Polygon - The days of owning games are coming to an end.
What EA is offering in this case is ephemeral, just like the games we buy digitally through Sony and Microsoft and install directly on our hard drives. One day the servers will go down, and the games will be gone. The hardware will die. The companies will stop supporting these services and they'll cease to host games. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. The digital coupons for content and games are a great deal for this generation, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking we're buying anything lasting.

We may complain about this in the comments, but the reality of the situation is that this is the future we've built. We support this new age of limited ownership, of products that exist at the pleasure of the publishers and developers. We spend money on games and services, we prop up the minimum viable products that we like and support their ongoing development. We talk about convenience when we buy digitally, and we worry about things like pre-loading so we can play the moment the game is out, but we're ultimately discussing impermanence.