a finite amount of money to getting the game with a subscription so that its cost becomes infinite at infinity; they only need it when they're actually playing it -- they can play, unsubscribe for when they aren't playing, then resubscribe and resume playing, cloud saves make the whole process smooth, ~tee hee~.

What will actually happen is they won't maintain games beyond those that sell subscriptions, and when a gaymer decides to go back to AssCreed 7, it won't run on his machine, and Ubi will be sure to add maximum amount of assrape to the executable (to prevent subscribers from downloading and hoarding playable files) so he won't be able to patch it either.

 

[frozen_runner]

Remember back when they thought they would reboot Splinter Cell without Michael Ironside?

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

I will continue downloading cars until these megaslop megacorps go bankrupt.

 

[blablabla]

for the life of me i cant remember the last ubisoft game i played? the pirate ass creed one?

 

[Barry McKockner]

$18/month for the premium package is the equivalent of 3 AAA titles a year at a $70 price point, but ubisoft doesn't put out that many AAA games every year, so WHY IN THE FUCK would I pay you MORE money than I would spend with you in the first place?

But that's the business model they're going for, isn't it? You stay subscribed to WoW, even though you haven't touched it in 4 months. As long as it's less than $20, they know consumers aren't going to notice it on their card statements compared to their $1800 in rent. So that subscription just gets overlooked while they keep raking in the money. I've been a victim of it through my own stupidity. Xbox game pass on PC? It ran for 3 months before I realized I hadn't touched one of the games in a while. Blizzard got probably close to $160 out of me for forgetting to cancel my WoW subscription. It's just pure and simple predatory consumer practices.

The whole subscription business model is a scam, and it always has been. If it weren't, every company would have a prompt at the end of your billing cycle that wouldn't continue into the next month unless you hit an agree button.

 

[Duke Nukem]

Joke's on them, I don't even have time for games anymore. GTA 6 is going to be a woke disaster anyway, and I don't hold high hopes for the rest of the industry.

I might play a few goofy independent games now and then but you see more heart and soul in RPG Maker titles than you see in the big box stuff anymore.

And don't get me started on Cunt of Dookie.

 

[Otoya Yamaguchi]

Ubisoft is still around? did they even make anything after Rayman?

 

[ZMOT]

their competitors watched their experiment carefully and derived their own similar solutions as a result.

not really, because what happened ubisoft had a major drop in sales (arguably the beginning of the end) with the claim "apparently there's no interest on the PC platform for our games". the typical faggy response you'd expect.
there's a reason they scrapped that always online shit, or at least toned it down to a degree you can still play your fucking game - albeit with limited functionality.

stuff like EA origins or whatever, same as uplay ubisoft connect (dumbest title) came down to money since they didn't want give steam a 30% cut. how that worked anyone can guess when buying EA games on steam again...
also their new versions are absolute ass. EA's shit was always epic store tier, but as shit as uplay was, there was at least some incentive to use it (shit was cheaper there, and simply playing their games enough would give you a 20% voucher). all that was slowly phased out.

I think a two-week outage of all internet across the world would be an incredibly healthy thing for everyone.

I had that. it's hit or miss. but then I'm not that dependent on the internet in the first place. always online social-media zombies are gonna euthanize themselves tho.

ironically it will throw major wrenches into doing anything, since everything is online these days (or tries to). imagine not having access to your emails for example, companies would have to actually call you back... (and if the phone networks falls alongside it shit's gonna get wild).

The whole subscription business model is a scam, and it always has been. If it weren't, every company would have a prompt at the end of your billing cycle that wouldn't continue into the next month unless you hit an agree button.

it's not a scam, it simply banks on people being lazy and retarded. there's no difference from pressing an "I agree" button to click the "unsubscribe" button, meaning your subscription only runs for the duration you already paid for (and starts running the second you pay).

want to get around getting fleeced? simply unsubscribe immediately again or only sub for a certain amount of time. however most people don't want to do that every 1/3/6 months, so they just keep it running. out of sight out of mind.

Remember back when they thought they would reboot Splinter Cell without Michael Ironside?

I do. tbh where ubisoft went full retard was the execution. they didn't just do a new splinter cell, they tried to soft-reboot it replacing sam fisher with another actor (which did an ok job actually), which of course would piss off any fan. the smart move would've been a simple pass-the-torch story, which would also allow you to bring ironside back (just like they did, lul) alongside any new character if needed.

 

[Night Crawler]

The PC platform has already gone digital only. It was only a matter of time before it came to the peasant boxes. The push to get rid of physical media is all about piracy and used game sales. Used game sales have been a thorn in the side of game developers and publishers since the 90's. They have been looking for a way to get rid of GameStop for years. They finally found a way with digital downloads. All they had to do is get people hooked on the convenience. Just download your game and play. You no longer have to go to stores to buy a game. You don't have to worry about a certain game being sold out. Games stored on a server can't ever sell out. Of course, it comes with downsides like no physical copy needing an internet connection to access your games you can't resell or trade digital games. You also can't lend them to people. It's a bit of a double edged sword. I have a few physical copies of PC games but they are older games. I have physical copies of PS3 games some for various handhelds and the Switch. Most of my Switch games are physical. I also have a collection of Bluray movies.

But even if you have physical copies of games on a console the game will still likely need updates to fix bugs and other issues. If the bugs aren't major game breakers than you could probably get away with playing the game without the updates. If not, you are kind of screwed.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

I like Ubi and I think they're saying that with everything that is going on, don't expect to own anything digital. It's a precaution. A warning in general. Look at how streamers can't play games with licensed music in it and car-sims are pulled from sales when manufacturer licenses expire. The entirety of the non-vidya business world are keeping vidya in a squeezer and who knows how that will look going forward.
It's not video game developers, publishers or purchasers that are pushing these weird changes that removes games from being able to be purchased. Just sayin'.

 

[Would]

Ubisoft have every right to be smug. They know no one wants to pirate their last decade's worth of trash games anyway. They got nothing to lose championing ZOG.

 

[snowdunes]

The push to get rid of physical media is all about piracy and used game sales.

I don't play so much nowadays, but the few games I do play, I burn the pirated version onto a DVD or Blu-Ray. Repacks often got the newest patches, and scene releases with DLC also got most of the updates included too.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

Crash can't come soon enough moment #7423

Fuck these business nitwits.. No matter how hard they try to dream and make it happen, it is never going to. The lag is game breaking in most ideal cases, and your core demographics won't fucking touch streamshit. Cope and crash! (soon please)

This has been the pipe dream of the industry for over a decade. The "streaming future" is been coming in the next few years for just about as long!

This is really all about one thing.. Getting rid of used games and forcing gamers to insta move on to the "newest thing".. They hate competing with themselves (older games) You will play what they allow, when they allow, for as how long they allow, at the price they force you to. The literal end of gaming history.

 

[Hitman One]

Oh no, I won't be able to own the next three trillion identical open-world-action-adventure with crafting and collectables ubisoft slop, I'm so sad.

 

[Barry McKockner]

car-sims are pulled from sales when manufacturer licenses expire.

Which is a significant drawback of all the "just get it digitally" crap.

"We know you bought Forza to drive your dream car, but our license expired, so you can't anymore." It's ALMOST as infuriating as Nvidia removing game stream from the shield when it's LITERALLY THE MAIN FUCKING PURPOSE OF THE DEVICE.

 

[Snekposter]

If I remember correctly Ubisoft survives off of corporate welfare from the Canadian gov. If the leafs weren't subsidizing these morons they might have gone belly up already, so with government fun bucks backing them they feel like they can go ahead with this moronic plan.

Kill Leafs. Behead Leafs. Roundhouse kick a Leaf into the permafrost.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Which is a significant drawback of all the "just get it digitally" crap.

"We know you bought Forza to drive your dream car, but our license expired, so you can't anymore." It's ALMOST as infuriating as Nvidia removing game stream from the shield when it's LITERALLY THE MAIN FUCKING PURPOSE OF THE DEVICE.

Yeah, so it's actually pretty good that Ubi explicitly states this. They're the only ones doing it.

 

[PFM]

ironically it will throw major wrenches into doing anything, since everything is online these days (or tries to). imagine not having access to your emails for example, companies would have to actually call you back... (and if the phone networks falls alongside it shit's gonna get wild).

You'd lose access to your bank account. Losing the internet for two weeks would literally destroy the economy.

 

[ZMOT]

You'd lose access to your bank account. Losing the internet for two weeks would literally destroy the economy.

that's why it's a good idea to have cash on hand. it will even work when the supermarket can't check your card.