I am split on the issue. My Wii and PS3 are not even online. I've never logged in to PSN and I don't feel that I am missing out. I feel that publishers are using online modes to justify short, unfulfilling or generally shoddy single-player experiences.

That said, Battle.Net has powered many a D2 gaming session, and I cannot wait to meet up with old friends and battle companions on bnet for D3.

Well is also an age/responsabilities issue too, I don't have as much time as before to play split screen with friends (once a month we play starcraft or Smash brothers) so online is quite practical.

Good point, that is true. A lot harder to do when you're 20 than when you're 13

Mario Kart online is the sole reason I say no.

Wow I'm glad to see someone else lives in the year 2012 as well. Having grown up to my 20s its no longer feasible to just go over to my friends' house on a dialy basis. There are too many things in life to do as is the case for them. Online gaming just makes it so much easier to connect, keep in touch and have a good time.

That said its not that I don't miss the days as a kid when I would have my cousins/friends on the same couch having a blast, but things change and I just accept it and move on. I think online gaming has changed things for the better, but you still have the option of enjoying gaming like it used to be using local split screen and lan parties. And I do play games online, but I don't bother putting on my mike unless playing with friends, I just play to have fun with MP just like SP and I don't see how that is affected in any way in online gaming. I think some people have set up this pre-concieved notion that online gaming is this competitive environment where you will get trashed, but in reality you can play whichever way you like-casually and competitively.

While I do enjoy playing games online fairly frequently, I do sometimes wish the Internet never got so entrenched in gaming. As you say, it removes the emphasis on the vastly superior couch multiplayer, but I also miss when developers shipped games that were actually complete and working. You know, when you didn't need to download patches to fix the game day one, and when you bought the game and you had the WHOLE game.

This is one reason I still love Nintendo so much, because they ship games that work, and because they place the emphasis on having fun with your family and friends in the same room (if online play is even included at all). It's why I'm a little nervous that they're starting to embrace DLC with their own games--it can be done right, but it makes me nervous.

 Thx, that girl is really beautiful... ***_*** 

A couple of friends and me bought CoD: Black Ops together so that we HAVE to meet up and play splitscreen. And yes, I miss the times when we met up more often to play games, but its also a time factor that we can't meet that often, we grew up, have jobs or are studying. Its not like when we where children and the only thing that mattered was gaming^^

I totally agree with all that is being said here.  I enjoy online gaming as much as the next guy, but when it is the main mode of the game that is shameful.

Without online what would happen to all those awesome UGC in LBP