Ubisoft Says It Out Loud: We Want People To Get Used To Not Owning What They’ve Bought

Business Models

from the assasin's-plea dept

We’ve done a metric ton of posts here over the years pointing out one unfortunate trend that has come along with the move from physical products to digital purchases: you don’t own what you’ve bought. In some cases, it’s you don’t own what you think you’ve bought, because nobody actually reads EULAs and all the documentation that comes with buying things online these days, and often buried in all of that is where the language about how things are licensed, rather than owned, are. Still, the fact is that the public too often doesn’t understand how it happens that products stop working the way they did after updates are performed remotely, or why movies purchased through an online store suddenly disappear with no refund, or why other media types purchased online likewise go poof. There is a severe misalignment, in other words, between what consumers think their money is being spent on and what is actually being purchased.

And I’ll admit at the onset of this that I think a huge part of the problem is how coy companies selling these goods, digital or otherwise, tend to be about all of this. They’ll often respond when the public gets pissed to explain the why behind all of these altered or disappeared purchases, but the proactive communication is all buried in verbiage nobody reads. And so to that end, I suppose it’s at least a bit refreshing to see Ubisoft come out here and just say the quiet part out loud.

With the pre-release of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown started, Ubisoft has chosen this week to rebrand its Ubisoft+ subscription services, and introduce a PC version of the “Classics” tier at a lower price. And a big part of this, says the publisher’s director of subscriptions, Philippe Tremblay, is getting players “comfortable” with not owning their games.

He claims the company’s subscription service had its biggest ever month October 2023, and that the service has had “millions” of subscribers, and “over half a billion hours” played. Of course, a lot of this could be a result of Ubisoft’s various moments of refusing to release games to Steam, forcing PC players to use its services, and likely opting for a month’s subscription rather than the full price of the game they were looking to buy. But still, clearly people are opting to use it.

On the one hand, there are realms where it makes sense for a subscription based gaming service where you pay a monthly fee for access and essentially never buy a game. Xbox’s Game Pass, for instance, makes all the sense in the world for some people. If you’re a more casual gamer who doesn’t want to own a library of games, but rather merely wants to be able to play a broad swath of titles at a moment’s notice, a service like that is perfect.

But Game Pass is $10 a month and includes titles from all kinds of publishers. Ubisoft’s service is nearly double that rate and only includes Ubisoft titles. That’s a much tougher sell. And a tougher sell still might be pitching to the wider public that they’re thinking about game ownership all wrong, especially when you can’t even get the verbiage right.

What’s more chilling about all this, however, is when Tremblay moves on to how Ubisoft wishes to see a “consumer shift,” similar to that of the market for CDs and DVDs, where people have moved over to Spotify and Netflix, instead of buying physical media to keep on their own shelves. Given that most people, while being a part of the problem (hello), also think of this as a problem, it’s so weird to see it phrased as if some faulty thinking in the company’s audience.

“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.“

That last sentence’s thoughts are so misaligned as to be nearly in the realm of nonsense. If it’s my game, then I do own it. The point Ubisoft is trying to make is that the public should get over ownership entirely and accept that it’s not my game at all. It’s my subscription service.

And while I appreciate Ubisoft saying the quiet part out loud for once, I don’t believe for a moment that this will go over well with the general gaming public.

Filed Under: copyright, licenses, ownership, philippe tremblay, prince of persia, subscriptions, video games
Companies: ubisoft