Lets take a look at the prime days of gaming and how it felt like in Ghana
This may be a rant, but walk with me for a second. I simply miss the prime days of gaming. When games were indeed a full expression of art and fun.
Remember when games used to be yours? Where you shell out money, whether for regular, gold or deluxe version of a game, you at least KNOW that its yours for LIFE! Remember when you would buy a game in its ENTIRETY? Oh the prime days of gaming….
As in, the whole game, from start to finish, is available on whatever medium you choose to purchase (physical or digital). Plus, you actually OWNED THEM! Now, its not overly clear in distinguishing whether we are moving forward or regressing in this industry.
Walk with me…
From Complete Masterpieces to Endless Downloads
I remember the buying a new game back then. Walking into a store and walking out with a new disc or cartridge was always the best feeling! Popping it in and not immediately getting a notification telling you to “update” (more like download) the game. The game was complete, and you got to play it exactly as the developer intended.
No waits for patches or purchasing DLC to play parts of the game that should have been part in the first place. Come to gaming in this day and age, it’s almost the equivalent of buying a car and being told “pay extra to pre-order your steering wheel and gear lever arriving next month!” I don’t think any owner would be enthused by that! Don’t get me wrong, I understand that updates can sometimes well and truly change and improve some games over time, but there is simply something nostalgic – and almost even respectful – about the way games used to be delivered in full.
Primed Piracy VS Primed Licenses
Let’s start this off with a quote from the great Director of Subscriptions at Ubisoft, Philippe Tremblay sometime after the shutdown of the services for the hit game “The Crew” :
One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That’s the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That’s a transformation that’s been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don’t lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That’s not been deleted. You don’t lose what you’ve built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it’s about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.
Philippe Tremblay, Director of Subscriptions, Ubisoft.
Now, for the unfamiliar, this was said in an interview between GamesIndustry.biz and Ubisoft’s Philippe Tremblay which eventually got the industry trembling a little. Most of what he said in this interview was actually alright and palatable until he got to that last sentence. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what set the internet on fire and… well…let’s just say some started building their old “pirate ships” again to go a-sailing. What sincerely confused me about this interview was that PRIOR to all that was said above, Mr. Trembley said this:
The point is not to force users to go down one route or another. We offer purchase, we offer subscription, and it’s the player’s preference that is important here. We are seeing some people who buy choosing to subscribe now, but it all works.
How we went from the quote stating acknowledgement of choice to consumers having to be made to ‘get comfortable’ with something not everyone wants is just unreal to me.
So essentially, we pay full price for a game but do not own it. No wonder the world’s response was “If Buying Digital does not equal Owning, then Piracy is Not Stealing.” A reflexive response at how frustrated many gamers feel lately and it is in these times that the disadvantages of digital ‘purchases’ (if we can even call it that anymore) have become glaringly apparent: you can’t lend digital games (despite the piss-poor attempts to make it possible), can’t resell it and you don’t even have the guarantee of still having access to your library of games in five years.
All it takes is losing your account to a ban or a shutdown of the platform and / or its storefront and BOOM! Everything you ever poured money into is gone.
Enter Le Pirates, a generally hidden but known group who’s existence has either aided and destroyed the gaming industry depending on who you ask. Some say that pirates rob creators of hard-earned revenue due them, which is likely true for the most part. On the other side, piracy, has provided services that, when boiled to their base form, equal one thing that counters what the powerhouses make difficult: they allow people access to And full ownership of a game (all at the cost of a bit of internet data). If the music and movie streaming industries are to be a reflection of whats going on and what could happen, it should be this:
People would much rather PAY for products and services. Yes, there is more than enough data to support that. The caveat under this is that people are willing to pay for products and services as long as consideration is taken in offering them At The Right Price. And Piracy seems to serve as the thorny bridge between Undesirable Terms & Conditions and favorable ones.
Digital Gaming & Ghana
In Ghana, this digital dilemma hits even harder. Buying online isn’t just a matter of clicking “purchase”—it’s a maze of unreliable internet, international payment restrictions, and prices that don’t reflect local realities. A game that costs $70 in the U.S. might be the equivalent of a month’s salary here. And with few physical stores selling, digital is often the only option.
But when that option feels out of reach, what are Ghanaians expected to do? Many turn to sharing, community downloads, or yes, piracy—not because they want to cheat the system, but because the system doesn’t include them. Heck, when you check regional availability of most services in look in region listings, you don’t even find Africa listed a lot of the time. What gives?!
GG
*sigh* To round this rant off, fact: the gaming world needs to wake up to this. If publishers truly want to build a global community, they have to make games more accessible—regionally fair pricing, offline play options, and real ownership rights would be a good start.
Gamers in Ghana and beyond aren’t asking for handouts; they’re asking to be treated like valued players, not second-class consumers. Until that happens, the line between ownership and access will stay blurry—and the conversation around piracy will keep getting louder and Louder and LOUDER till somebody somewhere goes deaf to the noise!
