What our good friends at Ubi$oft are doing...

[Das Attorney]

Initiate Wall Of Text!

At the end of the day, it's just a business model they are introducing to maximise sales.

Currently, you buy the game. Now you will rent it. Or at least part of it.

As Nearmiss pointed out; if you don't like it , then don't part with the cash. They will soon get the message when people vote with their wallet.

Digital distribution has made game companies lazy. In 'the olden days', a game would be finished completely before release. If there was any bugs in it, then they would be in the game forever. Companies tended to try and eradicate them so as to not kill the sales. I guess the games were simpler in those days though, so less potential for bugs.

When companies discovered they can patch releases over the internet, they don't bother fixing everything at release (as we all know) and do it later. Then that leads onto companies deciding to release the game and then releasing DLC (often already on the game disk in some cases), and now the business model of Call Of Duty Elite (for example), where people are on a monthly subscription to get addons and new maps.

It's not really a surprise that Ubi are introducing this. Just a surprise they took so long to do it. I can't be bothered with console games anymore, with rubbish like UPlay and cynical attempts to generate extra sales through DLC held back from the customer on release.

Strangely enough, I do pay for DLC on PC games, but mainly for games/sims like X-Plane or Arma 2. At least I'm getting something tangible for the money - a whole extra faction, missions and maps in Arma 2 (£7.99) and for X-Plane, there's some good deals to be had like Heinz Dzuirowitz WW2 fighter pack (£25 IIRC). That's six planes and something like 15 skins.

I guess I'm more into indy developers these days like Laminar, Maddox, Bohemia Interactive and Egosoft. (Which comes with it's own set of problems like buggy releases etc)

If people are stupid enough to pay for all this licensing/renting rubbish, then that's their prerogative.

Deactivate Wall of text.

That is all.