But they are; you yourself give an illustration:
> Some years back I decided I had had enough of Ubisoft's anti-consumer bullshit, and decided AC: Unity would be my last Ubisoft game (bits of the game that I had bought were locked behind a mobile game and there were paid-for items as well). There have been lots of times I have thought I would love to play certain games (eg Anno 1800) but I've held off because they were Ubisoft games
> These days I try to spend my game dollars in a way that rewards publishers with a more positive stance, but that does mean depriving yourself of certain games etc. I can totally get why people don't do this.
In other words, the market forces favor game distributors who do the things you (rightly, IMO) call "anti-consumer bullshit"--not enough consumers are willing to do what you did to deter distributors from doing those things. That's a free market: the voluntary choices of buyers are determining the incentives faced by the sellers. The only way to change those incentives would be for many more people to do what you did.
(I'm even more extreme than you, btw; I have never bought a single online game distributed on these terms and never expect to. All the computer games I've ever played came on CDs or DVDs.)
> But they are; you yourself give an illustration:
I didn't say they aren't subject to market forces at all. I said they aren't as subject to market forces. They are insulated to some extent by the monopolies created for them my copyright. That's precisely why I gave my example - as something that I (and some others) do but which is almost entirely ineffective.
It's not a free market. Copyright and other IP protections specifically mean the goods are not fungible for the reason I explained.
Games aren't fungible with each other. If you want to play Dark Souls, you have to buy it from From software. You can't go to an alternative Dark Souls provider that offers you better terms. Likewise Ubisoft has IP that fans want access to. Therefore due to copyright etc they have small monopolies that aren't as subject to market forces.
Some years back I decided I had had enough of Ubisoft's anti-consumer bullshit, and decided AC: Unity would be my last Ubisoft game (bits of the game that I had bought were locked behind a mobile game and there were paid-for items as well). There have been lots of times I have thought I would love to play certain games (eg Anno 1800) but I've held off because they were Ubisoft games.
These days I try to spend my game dollars in a way that rewards publishers with a more positive stance, but that does mean depriving yourself of certain games etc. I can totally get why people don't do this.