Ubisoft Wants You To Be Comfortable Not Owning Your Games

I’m more comfortable not gaming than never owning anything, I’d probably just stick to playing old games. I don’t pay for ANY streaming services for the same reason. I happily pirate stuff I can’t buy physically, at least with piracy I own SOMETHING, even if it’s just digital files, at least I can do what I want with them.

Yeah, I'll be comfortable not owning my games. Not buying from Ubisoft in the first place. That's the most comfortable arrangement for me.

If you buy a game with DRM or that cannot be played offline, you don't own it.

But to be fair, a lot of games we only play once and never touch it again, so subscriptions can be a good choice for some people.
As an example, when Ubisoft+ has a discount or a free trial, I usually get it play what I want and then cancel it.I played AC Mirage, FC6, the AC Vahalla DLC and several others this way.
But Gamepass is still my favorite.

I was wondering why Valve was not doing it, but that I think about it, like the Game Pass, and other subscriptions, I'd hate to say, but I'd not want it. Now, sure, we don't own the games anyway as they aren't DRM-free, but yeah. At this point, few gamers own little anyway.

Speaking of DRM-free games on Steam, here's a list.

Originally I was going to answer a specific user but I think there are a lot of people making comparisons between what Ubisoft thinks that is the future of the industry, and Steam and even things that have nothing to do with Netflix, so here goes...
Steam is a DRM yes, it is true, but if I buy a game on Steam and I want to play it for only 1 hour in one month and 150 the next I can do it, or if I buy it today and I want to play it up to a year later (I will have my reasons) I can do it, if the game is something like Skyrim or others with hundreds of hours of play, I can play it without any problems whenever I want and however I want without paying a monthly fee.
It is true that you can lose your licenses on Steam, it already happened with Desura , but the day Steam dies it is because something very bad must happen on a global economic level. So the games that I "bought" on Steam or on Epic on Gog (the best of all) I know I'm not going to lose them that easily, but with Ubisoft?, they tried to block the DLC content in several games, if they were not activated before the death of the servers, that has no excuses.
On the other hand, comparing it to a video streaming service doesn't make much sense, they are different consumer experiences, if I miss the last episode of a series because it was removed, well... but losing the progress you have in a game, which ultimately requires a higher level of interactivity and effort from the user, just because the company decides to withdraw the game from the service or because you can't continue paying a monthly fee, I prefer to have a license. That is a great fear that continues to haunt the next Bethesda titles, for example if they implemented something like you can only play Elder Scrolls 6 in gamepass, so you have to pay a monthly fee that in the end may be cost more than the game (or license) itself.
There is a difference between buying a license and renting it, which is what these services seek to do, and as always you will see people willing to defend the abuse of the free market.

it wouldnt be such an issue if they didnt just keep making identical conveyor games with 100 hours of collecting random shit all over the map and microtransactions for cosmetic items in single player games :)

wake me up when they come up with something NEW

I find it surprisingly upfront and honest of them to make such an announcement. Way I see it, there are three type of audiences out there. 1. People like me who think Ubisoft produces reskinned crap and would rather wipe our asses with our money than give it to Ubisoft. This does not affect us at all other than giving us a small laugh. 2. Hardcore Ubisoft loyalists. They just down the formula whatever else happens. At best, this will not affect them at all and they will continue to shovel the crap. At worst, they will feel guilty and stupid about it. 3. The fence-sitters. The casuals who dabble on the odd FC. Good job Ubisoft you just pushed some of these guys away with your attitude. Props for giving me a small laugh though.

The transition this person makes from basically cloud saves to subscription-based gaming is nothing short of gaslighting:

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.

Cloud saves work just fine with games whose licenses you own. So his argument is grade-A bs.

Honestly at this point with how Ubisoft and Rocksteady are heading, it's best to support companies like GOG that actually respect us and our rights of ownership to the products we paid for. How can we do that for GOG? is a question I'd like an answer to.

Buying but not owning = renting.

Well, the feeling is mutual: I want Ubisoft to be comfortable with never getting any Cent from me again.

GOG shared a tweet. :)

You should feel extremely comfortable with owning your games on GOG (they're DRM-free) :)

lol when I saw the "game changing news" email I thought for sure all their games were going subscription based and I was not far from it.

I'm pretty sure they actually intend on not selling their games anymore at some point in the future but they are not sure it will work so they are gauging interest with this scheme, which is, btw, the exact same thing Origin did when they launched their service before Ubisoft launched theirs at a higher price for fewer games.

And the best part is that they have been trying that same BS strategy, and failing, with Rocksmith+ and yet they are still hoping to get the same model going for all their games XD

There is nothing quite like the French's very own brand of optimism.

They are constantly trying to relaunch, rebrand and repurpose a subscription service that is so bad and expensive it doesn't even make the "top 10 games subscription services" and I have never even heard of 3 or 4 of those, and they even included Amazon and Humble Choice XD

kinda glad Valve is not publicly traded.

They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection.

Yeah, because movies and music albums don't usually last longer than 2-3 hours.

"Players should comfortable with not buying their games."
Thanks Ubisuck! Now I can feel "comfortable" spend my time and money on other worthy games.

I'm very comfortable not owning any more Ubisoft games

Just watched a video of SidAlpha concerning Ubi's latest fuckery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAMhCZ45d8g

He brings up an aspect which wasn't discussed here already as far as I could see. While subscription models may offer you a slew of games on the cheap those games will be not very innovative or creative as big game companies have another word for innovation and creativity: they call it risk.

We see this in the formulaic iterations of their franchises already. If you like to support this tendency go for subscriptions.

ubisoft+ with 1 new game per year? no thanks

start treatening Steam users like other platforms you publish on(achievements etc) then we can talk

We don't own any games on Steam, Sony, Xbox, etc. that were purchased digitally anyway. Only GoG on PC gives you DRM free version of a game, but you do need to burn it to a disk or back it up somewhere to "own" it, just in case GoG goes out. But yeah, any game you bought digitally, you don't own. I wish more people were actually aware of this. On PC this has been the case ever since Steam became big. I still remember not knowing how to install my Orange Box because instead of doing it via disk, I had to enter my key and download it. I was quite the stupid little computer slav back then. And nothing changed, you still need the key to "own" the game. If you go and buy any PC game, you get a fake disk and a code.

As for this Ubisoft talk, I don't see anything wrong with what was said. Are people oblivious to the fact Cloud gaming is what MS and Sony both are very interested in, and that it will be very much a subscription service? Or is this just "Ubisoft bad" thing. Subscriptions and "not owning" (which 99.9% of us don't already) the games we play seems to be where gaming is heading. More money is to be had in companies getting a steady monthly income from players. That's why there are tons of battle passes and such crap in games. They will find the same way to extract money from us and we will accept it, just like we did with MTX and all that crap. I hope this isn't what will happen, but it's clear that Cloud gaming is the future. You'll just need a TV or monitor (which all of us have), an internet connection, and an account. That's it. I think you can already play Xbox games on PC via their ultimate subscription, which has their Cloud gaming thing. Dunno how good it is.

So, ye, I'm already comfortable with not owning any game in my Steam library. But I don't see Steam imploding anytime soon. Yet, weirder things have happened, so who knows what will happen in the future. Not me, that's for sure. So, gonna enjoy my not owned games as long as I can.

Also, I know it's cool to clown on Ubisoft all the time, but remember that they very much influenced many games with their design. And not only that, they were the first company to actually put microtranscations in a single player game (I believe it was Black Flag), the time savers. And since then, just look how far they pushed it. In Valhalla, they offer some stupid cosmetic shit for real money. You can't earn it in the game, you have to buy it. And they wouldn't do this if it wasn't making them money. So, clown them all you want, but they are the ones to pave ways for change in certain areas. Even Capcom has followed their shtick, selling "cheats" to players for real money.

"So it’s about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.".
Yes Steam taught us for this long time ago. We are won subscribes on SG, not games ownership.

ubisoft can take that idea, orient it vertically, and sit on it.

The same company wants you to be comfortable with getting your unused account deleted and also not getting any DLCs for Heroes 3 on Steam.

CEOs of big companies should get comfortable with the idea that they are the easiest to replace with AI.

According to my opinion, i want owning games. If i pay any services like ubisoft+ , i have to play that month (for monthly) so i have to finish that month and i will boring and never satisfied. Its like kinda slavery. If i cant finish game, another month i should finish so i have to pay 1 year service etc... Already ubisoft gives 20% discount if you get progress in achivements (100 points = 20% discount) Its not logical to pay services.