At this point, we’re not surprised to see another big publisher trying something out of the ordinary in the hopes that it may work. With that being said, as Kotaku Australia has stated in their article from June 2nd, 2020, Ubisoft is planning a yearly access model for Trackmania.
The Situation
Presently, Trackmania Nations Forever is available to play for free on Steam. However, this new approach to selling Trackmania is sure to raise some eyebrows. The number of subscription services we are all subscribed to is, safe to say, getting out of hand. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all bad. If you’re keeping up a monthly sub and there’s some value and enjoyment in it for you, then fantastic! It’s when there’s little value at a high price where problems can start to creep in. Ubisoft isn’t a stranger to having yearly passes for their games – case in point Rainbow Six Siege and Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Where Trackmania is differing is that they are specifically creating a yearly access model for the game. This means a payment on a yearly or tri-yearly basis will secure your access to the game, after which you will need to renew, what essentially is, the subscription. Ubisoft Nadeo, one of Ubisoft’s Paris studios, isn’t being entirely upfront about the nature of this model when asked.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.So make no mistake, this is definitely a subscription model, but what remains to be seen is how much value we, as gamers, will be able to get out of it.