Online subscription. Fair or not fair?

[Mr Puggsly]

Flilix said:

Mr Puggsly said:

Heh, I'm sure it cost millions to build/maintain their servers and online services. Perhaps many millions. I mean they have a staff and the services are used by many millions of people whether it be online play or any other service that uses their servers.

But their goal isn't to lose money or break even, these subscription services are part of what makes these platforms profitable and relatively speaking its cheap. I mean PS+ and XBLG COMBINED is about same price as a year of Netflix.

Aren't the online services free on PC? Why would developers waste millions on their PC servers?

Well the way MS does it, they're running many servers across 360 and X1. This is why a lot of old content still has online play compared to other platforms which more frequently have their servers shut down.

The average PC game has servers being operated by the publisher, private, etc. It seems like the big 3rd party online play providers have gone under as well. Gamespy was the notable one I'm aware of.

Frankly, I don't mind paying something for a online infrastructure like Xbox Live and the "free" games is a big incentive to subscribing. Just play on PC if you feel like a relatively cheap subscription is a bad deal.