 Do you guys like owning your games? It is a serious question. And one that I think is always important to talk about as we head into the launch of a new platform. And we presume we're gonna get a Nintendo Switch 2 here in 2024. And with that being the case, this is a question that it's gonna be on a lot of people's minds heading in. Some of us worry about subscriptions and all digital futures. And some people even criticize Nintendo over NSO, a subscription service, because it took away your ability to buy individual games like Virtual Console. So it's quite interesting. Now, if you actually know the legalities around everything, you will know that at least here in the United States, video games are considered pieces of software, which is technically what they are. And as pieces of software, you can't actually own the software. You can own a license key for that software. So it's just like when you buy Windows 11 or whatever. You don't own Windows 11. You own a license key to use Windows 11 that can always be revoked. The same thing is true with video games. You don't really own the game. You own a key to use said game that could be revoked. Now, when you buy games physically, we all know it's pretty hard to remove your access key and block a game physically on your system. It can be done, especially if it's a game that requires using the internet all the time. We got massively multiplayer game. We got Call of Duty. Absolutely, they could find ways to block your physical disc or physical cartridge or whatever from working, but it's pretty rare. And a lot of us, at least Nintendo fans, we play a lot of single player games that maybe don't necessarily require internet. And so because of that, if you own a physical copy, it's pretty hard from the do anything about it. Now, digitally, they can obviously rip your digital rights away, but physically, it's not really something that we need to worry about that much. It's been very difficult to enforce these license key practices on physical copies of games. Hence why you can resell them and sell them on eBay, GameStop, wherever the heck you wanna sell your games at and buy used games as well. And this has been true the entire time, dating all the way back to the very first cartridges on Atari and all of that stuff. So look, this isn't actually new, is what I'm trying to say. We've all technically lived in this reality for a long time, just as digital purchases and subscription services get more and more popular like Game Pass, it is something where people are worried someday the option to actually own your games may go away. And you know what? You know who's telling you that you need to start worrying about that? Ubisoft, everyone's best friend, right? Let's see what they had to say. As they're trying to let us know, hey, gamers, you just shouldn't care about owning games. In fact, get used to it and you see in Ubisoft execs as gamers need to get comfortable not owning their games for subscriptions to take off. So the context is gamers gotta be comfortable with it before anything really happens. But let's dive in. An executive at Assassin's Creed maker, Ubisoft, has said gamers will need to get comfortable not owning their games before video game subscriptions truly take off. Speaking to discuss the launch of Ubisoft's new Ubisoft plus premium and Ubisoft plus classics subscription, Philip Tremblay, director of subscriptions at Ubisoft explained to gaming industry.biz what needs to happen before subscription services become a more significant slice of the video game business. I don't have a crystal ball, but when you look at different subscription services that are out there, we've had a rapid expansion over the last couple of years but it's still relatively small compared to other models. Goes on to say we're seeing expansion on consoles as the likes of PlayStation and Xbox bring new people in on PC from an Ubisoft standpoint. It's already been great. But we are looking to reach out more on PC so we see opportunity there. 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 get 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 all about feeling comfortable with not owning your game. 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 services will continue, and you'll be able to access them when you feel like it. That's reassuring. Streaming is also a thing that works really well with subscription. So you pay when you need it as opposed to paying all the time. Now, look guys. I understand where Mr. Tremblay is coming from. He's not saying that we just need to outright stop caring about owning games. He's already saying for subscription services to really take off, it is an aspect that we need to let go of. Personally, I think it's a little ridiculous to expect us to let go of it. When you think about even the streaming services like Netflix and all of this and the physical media, guess what? You can still buy DVDs and Blu-rays. You can also still buy music CDs. That's still a thing that you can actually purchase, believe it or not. And I don't just mean digital versions. I mean physical copies. Now look, they're not always ready to be available and you're not gonna walk into your local Walmart and find every Blu-ray and every latest CD and stuff like that. But online, you absolutely can find the latest albums physically. You can find the latest, greatest movies physically, even ones that end up on Netflix and stuff. If they get big enough, they end up getting physical copies that you can buy online. So it's kind of weird where he thinks there can't be a shared universe of subscription services and physical purchases because that's exactly what exists in the music and movie industry. It's a shared industry. Everything isn't subscription. Physical is very much still a thing. So I don't really know why we have to accept not owning games, even though I know technically we just own a license. Still, I just don't get it. I don't understand this mentality and I honestly think that it's just a little disrespectful. I will note that the full report, not all the headlines you're seeing out there, the full, this is why I wanted to read IGN's article because a lot of the other ones are a headline beta new and the thing in Ubisoft is basically saying you shouldn't care and treating gamers like crap. And that's not really what they're saying. This person is just the person who leads Ubisoft subscription services and he thinks the only way their services can really blow up the way they want is if people stop caring about this ownership thing. But here's the problem and this is the huge issue with subscription services and I say issue because it's really only an issue for certain services and that would be the fact that when you don't own content and the biggest reason that we buy physical copies or even buy individual digital copies, the biggest reason we do this is because we don't want our access taken away. Even with a digital copy, if you already have it downloaded and installed, chances are no one can take that away from you. Obviously your system can break or whatever and then you won't be able to be downloaded if they removed it off the store. But at least until then you had access just like you had access to your physical copy unless someone snapped your disk in half or whatever, right? The big thing with subscription services is they can just add and remove games at a whim and you won't have any choice on that. That is the part that people really have an issue with subscription game services. Now you might go, why don't they have an issue with this with things like Netflix? Well, all the Netflix original series, none of that stuff leaves Netflix. It's all there. The only ones that even left was this whole daredevil marvel situation after Disney got involved and even all of those shows are back. They're just on a different subscription service but all of Netflix's true original content is still right there on Netflix. The only things that are in and out are the things they don't own rights to like the Mario movies on Netflix right now. It's not going to be on Netflix forever, right? They don't own the rights to it. So that kind of content's always gonna shift in and out but it's a little different when you subscribe to something like an Ubisoft service. You're gonna suspect that every single Ubisoft published game is just gonna remain available in these services but that's not always the case and because games go in and out without the users getting really a lot of say it makes people super nervous to stop buying games and only subscribe for access because again, there's no guarantee the games you truly want to play are always gonna remain there and this is the fundamental issue with all streaming services but especially with video game ones when right now we could just buy the game and keep access even buying it digitally for the most part. Like I bought Age of Empires 4 digitally from Microsoft I'm like 99% sure I'm gonna keep access to that but if I only had to access it through Game Pass do I know it's always gonna be on Game Pass and Game Pass servers are always gonna be up for me to log into and access things? No, but guess what? Right now if my internet goes down because it's the winter and a winter storm hits and I still have electricity but my internet's down I can still play Age of Empires 4. So that is a concern as well like you can't access things without actually being online and I know we live in a world where most of us playing video games are always online anyways but there are times that we're not and we still wanna access our games that's one thing that makes Nintendo Switch so damn popular when I'm playing this in portable mode I rarely have this connected to the internet outside of my home. So it's really cool that I can like go on trips and just play games without worrying about the internet so I don't know. I think that that is maybe a bigger thing than people just accepting they don't own games. I don't know. It's an interesting conversation anyways and I wanted to throw it to you guys today because this is big news and it's you know for us the bigger news is we head into a new generation because new generations always equal refreshes on how we consume and purchase games, right? Like we're probably staring down the barrel of $70 games being a more consistent thing if not the standard pricing on Nintendo Switch 2 we're staring down the Nintendo Switch online service like the expanding into more and more things and we're also staring down the barrel of what's happening with Game Pass and streaming services and how that impacts the whole of gaming. So hey, I just wanna get your thoughts on all of this. What do you think about what the Ubisoft representative said and I'll catch you guys in the next video.