It isn’t a subscription because they say it isn’t.
Ubisoft is playing fast and loose with the English language this week as the company announced its monetization strategy for the upcoming Trackmania title. Trackmania will be available with a free starter pack, “standard access” expanding available content, and club access offering even more content. The standard access and club access are a subscription that cost $10 per year and $30 per year respectively.
Except Ubisoft says it’s not a subscription because…well, because they said so. Ubisoft responded on its forums to criticism of the subscription which is absolutely a subscription by stating that it is not actually a subscription.
“Actually it’s not a subscription model but an access to the game for a limited time. You pay for having access to the game for one period and that’s it. When the time is over, you have to buy the game again for the time that you want to access it again.”
I’m not sure who told Ubisoft that this was a smart way to explain things. Players are angry about a subscription, but posing the deal as buying the game only to have it revoked after a year and having to buy it again might actually be a worse way to explain the system.
This isn’t the first time the industry or Ubisoft for that matter have tried to redefine terms such as Ubisoft’s liberal definition of “gameplay footage” or Electronic Arts claiming that its loot boxes were in fact “surprise mechanics” to a regulatory board.
So to be clear: Ubisoft’s monetization model for Trackmania is a subscription.
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