Imagine this scenario: It’s the year 2045 and you want to share your favorite game of 2023, Alan Wake 2, with your future partner, child, or friend. You’ve held onto your trusty PlayStation 5, hoping to relive the nostalgia by dusting off the old console and firing it up again. But as you attempt to do so, you realize that Alan Wake 2 is not installed on your system. And the PlayStation store no longer supports the PlayStation 5. And the game was never released physically, so… you get the idea.

Digital game sales have been steadily increasing for years, while publishers have been emphasizing the future and growth of the video game industry lies in the subscription market. However, for this vision to become a reality, people need to be comfortable with one small detail: not actually owning their games.

This week, Ubisoft not only released Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, but also rebranded its subscription service as Ubisoft+, with some changes to the offering. Philippe Tremblay, Ubisoft’s director of subscriptions, spoke to gamesindustry.biz about these changes, and made a statement that sparked some controversy. Tremblay mentioned that gamers needed to start getting comfortable with not owning their games.

In this week’s episode of Spot On, Tam and Lucy delve into the rise of the subscription model, the growing concerns over ownership and preservation, and what this all means for us as consumers and for game developers striving to create new experiences.

Spot On is a weekly news show airing Fridays in which GameSpot’s managing editor Tamoor Hussain and senior producer Lucy James discuss the latest news in games. With the constantly evolving and ever-expanding news cycle of the gaming industry, there is always something to discuss. Unlike most other news shows, Spot On delves deep into a single topic rather than recapping all the news. Spot On airs each Friday.