A decade ago then President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Jack Tretton, was met with a thunderous applause from the crowd at E3 2013. He gave a speech about how the then upcoming PlayStation 4 allowed users to play their system without needing an online connection and that games could be shared with friends, without any strings attached.
This was in light of the disastrous announcement of Microsoft’s Xbox One, which required users to always be connected through an internet connection as well as the process of sharing games being more complicated than trying to explain a comic book universe.
These decisions would soon result in Don Mattrick, the head of Xbox, leaving Microsoft and being replaced with Phil Spencer in 2014. Ten years later, Ubisoft’s Director of Subscriptions, is finding himself in a very similar position, but in a very different world.
A screenshot of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (2024), Ubisoft
Tremblay is currently under fire from gamers, journalists, and YouTube creators after his comments regarding their newly rebranded subscription service, Ubisoft+ Premium. While discussing the changing landscape of the industry fluctuating from a physical media ownership society to a subscription based streaming culture, he made comments about how, he felt, gaming was going at a slower pace.
“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,” Phillippe told Games Industry. “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.”
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Mirage (2023), Ubisoft
It seems that Tremblay, like many, believes that the future will be an almost entirely subscription based medium, which has come under fire from many gamers across the nation as many fear that society is heading too far in a direction without ownership for them and their future offspring. We have seen this model in housing, movies, work applications and now it seems like gaming is next in line in the eyes of Ubisoft.
“I don’t have a crystal ball, but when you look at the 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 the other models,” he said. “We’re seeing expansion on console as the likes of PlayStation and Xbox bring new people in. On PC, from a Ubisoft standpoint, it’s already been great, but we are looking to reach out more on PC, so we see opportunity there.”
A screenshot from Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (2023), Ubisoft
Tremblay’s comments have resulted in social media backlash, very similar to the Xbox One controversies of 2013 and 2014, however, it is very easy to see how there is now even less ownership than when those, even bigger, controversies first appeared.
In 2013, while still Head of Xbox, Don Mattrick famously said, “We have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity; it’s called Xbox 360.”
It can be viewed as very similar to what is happening in modern reality. As the echoes of Mattrick’s comments show what measures companies will take to maintain profits in a struggling economy, gamers are left wondering if they will ever be able to return to the days of buying and owning a game with ample levels of free content that can be easily shared with friends and family.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
The backlash of Philippe Tremblay’s comments, has resulted in a popular meme which states variations of, “If paying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.”
Ubisoft has been on this subscription based track for a long time. The long running Just Dance series’ latest installment physical release didn’t even come with a game inside. Instead Just Dance 2023 came with a download link. In a gaming culture concerned with game preservation which sees various online stores that are run by the gaming companies, routinely shutting down over the past decade, who knows if this game will be playable in the near future.
Only the public can truly decide where the future lies. Boycotts have been a laughable topic over the past such as the Sonic the Hedgehog 4 boycott in 2010 and the most recent attempt against J.K. Rowling with the newest Harry Potter game, Hogwarts Legacy, but with giants such as Disney and Bud Light seeing massive losses from customers refusing to support these major distributors and symbols of the culture, it makes you wonder where the consumer and seller relation is heading.
NEXT: Can Nintendo Retain The Video Game Crown With Their Next Console?
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