Note that this blog uses explicit "curse" words, for those who care about that sort of thing:
https://conflictingviews.wordpress.com/2019/06/29/gamers-want-access-over-ownership-ea-of-course/

I echo much of the sentiments written in this entry. My version of events is that once gaming became mainstream, the decline into anticonsumer practices, particularly removal of user control, was inevitable. Sure, copy protection may have existed back in the day, but that was nothing compared to needing to go online to play a game that was unplayable without online. And unfortunately I only see things getting worse.

A point where I disagree with the author is the DLC/preorder culture. I am no longer as opposed to this for DRM-free games since I think these games need as much monetary support as possible (also why I feel GOG should add a "manufacturer price + pay what you want additional to support the dev/pub/GOG" option). I do disapprove of when content is obviously removed from the base game.

I could post more thoughts but curious to hear any of yours.

I think alot of people here are going to share the same opinion about EA. I personally have maintained a personal boycott on EA products since Command and Conquer 4 and the years following have rendered my feelings proof positive, I am a bit miffed that took a star wars game to wake people up to EA's bull.

Some of the more recent idiotic things EA has said like the "surprise mechanics" and the more recent " I dont get why people think we are the bad guys" has made me laugh heartily though.

I couldn't stand the writing style of that blog for the whole thing, but I think the EA guy is right that consumers have shown a preference for subscriptions and online services and are willing to give up ownership for them. The success of Steam, Netflix and other such things prove that. Heck even back in the 80s and 90s most people rented movies and games from their local Blockbuster. It was kind of an outlier that we went through a period of heavy ownership with DVD and PS2-4 era consoles. The average consumer couldn't care less if they own something or not, outside of maybe some key favorites.

This bums me out but it is what it is, I can't change it. We can only hope that enthusiasts who want to download and "own" games continue to spend enough that it justifies supporting our niche once game subscriptions and whatnot take over, which I think is inevitable.

With a movie it rarely can happen that you start watching it stop for some reason and by the time you have time to finish the movie it's already gone from the service. With games this is a real danger, what if you've invested 150 hours in The Witcher 3, you had some IRL issues and want to continue a few days/weeks later, just to notice that the game is gone from Stadia/whatever. Good luck!

Agreed, though it's something sadly true in many areas including consolization of formerly PC-exclusive titles and the way the multi-player "community" has ended up rife with cheaters, trolls, griefers, etc. Every time a "deownership event" happens, eg, publishers succeeding in killing off the second-hand gaming market then requiring Internet connections for single-player "for your convenience", etc, it's always been yet another step on the ladder of de-ownership (the real publisher end game) rather than a one-off event. And because it's broken up into steps rather than done all at once, many gamers (who otherwise like to believe are intelligent but are regularly some of the most naive and short-sighted people on the planet) fail to see the pattern until it's too late to be reversed.

As for EA, the last game I bought was Dragon Age Origins, and the only reason that was so good is that is was mostly 3/4 completed by "old school" Bioware before they were acquired and thus too late in the day for EA to screw anything of substance up. See Dragon Age 2 for the perfect example of what direction that changed into... I agree with him on that. Due to the "DLC culture" (as in "a widespread expectation that every AAA game 'must' have it"), that's resulted in stupid stuff like Deus Ex:HR style "DLC" which was just chapter 6 of 8 split off and sold separately at a premium (so obviously so that when it was re-merged into the Directors Cut, most people who never played the original didn't even know it was DLC). Or worse Square-Enix's DX:MD's "per-play DLC", where you're expected to rebuy the same content each time you replay it. There is positive DLC out there but the actual "culture" that's sprung up around DLC, micro-transactions, loot-boxes, etc, has enabled a lot of anti-consumer garbage and made a lot of games feel far more trashy.

Likewise pre-ordering plus review embargoes habituates people into making uninformed purchase decisions (vs informed ones which = waiting for reviews before paying), which in turn has a negative effect on QA (why pay to hire QA testers to fix bugs pre-release when you can get pre-orderers to pay you to become unpaid patch beta-testers...) The "candy" that "sweetens" the deal is dumb stuff like pre-order "booster packs" (glorified pay2cheat). And even then it spawns off other egotistical cr*p like "tiered pre-orders" (Square Enix's Mankind Divided again). On an individual level, it may be personal choice, but on a industry level the negatives of trashy 'booster pack rewards' or lazy bug-saturated releases (due to threatening reviewers into hyping only the positive but not mentioning the negatives via embargoes) far outweigh the positives in "normalizing" it as a cultural habit.

This one don't like subscriptions, cloud streaming and surprise mechanics and he will never use that crap. Given how EA, Activision, 2K etc has gone down the deep end with this shit he's happy with this choice and hope more people will see how not caring about this and using it is like shooting yourself in the foot.

They enjoy stripping away consumer choice slowly like the government does with your rights, slowly but surely so fewer notice.

I don't think Steam proves it at all. Whenever I talk with Steam users that I know personally (e.g. a few guys from my previous workplaces), they always seem to assume nothing could ever happen to their Steam games, as if Valve is obliged to grant them access to the games they have bought through the service.

Also the way people still parrot the old line "Gaben has promised to make all games available if Steam ever closed down" suggests people still believe there is some universal law that forces the service providers and/or publishers to grant access to the games, forever. As if they have no choice.

I recall when I raised the point with one of my former colleagues, a Steam user, "How can you play your purchased Steam games if the Steam service closes down at some point?". He didn't say anything like "It is not going to ever happen" or "I am sure Steam will make the games available to me somehow, they have to" or "Oh I have thought about it, and frankly I couldn't care less even if I lost access to my Steam games".

No, instead he went completely speechless, and I could literally see a big shining !!! sign over his head, as if "Wow, I've never really thought about that... Damn.".

As for Netflix, in my opinion movies and TV series are quite different to games, regarding ownership. After all, people have gone to movies for decades to see a movie only once, not thinking they somehow "own" the movie after that. Generally, games take much longer to finish than a 2h movie or a 1h TV series episode, and especially with TV series (which seem to be Netflix' real bread and butter, much more so than Hollywood movies) tend to be much more about "watch once and never come back to it".

Games are more involved, people even replay games trying different things, sometimes create their own content to games (building levels in Minecraft is a prime example), and just take longer to finish. I think there is generally much more interest towards "ownership" and continued access to the purchased content with games, than with movies and especially TV series.

Anyway, if and when some service provider comes with a competitively priced gaming service where you e.g. can play as much as you want and as many games as you want for a fixed monthly price, I am sure there are lots of gamers who are willing to go with it.

EA is getting desperate, so are a lot of other companies. cant wait till they sink further due to bioware and dragon age.

^ The problem with this is that gamers are ludicrously naive in what they think they want (the gaming equivalent of video / audio streaming) is not what they'll end up with. Eg, Netflix and Spotify are streaming services with "static" content. You may not own the content but you'll also generally get the same content as a DVD, Blu-Ray or CD and do so every time. The real "End Game" for game-streaming is this stuff:-

https://www.pcgamesn.com/ea-matchmaking-microtransactions-eomm-engagement-patent
https://www.pcgamesn.com/activision-microtransaction-matchmaking-patent
https://www.techpowerup.com/240655/leaked-ai-powered-game-revenue-model-paper-foretells-a-dystopian-nightmare

Basically once those micro-transaction loving publishers have all the code server-side, they'll start implementing stuff they've already patented like Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment, or DLC Driven Matchmaking with almost everything been done to alter gameplay itself to drive more in-game purchases. Want to be matched vs someone of equal skill? Nope, we'll match you with someone who bought more equipment and then encourage you to buy equipment that 'coincidentally' counters theirs before the game starts. Game detects shotgun is your favorite weapon? AI then decides to cease all future shotgun weapon drops, adjust the upcoming boss so he's immune to anything but shotguns slightly more powerful than what you've got, then present the option of purchasing that Golden Shotgun required to kill him at just the right moment (or force too much grind if you don't...)

This is the real 'end game' of where cloud gaming will end up 10 years down the line as the content is naturally dynamic not static, and it far more resembles the future of TV in Idiocracy than it does today's gamers 'expecting' publishers to stop at only the equivalent of Netflix or Spotify when they've already shown their true intentions via what they've patented 'for future use'...

https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=56

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ9CS0KUZvY

That is truly frightening, because it is credible. I doubt it would be successful if implemented now, but —— as you say —— the slowly-boiling frog will realize only too late what has happened.

Personally, I own all the entertainment I watch / listen to / play. I have noticed the always-online aims of content developers, and I am just not interested.

But what if the experience was truly profound. What if it were possible to imbue the customer with, say, a mother's ineffable contemplation at her newborn, seconds after the birth? Or the awe Buzz Aldrin felt as he saw the Earthrise for the first time in human history?

The crucial time will be, in the near future, when developers have enough server-side power to offer a truly remarkable gaming experience (think some sort of Matrix-style virtual world, with a Augmented Reality 2.0 plug-in) that will only work for a connected customer. (Like the Better-Than-Life stimulant input technological implants that mirror drugs in Shadowrun, only developed for community use, like the Communion in Dragonfall.) This represents the easiest clawback for investment, the best guarantee of ROI (using tried and tested dopamine triggers, ã la Facebook) that minimizes entry costs and maximizes profit.

All of the games we have now are just the kindergarten amusements; eventually people will be happy to pay their ticket price for a truly awesome experience, like a Disney ride, where they care not for ownership because it will be irrelevant. (Not many people would refuse to ride the rollercoaster because they can't own it.)

The Big Tech companies are rapidly researching Artificial Intelligence to create irresistible virtual worlds. Worlds that are simply incompatible with single instances so, no matter the local gaming equipment, the only way to join the fun is on their hardware, with everyone else.

I don't think single-person gaming will disappear entirely, however, although it may suffer from neglect as the big money moves on to economies of scale that include merchandizing (your own plush NPC figure!) and experiential purchasing (supplemental romantic NPC interaction!) etc.

FWIW, the games that we all know now will always be with us, methinks, but the money (and a lot of innovation) will move on to better, more lucrative ROI.

EA being EA, any business model they use is really irrelevant to anyone outside of sports gamers or suckers. Do they make games that are even worth a fuck anymore?

As for subscriptions in general, I can't see how these can't co-exist with traditional ownership models. Let's not forget that people still can, and will, buy music and movies/shows they're into. Netflix and Redbox killed rental, not purchasing, but there's always been non-ownership and ownership ways to enjoy entertainment, between radio, TV, theaters, rogue streams (Kodi) or rental systems of some sort. Honestly, I think it'll be a VERY long time before we even get to the point where subs can come close to replacing anything, but they can co-exist, and USED to co-exist when we were younger in the gaming space (arcades).

Honestly, EA will continue to disappoint because that's what they do, but for the rest of the industry, I don't think a return of an arcade/rental option will be the death of all things. As Nintendo is proving with the Switch, there's more than one way to do things, and unless the gaming industry is stupid enough to limit itself to the most major of all urban centers, we're going to be able to buy games outright for a long while to come. There are, after all, only so many live service games that will survive.

I don't buy anything EA for a long time. Extremely unethical company.
Based on this link: https://www.techpowerup.com/240655/leaked-ai-powered-game-revenue-model-paper-foretells-a-dystopian-nightmare
This is criminal to anyone valuing their privacy.
EA you are disgusting!