Recently a lot of discussion, controversy and outrage has happened with the question of whether clients "own" the video games they purchase, and how much power the publisher has on the clients' right to those games they have purchased. Quite infamously a lot of outrage was caused by some game company executive (I think it was Ubisoft) stating in an interview that gamers should get accustomed to the idea of "not owning" their games.
This is actually a bit of a complex topic and there's a lot of misconceptions and vagueness about the entire question of "ownership" of video games (and, in general, of all intangible property).
When you go to a grocery store and you buy an apple, for example, then you quite explicitly and literally own said apple, no question about it. It's yours, 100%. After you have legally purchased it, it's now your private property, you have full rights to it, and you can do whatever you want with it (including, for example, selling it to someone else for profit.)
If you go to a store and buy a hammer, the situation is still quite clear for the most part. After the purchase you do own the physical object. The physical object in question is yours, your private property, and you can do almost anything you want with it (including eg. selling it to someone else for profit.)
But... what do I mean by "almost"? Why isn't it 100%? Well, the design of said hammer might be protected, at least in some cases. You might have the right to do anything you want with the hammer... except make exact copies of it, if the design of the hammer has some kind of protection behind it. Quite often this protection will be a patent (although, with some objects, it may be copyright or something like trade dress.) If the manufacturer has no protections of any kind (such as patents), in that case you do own the hammer 100% and can literally do anything you want with it, including making identical copies of it.
Where things become more complicated is when we delve into intangible property.
Let's say you buy a book, eg. a book of fiction. You will own the physical book, ie. the physical material it's composed of. However, you do not own the contents, ie. the so-called intellectual property of it. That means that even though you can do almost anything you want with the book, including selling it to someone else (although local laws might vary on this), you cannot make identical copies of the book and distribute those. The contents of the book are automatically protected by copyright.
You do "own" the book in the sense of the physical material it's composed of being your private property, but you do not own the contents.
This is often expressed as: You own a copy of the book, you do not own the rights to it.
The same goes for all copyrighted material, such as photographs, (copies of) paintings, movies and, in this case, video games.
So when you purchase a video game, it's the same thing: You own a copy of the game, you do not own the rights to it.
But, what exactly does it mean to "own a copy" of intangible property, such as a book, a movie or a video game?
That actually depends a bit on the jurisdiction. There are international laws governing copyright, but also local laws (that may supersede the international ones) can vary here and there.
However, in general, unless otherwise explicitly stated, when you buy a copy of intangible property, in other words, when you "own a copy" of it, it means essentially that you "own an implicit law-enforced lifetime license to use" the product in question. If it's a book, you have the implicitly granted license to read it as many times as you want without limits. If it's a movie, you can watch it as many times as you want. If it's a game, you can play it as many times and for as long as you want, without limits.
That is what people usually mean when they say that they "bought a game and thus own it", even if they don't know or understand the legal details.
Note, however, that this implicit lifetime license is not a given nor automatic. It's only automatic if there's no other license agreement stating otherwise.
For example, renting a movie limits how long you can watch it, after which you can't legally watch it anymore (not with that single-use license, implicit or explicit).
When it comes to software, usage licenses are not necessarily eternal. This is most typically the case with the subscription model: Some software (eg. many antimalware software) may sell limited-time usage licenses, which need to be renewed or else the usage license expires and you can't use the software legally anymore. Companies have the legal right (in the vast majority if not all jurisdictions) to create a more limited form of usage license than the default implicit eternal license.
This is because when you buy a piece of software, you own a copy of it, not the rights to it. The intellectual property rights remain with the publisher (or, sometimes, with the individual person who owns and is selling the software). Your rights to the copy can be legally limited by the publisher.
This is likely what that Ubisoft executive probably meant, but phrased it incredibly poorly.
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