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

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

The lure of digital-only download games is the fact that there's continually rolling weekly sales for pennies on the dollar that you can impulse buy from your couch in your underwear.

It really depends on the type of gamer that you are.

But there's something to be said about the convenience of buying handfuls of games a few years old for a few bucks each to sample them looking for diamonds in the rough.

 

[LeChampion1992]

Again Ubisoft if you're going to make gaming such a overpriced and unaffordable hobby and not even let me keep my games why Should I spend my money on your games?
I can easily play older games, go outside or save my money and find another hobby.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

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.

sure, the full-stop interrupting your single player game was given up on because that drew the most vicious consumer backlash. but the vast majority of modern AAA games have a whole host of mandatory always-online features that claw their way into the main body of the game and punish you for trying to play offline. it's obvious that they're still trying to do the same thing while flying under the radar enough to avoid triggering the normies.

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.

the big upside for me with digital copies is the vast speed increase of solid state internal drives over physical media, especially when you get into the NVMe realm. maybe distributing physical games on solid state cartridges would solve that, but it seems like a waste of silicon, especially considering the install size of some of these shit AAA games that ship with uncompressed assets because the cost per gigabyte of the dual layer blu-rays they use for disc media these days is miniscule. while the reduction in consumer rights is certainly a primary objective, switching to digital media also just makes sense on its own.

 

[TowinKarz]

Get comfortable without my money.

I've been comfortable not buying ubislop shit for the past 10+ years. God, how the mighty have fallen.

It's not just them, AAA gaming is really suffering from a lack of "stars" much like Hollywood failed to raise the next gen of actors and actresses and everyone these days is either an aging 80s/90s icon or a literal "who", so it the game industry.

In the 90's there were a half-dozen powerhouse studios that consistently made great games.

These days, can anyone name a really really GOOD game company that isn't trading on it's 90's heyday while producing bland shit?

There's a real competency crisis in modern gaming, nobody seems to know how to make games anymore. And high on their own C-suite farts, they'll all be dammed if they'll listen to mere customers.

 

[Party Hat Wurmple]

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.

Exactly. However, when has hinging your company's entire profitability on one product ever been wise? Square Enix flat out said another FF14 would flat out kill the company. I don't see how this model would ever be sustainable. Renting only works when the product is cheap. So what, are you going to cut your own profitability down? Or are you going to charge me $70 to play Assassin's Creed 20 for a month, and then turn off my access? I know the reality is you're going to charge me 80$ for a week's access. If that's the case, your game simply isn't fucking worth it. I can pirate thousands of games you'll never host and have just as much fun.

On the flip side, okay. Let's do this. You put out Assassin's Creed 20 and it's actually successful. You're stuffing potentially a million players on a handful of server space; what do you think is going to happen you dumb shit? The hardware isn't there. It's going to be a miserable experience to both upkeep and for the players. Eventually you'll hit a Bethesda moment and the Canadian government will have to bail you out to keep you from going belly up. What a retarded idea. MOBA companies have tried this and gone belly up for it. Blizzard, a company pretty much made for this stuff, can only sustain a handful of games at once and they've been at this for 30 years now. How do you ever hope to maintain this kind of infrastructure?

This is a terrible idea Ubisoft. It's not going to pan out the way you think it will. People WILL defer to pirating and the independent market if they have to. You can't stop this. Especially if you aren't pushing a product anyone wants. If this is AAA Gamings dying gasp, then let it fucking die. You deserve neither my money nor time. The last game that came out that was worth anything was Elden Ring. That was made by a relatively small studio in comparison and with quality Ubisoft hasn't produced in decades. Go fuck yourselves.

 

[PipTheAlchemist]

Ubishit games aren't worth owning or even pirating. So nothing of value will be lost

 

[anustart76]

At this point if I care about a game I buy it on GOG, otherwise I'll just pirate it if I care about it.

Make backups!

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

this is why i keep going backwards when i game. older games just offer just as much, if not more then current games. AND ITS FREE FOR THE MOST PART!

 

[Night Crawler]

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.

I haven't pirated games since the late 2000's and very early 2010's. The last game I pirated was a copy of the Wolfenstein game from 2009 made by Raven. I looked into buying a copy on ebay but I wasn't paying some ebay scalper $50 for a 7/10 FPS using an obsolete engine that was at the time nearly a decade old. I still have that pirated copy stashed away on an external SSD full of games that I can install and play with no other BS. I have it installed on my PC right now. I played it a few days ago and it works fine on Windows 10. A few of the YouTube hipsters did retro reviews of the game and this drove the price up. I still play video games quite a bit but mostly on my PC. The second most would be the Switch. I have a pretty big Switch game collection. I hate to say it, but I collect Switch games more than I play them. lol

the big upside for me with digital copies is the vast speed increase of solid state internal drives over physical media, especially when you get into the NVMe realm. maybe distributing physical games on solid state cartridges would solve that, but it seems like a waste of silicon, especially considering the install size of some of these shit AAA games that ship with uncompressed assets because the cost per gigabyte of the dual layer blu-rays they use for disc media these days is miniscule. while the reduction in consumer rights is certainly a primary objective, switching to digital media also just makes sense on its own.

SSD's have been great for games. Games that take a long time to load like the GTA games load pretty quickly now. I like to keep all the games I am interested in playing installed so I have a lot of storage in my PC. Two 4TB SATA SSD's and 1 2TB NVME. I don't want to wait to download a game just to play it. By the time it downloads I lose interest. Like the old physical copies I keep a bunch of games installed so I can just play them when I want to.

 

[Male Idiot]

I played Stick of Truth. I'll be fine without Ubishit.

 

[Cougar Pump]

Lol Ubisoft. I got mildly cucked by them a decade ago (bought Blood Dragon, the CDKey activated a different game I didn't want, support didn't want to help) and after a brief period of pirating their shit I just stopped playing their shit and put them on a personal blacklist. I will never buy, pirate, or even play a Ubisoft game.
Good luck to them, though, apparently there are still enough suckers out there that they are still relevant somehow.

 

[Vesperus]

I'm already quite comfortable with not paying for your games.

 

[xn--mck1c]

The whole subscription business model is a scam, and it always has been.

For me the subscription model actively detracts from the experience.
I would actively use the subscription service over what I actually wanted to get my money's worth, till I got sick of it and viewed it as a chore.
Made it really easy to cancel to "take a break" at the end of the month, never to come back again.

 

[PhoBingas]

I was trying to even think of the last Ubisoft game I bought, and I honestly can't remember. I thought I had the first two Assassin's Creed for the Xbox 360, but I could have just borrowed them off a friend when they were new.
Ubisoft has almost been EA tier for years now, so I'm not surprised they'd start going this way.

 

[Barry McKockner]

For me the subscription model actively detracts from the experience.
I would actively use the subscription service over what I actually wanted to get my money's worth, till I got sick of it and viewed it as a chore.
Made it really easy to cancel to "take a break" at the end of the month, never to come back again.

The ONLY subscription I have no qualms with is Spotify. It's the ONLY subscription service that hasn't changed up on me and STILL to this day gives me what I want. The playlists I've had for a decade or more STILL exist how they always have. There is no other subscription model that doesn't remove things after they have been added.

 

[xn--mck1c]

The ONLY subscription I have no qualms with is Spotify. It's the ONLY subscription service that hasn't changed up on me and STILL to this day gives me what I want. The playlists I've had for a decade or more STILL exist how they always have. There is no other subscription model that doesn't remove things after they have been added.

Being something that doesn't demand your full attention probably makes it much better.
It's something you can put in the background, unlike say WoW, where I would actively decide to spend the weekend playing it over say, CS, under the logic of "I'd play CS when the WoW subscription expires".

Then, when it does expire, I'd ask "do I have enough time this month to play to make the subscription worth it?".
Eventually it's easier to just play fully owned games without having to worry about only getting a few hours of playtime out of a month's subscription.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Console Gaymers once again reminded why PC is the master race.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

At this point if I care about a game I buy it on GOG, otherwise I'll just pirate it if I care about it.

Make backups!

If you're one to jump on GOG deals like me, make sure you run the installer at least once. I've had many instances where one or many of the bin files were corrupted and required a redownload.

The perfect corollary to not owning games is it's not stealing if you could never own them.

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

The ONLY subscription I have no qualms with is Spotify. It's the ONLY subscription service that hasn't changed up on me and STILL to this day gives me what I want. The playlists I've had for a decade or more STILL exist how they always have. There is no other subscription model that doesn't remove things after they have been added.

Spotify did some shady shit when they signed Joe Rogan years ago.

They bought the rights to his back catalog of thousands of old YT episodes, had him take them off the platform (except for a curated list of his "favorites") then made them partially available again on Spotify while selectively memoryholing any episodes with guests that were politically inconvenient (ie Gavin McInnes, Milo, etc).

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Meanwhile, I bought this so I can learn how to download ROMs and ISO files to play it on emulators.