Linus is Comfortable Not Owning Ubisoft Games

[@LegionIscariot]

For a company, who just screwed over their customers by pulling the plug on a game that had no business being online only, to then tell people that they should trust them. Ubisoft has no shame.

[@Nighthunt01]

i get everyone loves to hate on Ubisoft, but I wonder how these comments feel about Microsoft's Game Pass

[@t.r.2283]

Honestly you are wrong. All the people stupid enough to not realise what online only means got what they paid for.

[@killertruth186]

And what is worse, For Honor and Tom Clancy's The Division 1 has always online. I do get the online multiplayer aspect, but the "always online" is plain out stupid. Especially when if internet get's cut off. It's literally like for PC hardware being always online in order to use the system.

[@abeardedhoboTV]

He didn’t even say people should trust them in not owning their games

[@Leffrey]

@@Nighthunt01 The difference is that Game Pass is a subcription to all the available games at once, whereas a one-and-done purchase of a game should be relatively permanent with regards to local or singleplayer content. One's an actual service, the other is bullshit. It's the same as Netflix vs renting a movie (but it costs as much as buying it outright and you can't actually buy it outright or else a microchip will set fire to your DVD at random)

[@FollowingStorm0]

If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.

[@italianbasegard]

You wouldn’t download a car.

[@crashdude7589]

@@italianbasegardbut I can’t buy it though

[@normaluser4599]

@@sirsneakybeaky If I steal someones food they will no longer have the food. If I pirate a book or a movie, the owner wont even know about it. And pirating something doesnt necessarily mean that I would buy the product if pirating wasnt an option.

[@pinquinsam4812]

​@@italianbasegardif i could sure why not?

[@En_Joshi-Godrez]

​@@sirsneakybeaky you are evil

[@42pyroboy]

My little sister was devastated when she lost all of the worlds she had created over time in little big planet. We are not comfortable with not owning our media!

[@Badtaste21]

I genuinely feel sorry for your sister, because yeah, this sucks. Big time. It's kind of like a school bully destroying the thing you made for art class or something. And he's like, "Oh, and if you make another one, I'll destroy that too. Nerd." (because that could happen to any game like that) At least that's how it would feel to me. I feel the same way about Ubisoft shutting down The Crew. I would want to come back to that game from time to time because I put a lot of hours into tuning/customizing my cars and then it's just gone. Although they could easily make it playable offline? I think this should be regulated so they can't "destroy" games.

[@1ycan-eu9ji]

:(

[@everythingpony]

If she had them downloaded she wouldn't have lost them

[@utfigyii5987]

@@everythingpony What happens if the original device where they were stored breaks?

[@JustToad27]

@@utfigyii5987to don’t break the device, simple

[@mudachaproductions]

Ubisoft peaked with Assassin's Creed Black Flag and Rayman Legends, over 10 years ago. I've had 0 interest in their games since then, and by the looks of it that's not likely to change. 😂

[@LegionIscariot]

For me it was FarCry 2. That was back when Ubisoft was actually a creative company. Their games are just so dull.

[@cyangalaxy]

omg I absolutely loved AC: Black Flag. it may have been more a pirate game, less Assassin one. But maybe thats why I like it so much? Anyhow... I hope Ubisoft makes the upcoming Skull & Bones a nice pirate game. I don't think it will be at the level of Black Flag, but at least trying to reach there...

[@42pyroboy]

I didnt realize black flag was that old already

[@Suzuki_Hiakura]

I prefer the Ezio collection tbh... Revelations was rather buggy, but it had its own likeness to it that was somewhat different to brotherhood. Blackflag was great, but despite the fun naval battles, I didn't much care for it as I preferred the more land locked gameplay lol... and not the jungles...

[@justcallmenoah5743]

I like Rainbow Six, Vegas, Vegas 2 and Siege specifically. Siege, the only modern game mentioned has many deep flaws such as battle passes and fun bucks microtransactions, but it came out in my first year of highschool and I have played a lot of it with friends over the years, nostalgia I guess.

[@lovyNOM]

Ubisoft is taking an unconventional marketing strategy of deliberately trying to prevent people from remembering what their app is called

[@z1mt0n1x2]

Yeah, they pull an Apple. See, some years ago... Apple successfully managed to manipulate everyone to think that Plug&Play was outdated. Connecting, downloding itunes, syncing, updating, and converting from mp3 to m4a is just so much simpler than just Plug&Play. Nobody prolly even remembers there used to be ordinary and simple mp3 players :P

[@DarkBiCin]

Its genius on their part. If people cant find the app they cant log in and play what they bought resulting in having to create a new accounts and make new purchases.

[@ceasormayhem101]

This always happens with subscription services. They start off kinda centralized, then every studio decides they need to get their own service, and then you gotta pick and choose which service to use. This will make pirating worse tbh.

[@jer1776]

Streaming exclusively is a ridiculous concept itself and making it illegal will fix a lot. Blockbuster couldnt gain a monopoly on giving people Marvel or Disney movies to rent, so why should streaming services?

[@ChrisThe1]

it's pretty interesting that this is true except for music streaming. Spotify, Apple Music and KZbin basically all have the same music

[@ceasormayhem101]

@@ChrisThe1 Right? Cause consumers are more willing to pay for Disney and Paramount, but they're not gonna pay just to have access to Roadrunner records. Tbh, I hope this whole subscription model partially collapses. It's best with few services with large libraries.

[@neomedved]

How do you imagine it being illegal exactly? Disney should be obligated to sell rights for streaming their movies and shows to Netflix or something? Or to every streaming service in the existence even?

[@jackieAZ]

@@ceasormayhem101tbh, streaming problems are platform problems in general, and privatized platforms are capitalism problems

[@jer1776]

Im 29 and I still have my Minecraft maps from when I was 16, gamers are not boomers, were more than capable of backing up our save data without some cloud server that will inevitably go offline.

[@AgentKenshin]

I'm almost 40 and I still have stuff backed up and my old original 80 MB hard-drives.

[@512TheWolf512]

cloud is kinda necessary depending on where you live. in Ukraine for example.

[@AgentKenshin]

@@512TheWolf512 living in Ukraine you have far bigger things to worry about than gaming.

[@512TheWolf512]

@@AgentKenshin it's not about gaming, it's about data storage in general.

[@sammiller6631]

@@AgentKenshin Ukrainans already know how much Russians like to Rush B during CounterStrike, so they can plan around that. Maybe someone misheard "Rush B" as "Rush Kyiv"?

[@thewempstinator]

Something that didn't get mentioned about music vs movie streaming. Music streaming services have largely the same collections, so the competition is relatively strong. Movie streaming is a far more fragmented experience and much more common for content to become completely unavailable or exclusive to one service

[@lilkidsuave]

Mostly. Tidal and Qobuz often are missing a couple things, and Amazon Music sometimes has multiple copies of the same album, but certain songs in one version are unplayable but do exist in another. Spotify is often the go-to even for small artists, but they don't have flacs. It's not perfect, but you could get most of what you want via one service. But I rather have my own server so I use navidrome, and Spotify and Amazon music as backups. Amazon is cheaper because my prime subscription and Spotify is a duo plan with my brother.

[@Dave102693]

Exactly

[@InsufficientGravitas]

Moving to a games streaming model would look more like moving from apple music (specifically buying digitally from apple) to having to use sony or warner bros music streaming services.

[@Fallen_Family]

Exactly for instance on the streaming service Vudu a lot of the older Godzilla movies are no longer available for purchase not only on Vudu but other services as well

[@CasepbX]

I've been extremely happy not having the craptastic Ubi junk store launcher on my PC for over 5 years now. It was byfar the worst storefront.

[@Fizz-Pop]

It is always good not to give sex offenders money.

[@KH-nm9xg]

Microsoft Games Store begs to differ

[@PJ666PJD]

The problem with subscription games is the same as subscription movies now. Everyone wants a piece of the pie. Netflix used to be amazing until the studios decided to make their own subscription. Music works because it’s still under one service no matter what service you choose

[@Bncxx1275]

Untill their music production studio start to battle with Spotify and other a like

[@marcberm]

There is a MAJOR difference between "not owning a game collection" and "losing access to owned games." The CD collection comparison is ridiculous. It's not the same thing.

[@bennyspingflower]

@@respawnlock666 iam ugah ugah ... FIRE

[@everythingpony]

​@@bennyspingfloweryou ok?

[@bennyspingflower]

@@everythingpony no ....

[@notbfg9000]

*If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing* ;3

[@italianbasegard]

You wouldn’t download a car.

[@mrmoosetachio]

With streaming services you arent buying the product itself. You are buying access to the product via the streaming servuce for as long as they provide access or have rights to provide access.

[@larsmurdochkalsta8808]

Real

[@xXRealXx]

@@italianbasegard yes I would

[@brandons9027]

Word

[@emulationemperor8924]

Only 7:15 into the episode, so it might be addressed. But I think Linus is missing a big underlying tone of the statement that people should be more comfortable not owning games. We have spotify and netflix for music and movies, yes. But those services do not prevent you from going out and buying physical copies of your favorite artist or film for you to watch or use at your own convenience. The way that the Ubisoft person talked about game ownership was about removing the option for people to buy the games they want to buy in favor of a subscription model. And for anyone that is even slightly into the hobby, being able to own the game you want and play whenever or however you'd like is very important. And on top of all of that, we already have massive games that you can't own. Everything live service. You pay for access to a game, not to purchase the game itself.

[@AceLeach]

When the subscription service wants to bring in big numbers, yes it DOES prevent me from going out and buying it. Tell me where I can buy a blue ray of any season of Stranger Things? Tell me where I can buy a blue ray of a season of The Mandalorian? You can't because they are created to be a streaming service exclusive film/show to drive subscriptions up, and your literal only choice is to subscribe or pirate. Otherwise, you're right.

[@sandromorales9631]

​@AceLeach I see your point but googles free make sure something doesn't exist before you say it don't

[@DarkAngelGuyver]

@@AceLeach Funny thing about your Mandalorian mention. Disney actually caved and released special edition blu rays of seasons 1 and 2. Though going off the issues I've had with the S1 discs I don't think their QA was very good.

[@kimutone2970]

​​@@AceLeach that's a fair point, but people can find ways to screen record those and release them for download. You can't legally get it, but it's still there. With games we don't have that privilege, here we are left with 20 GB of useless data and you'll NEVER be able to play again.

[@klassicneo]

Remember online games used to be able to allow you to host your own servers? That was a great time.

[@everythingpony]

That's called p2p and a lot of games do that

[@kricku]

You can still do it in Minecraft, right? I hope

[@emanuel3617]

This is like buying the rights to use a blender that is going to stay at your friend's house and you can only use it when he let's you. Are you seeing how stupit that sounds?

[@emanuel3617]

I just want to buy a Frickin DVD and own it. I think people don't understand that the more we integrate tech into our lives and the more we accept this as normal the less we will own our tuff, I can see a future where my toaster is softlocked cuz I didn't pay the monthly heat subscription

[@MrMiddleWick]

Isn't that basically how a movie theater subscription works?

[@doctorspook4414]

Regarding movie/show streaming services, Lois Rossman had a video about this, the tech companies force you to use android boxes and such devices to enable the eventual feed of ads. So netflix/amazon prime/etc., on Windows with any browser only deliver 1080p. On Linux with any browser, it's not even HD, it's less than 720p. I've noticed this personally with prime video and netflix on both windows and linux mint & debian on a brand new 4k TV. I was so dissappointed as a paying customer.

[@walterp1028]

Linus, not owning music, I get that the vinyl community is fairly small, but there are still large portions of people that like to own all their music on vinyl.

[@personzorz]

I buy MP3 albums and back them the hell up

[@Alias_Anybody]

Mp3 320 is all I need.

[@konnorj6442]

Owning music is owning regardless of format What matters is being able to buy the music if we want without DRM shit shoved into the picture which is 100000% refuse to ever abide by or support period Ohn and I not only have LPs new and old I remember when that was the dominant format alongn with others. The quality of such varied alot over the yrs however and there was a lot of uber crappy lps produced that modern remasters are often infintely better

[@walterp1028]

@@konnorj6442 yeah I was just using vinyls to make a point

[@spicepirate]

Ubisoft should get comfortable with game piracy

[@Blooable]

I bought one album from Google play music (i would have gotten physical but it was sold out & didn't want to wait) & those tracks are still some of the most crisp audio files i have ever heard. When they shut down i was able to download them & its a bit jarring to heard those same songs on KZbin after getting use to the downloaded quality.

[@vbevan]

12:16 - removing online services for a game is a different issue to subscriptions vs hard copies. If the online servers are shutdown, you can't play online regardless of the medium. All the games listed on the page Linus references can still be bought/downloaded, they just can't be played online. Entirely different issue.

[@Amphibax]

Sometimes pirating is the only real option some music or movies you just can't find on streaming and often the physical copies are hard to find or really expensive.

[@gapa6612]

If buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing.

[@Alias_Anybody]

Funny how the towers to uncover the map were so overused for a short time period that many people aren't even aware that the last Far Cry that really embraced them was FC4 from 2014. FC3 had them, FC Blood Dragon didn't, FC4 as mentioned, Primal had a light version of them and FC5 had two basically as a reference, FC6 doesn't have them

[@OhChrumbs]

I think we need to seriously consider banning streaming services from producing their own movies, and putting harsh restrictions on exclusivity deals, and doing something similar with games. If media is made to be watched/played, instead of bulking out a streaming catalogue, and services need to complete on the quality of the service, not as many films/games they can monopolise, a lot of the issues with subscriptions would disappear.

[@OhChrumbs]

They did something similar in the US in the 1940s. Banning the big movie studios from owning cinemas, block booking, and regional quotas massively improved the cinema industry through the rest of the 20th century.

[@Dave102693]

I agree. I think that exclusivity deals in entertainment industry (with some leeway, very little leeway as possible in the video game space) needs a hard ban.

[@TheCatMan9000]

Keep On Digging Ubisoft.

[@luckyhomestead]

6:17 That's because you are not listening to music. Music for you is just fun background....

[@GlenMerlin]

8:10 Spotify also allows this but the process is a little hacky. If you add a local media song to a playlist and then download the playlist on another device it'll sync the file over from your other device if they're both online. Only for premium users of course but it works surprisingly seamlessly considering that it feels like a glitch or a bug to be able to do that

[@seafighter4]

16:30 But if Ubi goes bankrupt, the games you already own won't be made public. Ubi will be bought by some loanshark company and they will milk every last drop out of its corpse before laying everyone off.

[@dside_ru]

3:15 " Nu-uh, Assassin's Creed at this point is basically a Far Cry derivative" Well… yeah. One can argue which franchise exactly is the origin, but they all are in one and the same bowl of blandness today. Not that hot a take.

[@joe5413]

They've both slowly merged into ubisoft derivatives in a messed up form of convergent evolution you play assasins creed for the third person ubisoft formula and farcry for the first person ubisoft formula

[@howling-wolf]

I do not have a cd collection. But I am not comfortable with not owning my favourite shows/ movies/ audiobooks/ music. That's why I have a digital archive which cannot be taken from me when a subscription ends or a company decides that a license is too expensive for them.

[@astrayamatu]

Ubisoft: how can we solve the issue were people are getting mad if we remove the support of their older games so they cant play them any more Ubisoft : make it so that people don't own their games any more so they cant complain about us removing support from games they dont own

[@superLSD]

when subscriptions for music and movies came out, they were ridiculously cheaper than buying the actual products. One cd's cost is between 5 and 20 and that was the price of the subscription for access to tens of thousands of albums

[@jeremypilot1015]

You may not need a CD collection, but I have multiple MP3s saved to my devices that I can play when I want without internet access if needed.

[@originaldarkwater]

Handing tools over to the community or a smaller company when the original publisher wants to shut down the service is something that has happened with some MMOs, like Ultima Online and Dark Ages of Camelot, so there IS precedent.

[@gauthamasiddharth9221]

"director of subscription" sounds like a parody.

[@dayv6368]

I think with games it's a different story because not only do you need access to a copy of the game whether physically or digitally, but games also require specific hardware to be played. With a movie or with music, as long as you have a TV, computer, phone, or any other device capable of executing a file, you can run it and consume it. Games though, are software that actively run and interact with the hardware. Unless I'm missing some critical knowledge here, game ownership is more important because the hardware needed to run them is much more specific and limited.

[@FelanLP]

I am not realy comfortable with not owning anything from Steam. BI make this reality easier for myself by stricktly not buying ANY game when it costs me more then 20 bucks in their collectors or complete editions. And 30 is my hard limit when it comes to game-dlc-stuff bundles where EVERYTHING related to this game is included.

[@randomrud]

Some CDs have been "remastered" into worse versions with stupid low dynamic range and the good ones aren't avilable anymore.

[@victortsuchino8740]

I just wanted to say that many years ago I switched from using physical cd's for music to using spotify. However, recently many songs that I have had in my playlists for years have been removed from spotify so I can no longer listen to them. This is not a big problem for me, however, the thought of doing this with video games and potentially just losing the ability to play certain games makes me very unfcomfortable with a subcription model. I bought Skyrim in 2012 and still play it, if i just suddenly lost it from my library and couldnt play it anymore, I would be pretty upset.

[@seafighter4]

15:40 That is the next big thing I'd like EU regulators to to take a stab at: Software, or services more broadly, that are to be made obsolete by shutting down the supporting software those services rely on, need to have that software made open source.

[@dorientjewoller113]

You know what the reason can be behind the response of Larian Studios. It's a Belgian company and in Belgium the words "selling, buying & purchasing" have the same legal meaning: exchange of ownership by means of a payment.

[@arturpaivads]

​@@dorientjewoller113 just commenting that Ive bought Baudurs Gate 3 through GOG and theres a nice little button to download a offline game installer that does not expires hahaha

[@particle_wave7614]

I used to collect movies (DVDs and some Blu Rays). Still have them but mainly switched to streaming. Then starting noticing low bitrate, color banding, etc. Just bought a 4k blu ray player. I’m definitely getting back on the physical media band wagon. Having an OLED TV only to see terrible color banding in dark scenes is stupid

[@EvanzoZubinsky]

I wish every discontinued product would become open source kind of like what happened to stalker. Not only I still play this 2007 game in its vanilla form every once in a while, it’s modded and community supported version, gamma now, looks and feels on par or better with the modern titles, it is mind blowing.

[@WhySolSirius]

I still buy blu-rays of the movies I really like, because I hate streams of them so much. The compression artifacts of bright red in particular in a lot of stuff just drives me nuts.

[@NightWolfx03]

And as services for games disappear, you can still host a game of Quake or Unreal Tournament on LAN or over the internet and play with friends. The only thing that disappeared was the server browser, but some people host third party ones. I pretty much all my music so I can listen anywhere, with or without a connection to the internet. I do not and will resist to the best of my ability to EVER PAY FOR GAMES AS A SERVICE.

[@FeronTheRaccon]

As long as games exist they will exist in a file on some server somewhere, If companies think this is the best option they are in for a rude awakening when the day one cracks turn into day one security breaches with dozens of hacking groups infiltrating their servers all at once not only stealing games but whatever other data existed on that server. All they are doing is changing the motivation from removing DRM like denuvo to infiltrating corporate networks to steal the raw files for a game.

[@Dave102693]

Pretty much

[@kaijuultimax9407]

I haven't purchased a Ubisoft game since 2018 and Ubisoft has done nothing to persuade me that this was a bad choice.

[@AlejandroCaicedoPUJ]

"I don't wanna have unnecessary plastic in my house" -the guy who literally has nes cartridges in his house

[@wilwhileaway]

But those are necessary plastic!

[@AlejandroCaicedoPUJ]

@@wilwhileaway not like he plays the cartridges anyway

[@wilwhileaway]

@@AlejandroCaicedoPUJ of course not, that would damage the collectiblity

[@MrMiddleWick]

@@wilwhileaway ...so it's an unnecessary plastic then?

[@Raynorhunter]

I feel like everyone forgets the Asian market still exists. And they never gave up on physical media. Cds, albums, blue rays and other physical forms of purchases are still wildly popular

[@jonathanpatry]

What game are they talking about at 26:00? FF VI?

[@slicedtoad]

They were talking about realtime combos, though? Was it two different games they were talking about?

[@samhartley6154]

@@slicedtoad It was FFVI (probably Pixel Remaster) and they were talking about Sabin's Blitzes.

[@danieldover3745]

I have a huge DVD/CD collection. I ripped them all to my NAS and run Plex on it. I also get a lot of music as digital files from Bandcamp. The result is I have my own streaming service that I'm in total control of. It's not cheap, no, but following all the assorted streaming services isn't cheap either, and their costs add up while my server was a one-time cost.

[@ZuLangable]

1080p BluRay looks way better than 4k netflix stream

[@ВикторФирсов-е9ф]

I love random digressions. I don't have the time to watch the entire show, but snippets of random conversations are still fun.

[@azazelleblack]

I would really prefer if you (editor) would crop out all the parts that aren't related to the topic. The extended discussion of why Linus doesn't like BG3 is not related or interesting.

[@Sammitche]

I bought a significant amount of music from the Google Play Music and lost it all when they deprecated years ago. Since then I try to buy as much of my music in the form of CDs from Half-Priced books.

[@somesalmon5694]

When they shut down the online services for games, they should give the software for hosting to the community for those who want to keep supporting and playing the games online

[@NotAghostSpeedruns]

Yeah, definitely. By the time I finally got around to trying a game called "The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot", which I got from a humble bundle, the servers were permanently offline and there was no gameplay to be had without them. Maybe there are workarounds, I don't know. My interest in trying the game wasn't enough to go seek them out.

[@Suzuki_Hiakura]

I have a collection of over 300 games on steam, and paid for maybe 200 of them (some were free due to a special promotion or just free)... I was okay not owning my DVD's or CD's, but that was when it wasn't so ridiculous as now; why pay for Netflix to watch about 20 movies/shows (as I don't care for other stuff) only to have them remove them for months at a time, yet still pay for Netflix. I can buy the DVD's and upload them to my personal media server, and I can watch whatever I own for cheaper than paying for multiple streaming services. The subscription model was good, but they got greedy and instead of improving it so they could make sustainable profit, they have cut back heavily on quality for some short term gain.

[@Turnabout]

Linus: You own a CD collection to rip it to your server, then stream your own music from now until the Internet breaks forever without having to worry about services going down, services losing the license, or an ever-increasing monthly fee. Best decision I ever made with my media was going off of streaming entirely and buying Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs for my server. I won't ever subscribe to an online movie service again. KZbin Premium is the only streaming service I pay for and it feels fantastic.

[@Turnabout]

Oh. And I can rip my CDs in lossless audio instead of settling for KZbin Music or Spotify's craptastic audio quality. Deezer's is good but they keep raising their prices.

[@Amphibax]

For the price of the subscription you can buy a cd once a month after some time you will a really big collection and no thinking about increasing prices

[@Dave102693]

I was thinking doing the same thing

[@Turnabout]

@@Dave102693 It's honestly a pretty fun hobby and not all that expensive.

[@Turnabout]

@@Amphibax You can buy CDs pretty cheaply nowadays too. There are retailers on eBay who will sell used CDs, good ones, for $1-5 USD.

[@Danielsworlds]

As a Team Fortress 2 player this is the issue we are currently battling. Valve has abandoned the game's development. And while from a balance at the gameplay perspective the game is in an okay position. Cheaters bots and people abusing exploits run rampant. And with nobody at the wheel to implement fixes for these problems they continued to spiral and make the actual game itself nearly unplayable. The community has been arguing for years to just hand over the reins of development to the community. Leave us alone, let us run the ship and we promise not to break anything.

[@TheWolvesCurse]

last ubisoft game i bought was Rocksmith 2014 edition. when they made the new Rocksmith game a subscription only model, centered around a stupid mobile app, the deal was sealed anyway. still own a physical copy of farcry 2 and 3, that's about enough ubisoft for me.

[@adhillA97]

I keep a CD collection of specifically Eurovision CDs, because the licensing around them is a nightmare (~40 songs, each from a different country and artist every year). The couple of occasions when I have also purchased the digital album (I think it was released ahead of the physical media for a few years), most of the songs are gone from the digital version of the album (WHICH I PAID FOR) within a few years after purchasing. This is also the primary reason that I use KZbin Music (and not just because it comes free with KZbin Premium), because you can upload up to 50k of your own archived tracks and stream them like they're any other track on the platform (you just can't share them with people on other accounts).

[@GlenMerlin]

7:50 Spotify does this, the sea of stars OST had a song pulled due to some issue with a missing layer or channel. it turned into a stub and I needed to go to their profile and save the new version

[@SMthegamer1]

Only 3 of the songs I have on CDs are available outside of those CDs, there's been hundreds of times I wanted to watch a film but it wasn't available to stream so I had to grab the DVD off my shelf, and there's been even more times I wanted to play a game while offline (both due to my own connection and host issues) so I had to insert the disc. Owning physical media is crucial to my life.

[@monkeywithocd]

I would need a lot more than a promise in writing. I'd need them to not only release the server software and whatever else necessary for any games they've discontinued over the past decade, but also for them to *continue to do that* for years going on. I don't believe a damn word any of these companies say, whether they're legally obligated to abide by them or not, I need to see them actually commit.

[@timecage]

Streaming services become progressively worse as an option the more niche is the music you listen to and the more precious it is to you to have access to it always.

[@ReepsWasteOfTime]

8:07 Apple Music also supports it. It also supports uploading full movies as well”music” videos and it supports lossless audio that means it works great on sound systems

[@exerra_xyz]

The move to Ubisoft Connect was horrendous in many ways. My main problem is that some Uplay-era games (AC Origins for example) had Uplay-integrated features that weren't added to Ubisoft Connect. AC Origins for example had basically the Director mode for GTA V, where you could play as different characters, add cheats, etc. That was controlled thru Uplay. It is no longer available in Ubisoft Connect.

[@DiogoExMarques]

Similar to what Linus was describing for Google Play Music, Apple Music supports uploading your own files to the cloud to listen to alongside their catalog and it works really well to fill in the gaps, especially in niches like video game soundtracks.

[@dajavax]

imagine when record companies start making their own streaming services and start removing their songs from the standard ones 🙃...

[@stitchfinger7678]

They've all tried it in some capacity before It dies because the big players don't wanna support the labels' ecosystems so they die without that support

[@richardhunter9779]

I was CONSIDERING buying Prince Of Persia, but when I installed the demo from Epic Games, it asked for admin privileges 6 times, downloaded, installed and updated ANOTHER launcher, and then asked me for admin SEVERAL MORE TIMES, I am no longer considering it. This kind of frustrating, depressing product will not make my life better at all.

[@greatestcait]

The only thing I regret is that I can't boycott Ubisoft's games, because I already don't buy them.

[@KingHalbatorix]

The problem isn't ubisoft, the problem is every other game company that is going to adopt this approach in order to increase revenues and please their investors. I remember skyrim golden horse armor, and look at where we are now with cosmetic microtransactions. The slippery slope is only a fallacy in the rigorous context of a formal debate, in real life it is almost a guarantee.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

Funny Luke mentioned Civ V. I still play it weekly. I own it on Steam because my cousin wrecked my Civ 4 discs (3/5 of them). Steam removing Windows 7 support has me considering going back to disks. I was still running XP when I bought the game. Even if that computer were still working, I couldnt play on it anymore. Valve isn't so much the good guy anymore.

[@aidankelley2696]

As someone who watches netflix on my 1080p monitor, while im gaming, its hard to tell the bad quality, but when its on a 4k tv its definitely apparent, which makes sense its really hard to stream 4k quality every second though wifi compared to a disc sending a direct signal to your tv, it also ruins the movie experience when your wifi fluctuates or the streaming traffic cant handle what your watching and the quality dips randomly

[@lolislachlan]

on the cd collection i'm with luke, and i especially love buying an artists album to support them directly if i like them, also nsp and dan avidan sign a lot of their cds lmao

[@Skyliner_369]

mind, Netflix also has some terrible anti-piracy measures as well. you basically have to build an EXACT PC to THEIR SPECIFICATIONS otherwise you get nothing above 720p

[@garrotmon]

I buy dvds because the movies shift around to the other services and get pulled randomly, but spotify has never pulled any music (at least to the point of me noticing, led alone being annoyed by it)

[@nathanfehlbaum7580]

The thing I dislike is that along with the online services being shut down the deactivated the dlc as well. Eg. In ACII the family tomb is no longer available even if you have the dlc downloaded.

[@MickdeRaad]

+1 for mentioning Civ V. I still play that game time to time as well with my best friend. We were teenagers when it came out and now we're almost 30 lol

[@GeneralTheGuy]

I remember the whole, "future of gaming is streaming" statement and my first thought was, "From the minds that brought us Uplay"

[@Pdasniper]

If youtube music has a stub of removed music I have never seen it. You don't get notified about removed stuff. I've determined something was missing when I haven't heard it in the shuffle in a while and got to know it's no longer there

[@Jurtaani]

my honest take on the matter is that, if i bought a game that is either completely single player or has good portion of the game in single player. and then the publisher shuts down some online drm or some other crap, and suddenly i lose access to that single player game. then i have no pity towards them and i feel that i do nothing wrong if i download the game from pirated sources or apply some other DRM stripping methods to it.

[@draconuuse9731]

That quote from Sven is why I wasn’t surprised or mad at all about the tweets from the BG3 launch. Because he outright says that what they are able to do and accomplish as one of the only still independent developers of decent size(remembering that the size of the company is a recent development) is not the norm. Most of those devs from Sony and such of comparable size or resources are completely beholden to shareholders and cost benefit analysis and such. Sven wanting to stay out of that side of the industry is extremely laudable. But also an outlier of how the game dev industry works. And that isn’t likely to change. No matter how many more millions of copies his company sells. Cost benefit analysis and all the other metrics that go along with it just are too ingrained into how things work.

[@Hdcrafter_lp]

I love to play the OG version of AOE2 at a LAN. I love the definitive edition, but the feeling of the old version fits more the feeling of the LAN.

[@RaymondStormbl3ssed]

I watch like 2-3 movies in a month(sometimes 1 in theatre), listen to probably 5-6 hours of music and play games for like 5 hours at best(mostly indie stuff with some AAA), so not owning my media isn’t gonna be a deal breaker for me. I used to pirate movies and shows that weren’t available on streaming services, but at this point I just watch whatever’s on Netflix or prime without thinking too much about. It is definitely more convenient than DVDs were.

[@ArdentMoogle]

For as much as I love the story and gameplay of Larian's games, my god do they need a better UI/UX team. Basically all of my issues with the game when I played were due to unclear or downright garbage UI issues. - They have UI features from previous games that I used extensively just vanish (ctrl +click to mark as wares), which granted was replaced with ctrl + click to select, but adds another step to mark wares, when alt isn't used in menu at all. - Moving a group of items in a bag is completely non-sensical, and does whatever it wants. - Pickpocketing uses a straight D20 to tell you the DC, despite no other part of the game doing that. - Trying to sort one bag auto sorts all of your open bags, even when you just hit the dropdown to see what the options are. Plus the bags default to a small size even though I always max them, and there's no way to set a default. Bags also open under your inventory screen 80% of the time which is stupid. - Skills could be locked to your hotbar in previous games, including not removing them when you no longer had access. Now they drop off your hotbar if you say equip a torch. - You can't have more custom hotbar tabs than 4, it used to be 5 in older games, AND you had less skills back then if you were a caster. - Inventory management is still a massive pain, your weak characters can't hold many potions so you have to store most of them and carry one of each, then refill manually when you use them. - I've found knowing when someone else is in a dialogue to be a lot less obvious than in previous games as well. - Sneaking is still terrible, there has needed to be an indicator telling you if you'll instantly be spotted since Divinity OS, but no, instead you waste an action because it looked like you were in a good spot but weren't due to a pixel of bright light.

[@skaboodlydoodle]

I lost ALL my old profiles and save from my previous Assassins Creed games from like 2014. Completely unrecoverable. No backups. No syncs.

[@WHYNOTONY]

The real problems with Ubisoft subscription compared to spotify are that first music doesn't have a save state to keep of, also Ubisoft aren't valve, and no one would subscribe to an app on which you can only listen to UMG artists

[@ulfar8283]

The way you talk about the difference between watching netflix and a bluray (and I agree with you) .... the same can be said about/with streaming music and having to listen to a CD. I OWN my medias and I like to listen to my music from my CDs

[@wayne5830]

For the segment about music streaming, I use KZbin Music. It has very poor consistency across devices. On my TV (LG) outputting to my receiver sounds great. My car has low volume and high bass. My BT speaker (HK Onyx 4) has high bass but normal volume. I use my phone for both my car and speaker. The tv is using the built-in app. In my car is the upgraded Stereo from Honda in a 2022 Accord. I keep requesting an EQ to be added so I can adjust the settings per device. Other services that feel more consistent are Pandora, Tidal, and Spotify.

[@TopShot501st]

Ive used Spotify Premium for like 6 years since my college days. I have KZbin Music through YT premium I never use because I have no desire to rebuild my playlists of thousands of songs.

[@Skyvernius]

Another feature I have wanted Google to add to KZbin Music is a Normalize Volume feature like what Spotify has. To help keep all sounds at roughly the same volume instead of going from one song that sounds normal or loud to the next which sounds almost whisper quiet.

[@Fennek_Kaipii]

KZbin Music still allows uploads but refuses to play them (or even purchased titles/albums) at all through Google Home, without you running it through the app itself. It demands a subscribtion and will ignore your own uploads all together through voice commands in Google Home. Google Music didn´t have these issues and was therefore superiour in its use for me.

[@Spencerwalker21]

15:40 that won't happen you'll need government legislation to force Ubisoft and others to do so.

[@jjOnceAgain]

My problem with it is nobody listens to 5-6 songs in a year, and almost nobody watches 5-6 movies in a year; but it's common for casual gamers to only play 5-6 AAA games. Especially when most of those games are 40+ hours long. The value proposition just isn't there

[@pleasedontwatchthese9593]

99% of media I stream but I archive the 1% I really like. I do buy CDs or DRM free copy of music. Same with movies, I wanted to see something simple and I didnt want to subscribe to random streaming service to see a movie I see a lot. Also there is some older anime thats like dvd only which I do keep.

[@Hdcrafter_lp]

16:57 that's a problem with every graph. that's where the fake quote from Churchill comes from "I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself"

[@larsmurdochkalsta8808]

KZbin music also tells you when something gets removed from KZbin music. But I don't know if it tells you If it gets removed from KZbin as well.

[@benjaminoechsli1941]

11:23 If Ubisoft wants to end their customers owning their games, they need to give said game to the customers when it gets inevitably axed. As Linus said, the reason people are comfortable with not owning music is that if one way to get your music dies, there are other ways to get it. Not so with games.

[@goododarco2785]

Bought AC2 on steam, had issues with connect. Downloaded it from the internet, have had no issues whatsoever, and in fact it performs better than the copy I purchased.

[@mattywhalley7225]

Can confirm that you can upload your own music to youtube music and it stays private to your account. I upload lots of original stuff so I don't have to manage my music between my desktop/phone/car.

[@vixwashere7811]

I have a large collection of over 100 CDs and the reason I do it is twofold. One is that I like to physically own the music I like to listen to. No service provider can tell me what I can and can't listen to when I want. Reason 2 is the quality. CDs sound unbelievably better than even Spotify. It's 100% uncompressed audio compared to the roughly 78% compressed audio on Spotify for example.

[@DanielElicker]

Linus mentions the time commitment factor to something like BG3, and for those that this is their sort of barrier, especialyl if you are playing with friends, you treat it like a DnD session, which yes the memes of keep scheduling etc I get it, but just like with that if you can all agree to make a semi-hard commitment to meet for one session a week for maybe like 4 hours to play the game, it makes the time commitment thing a lot easier and if you're not super into it like linus says, this may help with that issue as well. A group of my friends did this for DivinityOS 2 in part because I felt myself burning out of it when we were pushing to play almost every day, and this method worked wonders, and didn't require extensive time commitment like would be needed for a DM.