Ubisoft Wants You To Be Comfortable Not Owning Your Games
Ubisoft Wants You To Be Comfortable Not Owning Your Games
The latest rebranding of subscription service Ubisoft+ accompanies the release of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
If paying full price and obtaining a digital copy isn't ownership, then taking that digital copy without paying can't be stealing can it?
I’m not sure how you drew this conclusion, since most people I know consider paying full price to obtain a digital copy to be extremely close to ownership.
I liked Telltale’s Law and Order series. They can’t sell it anymore, but I can still download my digital copy because I bought it full price.
The whole argument in the article is about monthly subscription rentals.
When a contract ending almost caused Sony to remove all Discovery content from users last year, including digital copies of things people had paid full price for, the cracks between buying a digital license and actually owning something that can't be taken away became more visible to a chunk of people. It's something, but it's not ownership, and it can be taken away based on agreements you may have no way of gaining insight into.
Oh I'm very comfortable with it. In fact I haven't owned a Ubisoft game in many, many years, and I wasn't about to change that.
They should get comfortable with me downloading cracked versions of their games.
The developers that come out and tell people "pirate our game and if you like it consider buying when you can" will always get my money.
Developers who tell us we own nothing and should be pleased about it can get my steel and cannonballs, cause this ship is ready to set sail.
A-fucken-hoy matey! 🏴☠️ May the seas bless your sails today.
If your games are on steam, you're already not owning them. The only difference seems to be that steam doesn't demand a monthly subscription cost, yet
We already have game pass so it's not like this is something completely new either.
If this makes money, other big publishers will join and in 10 years it's the norm.
Personally, I'll try my best to keep buying on GOG and itch.io where I get to actually own my games.
Agree, I own a lot of games in Steam but most come from bundles or were not bought a full price. I do buy full price games on GOG because I can have a backup offline.
The only difference is a huge difference though. Pay once for a game that you can access anytime versus paying continuously for the rest of your life to keep access to a game.
Some games are not worth keeping access to and subscription may end up being cheaper, but it is trading one benefit for another.
The only difference seems to be that steam doesn’t demand a monthly subscription cost, yet
Which Ubisoft isn't doing either. This is just Ubisoft's gamepass style subscription, which has been available for a few years now, it's just getting a 2 tier pricing model.
I'm not enough of a Linux user to inconvenience myself so I'm just using Steam. The cloud sync is the killer feature for me - if GOG had something like it even if I have to pay extra, I'd so use it.
If your games are on steam, you're already not owning them
Almost as if all the "evil" in the game's industry Valve started.
We did it guys, we found the source of corporate greed!
Oh, fear not Ubisoft, I'm perfectly comfortable never owning any of your games again. Ever. Eat shit.
Well I'm comfortable not buying any of theirs. They're in my steam ignore list along with EA 🖕🖕
Ubisoft disable multiplayer in games like splinter cell and then have the nerve to charge you 20 ducats for a 10 year old game with only half the gameplay requiring a shitty launcher and with glaring bugs that they just didn't bother to address.
As for the future. There is still emulation. So stock up 😉
I’m comfortable with not “owning” the games I pirate.
Your move, Ubisoft.
I want ubisoft to be comfortable with me not playing their games.
We already don’t own our games, because we can’t sell them. We used to be able to sell and exchange games, but with digital platforms like steam, we don't have the right to sell them anymore, meaning we only bought the right to play the game, not owning it.
You still can, that’s why - outside of a few exceptions - I only buy console games on disc, and sell them later
Not that there are many pro NFT folks here, but even with that approach it's still just a transferrable license that they can change to be meaningless.
Can't sell your organs either... Well, not easily.
If buying isn't ownership then piracy isn't theft.
Buying a CD/DVD was never ownership of the media that's on it. It's ownership of a piece of plastic and a license to play to the content on the plastic within certain limitations. If it was ownership, you would be allowed to project the DVD on a wall and charge patrons to view it, but legally you can't, because you don't own anything but the plastic. Buying a CD/DVD was always just a more convenient version of buying a ticket to a concert/theater to see the same thing. You're paying for the experience of viewing their artwork.
So, as long as you also agree that sneaking into a concert/theater to view a show without paying also isn't theft in any way, then I can't argue.
Blah blah blah. Shove that copyright-maximalist take. You own things, god dammit. Even if you only own your copy of a book, it's not somehow an ink-and-paper license to a copy, it is your copy. That's what ownership means.
If you don't know the difference between individual property and intellectual property, stop spitting at people who do.
Not true. You get personal ownership of the media in it, and even if ripped, you can personally keep it without "unauthorised distribution". These were the 2 keywords they used to use on the rim of every disc. DRM implementations were a method to prevent ripping, but ripping always happens with DVDFab.
Streaming prevents that ripping part, or having it on your personal storage, and the ability to play it forever without an expiration date. The obvious purpose behind it is to gatekeep any media to repeatedly buy it and "consoom". And some of the streaming DRM these days (fuck you Netutv/hqq) prevents 1:1 stream ripping, so screen recording is the only way, or using a HDMI cable with recording output capabilities.
It's rather amusing how everything people fear happening under communism comes to pass under capitalism in one way or another. Turns out that it is the capitalists who aim to strip individuals of their personal property by transforming everything into a rental service. You see, you no longer possess your media, books, computer, phone, or any other device; they've all been transformed into internet-connected subscriptions. The moment you cease paying or when the company decides to discontinue its services, you find yourself in quite an unfortunate predicament.
This is the direction the big companies are looking to move in. This is the direction Microsoft is banking on, too. Even if you like one service more, the end result may be the same. It's a matter of time before we see subscription exclusives.
GamePass subscribers are the pre-orderers and mtx consumers of yesteryear, normalizing the industry to practices harmful to general consumers.
They already fucked me on this years ago. One day I logged into Uplay and Battlefield 3 and my 2 other games were just fucking gone. Haven't touched them with a 10 foot pole since.
What Ubi wants means fuck all to me. Yall wanted us to buy NFT guns too, see how that worked out...
I've been quite comfortable with not owning any new Ubisoft games for a few years now
Piracy is a very noble endeavor to keep alive. Thank you Ubisoft for keeping us on our toes instead of being complacent with trusting digital platforms. Piracy is the true preservation and ownership.
Permanently Deleted
Honestly I don't think the addicted Assassins Creed and Far Cry players care. Too addicted to the endless gameplay loop.
My big problem with quitting assassin's creed is that it's the best representation of what these places looked like hundreds of years ago. I know it's not 100% accurate, but the fact that my wife could guide me around Rome in game because she'd lived there is one of my favorite gaming experiences. Replaying an AC game and reading all of the research has made vacations to places where they're set amazing.
That said, I'm never buying a subscription to games. The second I can't buy the game and have it, I'll stop taking their abuse.
Doesn't matter, saw game on TV, must buy.
I'm quite comfortable not owning Ubisoft games, and have been for years. It helps that other than one Switch game that I have physically, they haven't released anything really worth purchasing.
Has any of the rapists or apologists in ubisoft had any repercussions yet?
Then i am not interested in their games anyway.
I want Ubisoft to be comfortable with the fact that they cannot earn money increasingly every quarter, and they will fall off the cliff very hard.
Yeah, apparently I don't own The Crew 1 anymore.
Agree, I own a lot of games in Steam but most come from bundles or were not bought a full price. I do buy full price games on GOG because I can have a backup offline. hack score match 2023
Do you really own your steam games?
Not even slightly. I tried to explain this concept to my friend some weeks back and he downright refused to believe Steam or other platforms would leave players without their games if they were to go belly-up, for example.
Do we really own any games at all? We own licenses, nothing more. Even if it's on a DVD.
Hehehe no
I bought a copy of Riders Republic on PS4. Before that, I hadn't played a Ubisoft game since AC1. I'm quite comfortable continuing that track record.
@ylai fuck ubisoft. They haven't made a decent game since black flag.
Worked for books and Audible!
They say this but have some of their games on GOG lol
One thing I read (a lot, oddly) is that GamePass is 'really popular'/the most popular 'subscription' service, but I have never met anyone who uses it.
I checked the numbers of people using GamePass, and it seems the numbers have gone:
2021 - 23 million
2022 - 25 million
2023 - there was a brief post on linkedin saying 30 million, but it was removed.
If even the most popular service is struggling to pass 30 million users, how exactly is Ubisoft going to compete? There's what, 120 million people with Xbox subscriptions, and they can barely get 1/4 of them to use GamePass?
It's interesting to watch 'AAA' studios absolutely faceplanting every year now, hopefully we can make a full indie-sweep soon.
All my friends have it. They just want to play the game once and move on