Opinions on paying for online play?

[kypherion]

Personally I'm not a fan, I'm used to free online with PC gaming and paying $60 for a year of online seems silly.

[oldgamerz]

I think it stinks

[badATchaos]

To me it would only make sense if it went toward hosting game servers. In reality it doesn't. It's up to the game studios / publishers to host their own game servers, or develope a peer to peer hosting system.  Subscriptions pay for download hosting and backend stuff. It's expensive to get that infrastructure built, but otherwise.... it's kind of a rip off.

[seether]

I refuse to pay for xbox live gold or PS+ just on principle, unless they sell it to me at £1 promotional price and the 'free' games happen to be good that month.

Do my multiplayer gaming on PC.

[98dgreen]

Nope

[hexen]

It's complete bunk... more profit squeezing from an increasingly awful industry. I do almost all online stuff on PC anyway.

I'm upset Nintendo is finally jumping on this awful bandwagon, but at least their pricing is less than Sony & Microsoft. It's super annoying to have to pay to access features on games like Smash... I haven't gone online with Playstation since Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale which at the time was at least free, don't know if stuff like that still is.

[Agozer]

I refuse to pay for xbox live gold or PS+ just on principle

This.

The only time I bough a very short PS Plus subscription was when my profile on my PS3 got borked and I had to quickly back up my saves (including copy-protected ones).

[chrismb]

I would obviously prefer not to pay but I'm lowkey always excited to see what the next "free" games are gonna be lol.

[emporerdragon]

I have no problem with paying for Xbox live. It's cheap enough, has a solid infrastructure, and the kickbacks of free games and exclusive sales more than compensate for the cost.

And while it may sound odd to some, having the paywall there does a great deal in preventing exposure to cheaters and hackers, as people aren't as quick to abuse the system when it has direct consequences to their pocketbooks.

[bikingjahuty]

I have never been a fan for a variety of reason.
1) You already bought the game and now you have to continue to pay for it: I know this isn't entirely true now with many MMOs and other only focused games having free to play options, but growing up you still had to buy the game full price then throw down $10 to $25 a month + the cost of internet to continue playing. I always felt this to be a huge ripoff and I still do mostly.
2) I don't like online multiplayer: I don't really like interacting with people normally, but interacting with others via a game is arguably worse. Probably because each player gets to hide behind a character they're playing, the worst parts of who they are that they keep hidden in real life come out for all to experience. Because of this I find dealing with people's mental illness, bigotry, egos, and insecurities even more annoying while playing a game than I do in real life.

[droaa]

Had it not been for the amount of people I have met over the years because of my time on PSN then I would be paying for PS+ but in this case, as long as I can get a good discount over Black Friday then paying for year of the service is find to me.

[sworddude]

Not really a rip off earnings of just game sales are not enough anymore for most companies so for allot of games it's a must besides the costs aren't to much of a problem for the people that enjoy such games and actually play it allot.

There are free to play games that only ask for payment for visual clothing etc for their earnings wich in some times earns them a hell lot of dough wich might be a rip off to some. While I'm not a fan of paying for online play I do see why companies do so and it will probably only increase in the future.

[tripredacus]

Would never do it. Actually refused to do so when I was heavily recruited to play WoW, at the time I was playing Diablo II. I have played a free month of games for paid MMOs such as Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot.

[shfan]

Wouldn't take it for free.

[rayne315]

wow so much negativity to paying for online...

im perfectly fine with paying for it because they offer perks for doing so. I get every single PS+ free game that releases and just for that alone I feel like I get my moneys worth. I don't have many vita games but throughout the years I have accumulated ~200 vita games through ps+ so I always will have something to play on that (vita games are incredibly rare in my area most shops only have 10-20 total). on top of that since ps+ became required for online play the whole of PS's network has become significantly better and more reliable. back in ps3 it seemed like the servers went down for one reason or another every other week.

ive never bought games online with it but it seems like there are always great discounts going on. if I was not a physical collector I would have very easily saved more than the price of the service every year just in game purchase discounts.

it does suck that now it is required but I always had it to begin with.

but yes i would never pay for anything like WOW where you have to buy the game and then pay monthly subscription fees to continue to play it.