I challenge you to find me a major online store where a game's page says you are only buying a license. I just went to https://store.steampowered.com/app/582010/Monster_Hunter_Wor... and the first link says "Buy Monster Hunter: World". By every indication, I'm buying it in the same sense I buy a physical book from an online bookseller.

Now, fortunately, it's illegal to mislead customers that way.