Yesterday, Ubisoft announced some changes to its subscription services, Premium and Classics. GamesIndustry.biz had the opportunity to interview the company’s Director of Subscriptions, Philippe Tremblay, who noted that gamers are still clinging to physically owning their games, unlike music or movie fans. This could be a factor in the slower-than-anticipated adoption of cloud and subscription services.
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. 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.
To be fair, full-game digital sales have been steadily increasing on a yearly basis. It’s just cloud and subscription, especially the former, that are still lagging behind growth forecasts.
Regarding streaming, Ubisoft’s Tremblay said:
It’s getting there. Just not as fast as we thought. When you are in a good city with good internet, it’s fantastic. But it’s not the case for everyone. The Nvidia experience, for example, is fantastic, but we thought it would go faster. We’ve learned a lot by working with these services, and we’re using that experience to enhance what we’re doing.
Still, Ubisoft is all in when it comes to streaming games via cloud, as evidenced by their decision to purchase the cloud rights for the next fifteen years of Activision Blizzard’s games from Microsoft.
