Ubisoft & Getting Used To Not Owning Things

An interview with someone on behalf of a corporation will inevitably be bloodless. That’s not a criticism, it’s an appropriate approach from someone looking to appeal to as many people as they can while offending as few as possible. But something about the interview of Mr. Philippe Tremblay, Director of subscriptions for Ubisoft, for GamesIndustry.biz was somehow blood curdling.

The interview covers some questions about how the publishing giant sees their future in games with subscription services; specifically the Ubisoft+ service. Now as uninteresting as that sounds, Mr. Tremblay has something to say on the notion of ownership.

When asked about how the subscription service sector of the games industry might grow, Mr.

Tremblay said:

‘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.’

The word comfortable comes up a lot in this particular part of the interview. Mr. Temblay recognises that a not unsubstantial portion of Ubisoft’s customers are comfortableowning ‘their’ own games. Isn’t that a strange idea? How is it a videogame could be mine (he uses the possessive ‘their’) but I don’t own it? Anyone familiar with what I (and others) have expressed on the subject knows that what we’re talking about here is the degradation ownership within the hobby of videogames. The concept that you might buy a game, but you don’t really own it; you’re just licencing it until the actual owner (the publisher) decides you don’t licence it any more.

We saw the same problem a little while ago with Playstation and the issue with Discovery TV shows disappearing from Sony’s service even after people paid for those shows. Then there was Polymega’s very recent removal of digital games that were packed-in with the base unit console, even though those same games seemed to be advertised as part of what fans were purchasing. The list of such instances, whether licencing deals expiring, systems glitching or companies just removing games from people could be much longer, but you get the idea.

Later Mr. Tremblay said:

‘I still have two boxes of DVDs. I definitely understand the gamers perspective with that. But as people embrace that model, they will see that these games will exist, the service will continue, and you’ll be able to access them when you feel like. That’s reassuring.’

None of this is Mr. Tremblay’s particular preference for the state of the games industry going forward; he’s just a gentleman doing his job as best he can, I’m quite sure. But I wonder, after he carried out this interview, did he at any point ask himself why he still owns physical DVDs? Streaming services make things so much easier—that’s what I’m told anyway. I can think of a lot of reasons why someone might want to own property.

For me videogames are my hobby, collecting and playing. Maybe others don’t want to see their games suddenly removed, or maybe they see value in having something physical that they can share with others or enjoy themselves through display and the tangible sensation of holding a cartridge, case or manual. Or maybe some of the games in their collection hold sentimental value to them because of memories they share with family playing them. I don’t think it likely too many people will feel that way about their Netflix or Ubisoft+ subscriptions in decades to come, and I think that people, and the hobby, will be worse off for it.

Playing videogames, writing about videogames, considering videogames—that about sums it up. Videogames are the one hobby that I’ve kept since I was only little, zapping ducks on the NES or knocking out MR. X. And when I’m not enjoying classics from the bit generation of games or checking out those earliest of polygons, I’m probably playing something from today’s age of modern gaming: if I’m not complaining about it. Something I’m doing at the moment? Collecting Legendary Pokemon that I missed in Arceus and Sword the first time around.