Ubisoft Wants Us To Get Used To Not Owning Games.....Yes Really

[craigsters]

https://youtu.be/PQov6hBIudY?si=Fgpok25DfgABMVNn

Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games for Subscriptions to Take Off https://www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-exec-says-gamers-need-to-get-comfortable-not-owning-their-games-for-subscriptions-to-take-off

alternative source

Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need To Get Comfortable With "Not Owning Your Games" https://www.thegamer.com/ubisoft-plus-subscription-exec-gamers-need-to-get-comfortable-with-not-owning-your-games/



seen here first at https://imgur.com/gallery/ErK26fr

------------------------------------------------------

Well looks like assassin's creed valhalla and Far Cry 6 well be my last Ubisoft purchases if this happens

[kilésengati]

Not surprising. Ubisoft also has a habit of shutting down activation servers for older titles, so you can no longer access those games in part or in full anymore. Of course they'll conveniently release a "remaster" of some titles. They do this despite massive backlash and keeping them running from a Pi rig really wouldn't cost them much, and I'm pretty sure any notable archive /would happily take on that task for them. But no, gotta push those people into buying the next 08/15 Ubisoft gunk or a "remaster".

Ubisoft is like a dying animal pinned in a corner. Their business reports are bloody abysmal, so they grab onto anything that could make them money, dragging everything they catch down with them.

https://staticctf.akamaized.net/8aefmxkxpxwl/3HuZnFugstlcg9mb5TUTFn/d272d035c66d9c24c69b9985450943b7/Ubisoft_FY23_Earnings_PR_English_final.pdf

Don't expect it to get any better and prepare for many of their actually great titles to become orphaned works lost to the aether (like some already have). But hope Ubisoft's continuing downfall will scare away enough publishers from embracing subscription-only over perpetual licencing.

But then again, the industry is not only decaying from withing, but also because of its consoomer base.
As we say in German: "Jeden Morgen steht ein Dummer auf, man muss ihn nur finden."

[Whamarama]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 🍋 Lemonfed 🍋:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Not Big Surprise:

yknow, technically speaking, you're not actually buying a game
you're buying a license for a game

this has implications that i will not go into

the only peoples that truly own the games always been those that created them.

even with a physical copy , you merely own a license that last for as long as your copy is in working condintions.

Yeah, a lot of people are misinformed about media in general.
People think just because they bought a physical game for example that they can do whatever they want with it and they can't lose it.

Physical games get damaged easily, and there are people that have been caught "breaking the license agreement" of physical media and had all of their games and stuff taken away.

A disk is just a license and a digital copy of the game in an offline backup format.
Consoles don't even run games off of disks anymore, they install them and play them off the console SSD.

[Devsman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sixtyfivekills:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 🍋 Lemonfed 🍋:

the only peoples that truly own the games always been those that created them.

I don't know about that, I've seen too many "we lost the source code lmao" excuses for why some games never got ported.

What's up with that, anyway? Source measures in the megabytes. Or kilobytes even for some of these older games. I could see if like one or two games had it happen. Because of weird situations like fires, or "I thought you made a backup" "I thought YOU made a backup." But like, they made X million dollars on the game... You'd think they'd at least buy a couple of floppies and a storage cabinet.

[Not Big Surprise]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 🍋 Lemonfed 🍋:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Not Big Surprise:

yknow, technically speaking, you're not actually buying a game
you're buying a license for a game

this has implications that i will not go into

the only peoples that truly own the games always been those that created them.

even with a physical copy , you merely own a license that last for as long as your copy is in working condintions.

for one, digital backup
for another, ownership isn't necessarily having a digital copy


of course this is ignoring the philosophical ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that is whether or not ownership in a traditional meaning even makes sense in the digital space, but yeah

[kilésengati]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Not Big Surprise:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 🍋 Lemonfed 🍋:

the only peoples that truly own the games always been those that created them.

even with a physical copy , you merely own a license that last for as long as your copy is in working condintions.

for one, digital backup
for another, ownership isn't necessarily having a digital copy


of course this is ignoring the philosophical ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that is whether or not ownership in a traditional meaning even makes sense in the digital space, but yeah

Digital backup is difficult, if not impossible, if it has the wrong type of DRM (all DRM is wrong!) on it and risks of losing it ain't spread.

[Not Big Surprise]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von kilésengati:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Not Big Surprise:

for one, digital backup
for another, ownership isn't necessarily having a digital copy


of course this is ignoring the philosophical ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that is whether or not ownership in a traditional meaning even makes sense in the digital space, but yeah

Digital backup is difficult, if not impossible, if it has the wrong type of DRM (all DRM is wrong!) on it and risks of losing it ain't spread.

fair point

[ValentB]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Nx Machina:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von William Shakesman:

If you don't own your games, piracy cannot be called theft.

Of course it is as you are stealing from the developer, publisher by not paying for the product.

And when they are stealing stuff I paid for?

Reminder that Ubisoft outright deleted Deluxe content for first uPlay games (2010-11) because they couldn't bother with simple unlocking stuff for all.

They also wanted to remove full game AC Liberation from our libraries without even offering "upgrade" to Demaster.

[Sigma957]

"as long as STEAM exists" is nothing to champion. At least with GOG even if they no longer exist I will have my offline installers all safely backed up offline. I can even put them on the more resilient Blu-Ray discs that are hard to scratch.

[Sigma957]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 🍋 Lemonfed 🍋:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Not Big Surprise:

yknow, technically speaking, you're not actually buying a game
you're buying a license for a game

this has implications that i will not go into

the only peoples that truly own the games always been those that created them.

even with a physical copy , you merely own a license that last for as long as your copy is in working condintions.

You can clone your physical copy if it's on a disc (♥♥♥♥ out of luck for cartridges).

[kilésengati]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sigma957:

"as long as STEAM exists" is nothing to champion. At least with GOG even if they no longer exist I will have my offline installers all safely backed up offline. I can even put them on the more resilient Blu-Ray discs that are hard to scratch.

Unfortunately, they are slowly reintroducing DRM. First for online games, now for singleplayer goodies. GOG/CDP started to slowly become what they swore to destroy when they started seeking out investors a couple of years ago, just a matter of time until they fully embrace DRM again to appease ESG investors.

Fortunately, they are more reliable alternatives.

[WhiteKnight77]

There is a reason why I do not buy games from Ubi anymore and haven't for at least 10 years.

[eram]

if you dont own the games you pay for then pirating isnt stealing

- a random user on the internet

[Vitdom]

They are not going to own my money that's for sure.
But I kind of like the idea of playing games without owning them.
I might take another look at their games.

[Krypto]

This isn't exactly new. It's been going this way for more than a decade. Once you needed to install games onto your hard drive to play them on console, that was the first sign.

[RaccoonBiceps.♡]

Ubisoft rn: 🤓🤓🤓💸💸💸💸