Ubisoft wants players to “feel comfortable not owning the game”

Ubisoft’s Director of Subscriptions Philippe Trumbull believes that players need to get used to the fact that they may not own games and that the gaming industry is moving in the same direction as the movie industry – subscription services. He spoke about this in an interview with GameIndustry.biz.

Ubisoft has rebranded its subscription service and now Ubisoft+ Premium is the main option, where users can get access to the company’s entire library for $17.99 per month, including premium versions of the company’s latest releases, such as Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

Another plan is Classic, which for $7.99 per month can offer access to a library of classic games, including Far Cry 6 and Rainbow Six: Siege.

In general, Philippe Tremblay believes that users should feel comfortable with the fact that they will not own games but will use subscription services. He compared the transition to a subscription system to how players once abandoned physical disks in favor of digital versions of games.

“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.”

The point of Philip’s words is that players, although they won’t own the game, will still have constant access to it, and their progress will be saved, so there are minimal risks. Although it is possible to argue here, if we take into account all those old classic games that have been removed from sale, and there are no guarantees that certain projects will not be removed from subscription services in the future.

He also said that game streaming is also an important part of the success of subscriptions, and that the company is actively working in this direction. It is also worth noting that Ubisoft received the rights to stream Activision Blizzard games as a result of a deal with Microsoft.