yesterday i was sent an article on something an ubisoft exec said this ""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. 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." there was more to it of course but this was the primary gist of it, this guy is a scumbag, i won't be nice about it and i won't tone myself down for parasites like this, this mentality is disgusting and its almost like even he knows this but because he's so intent on making money and his own ego that he doesn't care how he damages art in the process, which is for sure a real certified ubisoft moment if i've ever seen one, the proliferation of sub services is the death of ownership, it's nice to see them at least admit to this instead of pretending that digital games are any real form of ownership, it wasn't just this that got me thinking, that same day i also saw an article that stated that a local games retail chain, GAME, will stop doing tradeins and used games, for comparison this is basically like what would happen if gamestop stopped selling used games so it's kind of a big deal for anyone that still shops there, they'll still sell new games sure but it's just not the same and it's a sign of things to come with both coming about at the same time.

while it makes sense that this would happen eventually i am disheartened to see things like this come about so soon, sure we will have CEX but with game stopping this its likely that the deals in CEX will get worse and really any hit for physical games at this point is a loss, period, i started this year with a lot of hope for this years physical games, and while we are still getting some fantastic releases from companies like LRG with things like rocket knight, princess farmer and tiger heli and we got some stuff from places like EAS with their hakuoki compilation but news like this has just been so consistantly bad that it's been more and more dire feeling, subscriptions will never be a good enough replacement for ownership but it feels like we're slowly on our way into it being enforced or the norm, games released this way will just end up being more expensive as we have to keep up with multiple services on top of already absurd console prices and its not like these games will always be available, look at ubisoft for a perfect example with the crew, a game that in 2 months will be unplayable despite it being on ubisofts sub service, so much for continuing service and acess, this alone proves how much of a lie the whole thing is, sure the physical copies will be broken too for this game because of the DRM, but what is a sub service but enforced DRM for every game, with every exclusive sub service game being destined to one day be lost media just like your average stadia game. for as much as i wish it wasn't the future it can feel that's the way they will try and push things and as we've seen with dvds and netflix, most people are likely to pick conveniance over rights and ownership, i won't and i will not partake in this future but for most people, he may be right in that they won't care as long as they get cheap day one gamepass games, just look at any given xbox thread on places like era with waves of "waiting for gamepass" posts, it's depressing and one of the reasons why i stopped checking the wider games space, the people who genuinely care are a dwindling minority, but i like to hope we can be a little more vocal in our disgust at the practices of these companies because i hope we can at least keep it slowed enough to get us to the end of the generation, i won't be partaking in next gen because of issues around AI and the fact it will very likely be digital only if things go the way they do but i would like to make this final gen for me at least a good one, go out on a high note!