The problem is that Battle.net itself has been hacked several times.  Hell I stopped playing their games on their servers when a friend put his own VERSION of battle.net up for us to play on...code ripped right off their servers.  To me thats just effing scary.  You wouldn't catch me within 10 feet of even THINKING of sending any personal data over their servers.

Could you explain why Bnet is more vulnerable than Steam or XBL or even things like Gmail? All of them have code and personal data on servers that can be ripped off with the right exploit.

Bnet maphacking is MUCH different to Bnet emulation like you're describing, so don't confuse the two issues. Maphacking is about figuring out data that's already on your computer, emulation is about stealing data from the server and is far more serious.

Because you paying for it does not give you any additional benefits. You can give millions to microsoft if you want. In a couple of years you wont be able to play gears and halo online anymore. Unless of course, you buy the new versions sure to come out. And the cycle goes again.

Realise that liking the game and wanting to play them online is fine. You want to do charity to microsoft for it, go ahead. But the fee isnt justified. The server costs are minimal and they will be shut down in just a few years. You're virtually buying the game and paying for a service that will not exist anymore in a few years. How you consider that money well spent is beyond me.

If microsoft garanteed the servers would stay up aslong as you pay for it i would understand, but they really dont care.

As for oozing ignorance im sad you feel that way, because i totally understand leaking the same kind of comments when i see your posts. I know that you're a lost case in this matter, but i really want people that are reading this thread to see that microsoft is taking advantage of them and shoving it off like its a justifiable fee when its not, will just lead to even further abuse from microsoft. Its that kind of company, and its not where i want to see the industry heading.

As a side note, i want to let people know that there are plenty of hackers on Xboxlive aswell. These posts saying that its a much safer service is a load of parcial views. Xbox live has already been hacked aswell, it just didnt last longer and microsoft mostly baffled the subject.

Dont believe me? Great that should be the spirit. Go on youtube and you can see for example the rankings on Sonic games full of hackers and hackers playing the locked SF x Tekken character online on Xbox live.

I dont preach the believe me cause im right like others here try to, i preach the go and see it for yourself so you know what is really happening.

Being able to put up a server that emulates battle.net is more than a simple maphack.  Someone captured MAJOR parts of their infrastructure and reengineered them to act AS battle.net.  XBL has never been hacked because there's no middleman...no pc's involved that can screw with things.  You connect via your xbox and the environnment is controlled at both ends by MS.  Steam has been hacked, Battle.net has been hacked...both due to their allowance of PC's...

Certainly there will be tons of people trying to jack into MS via captured data off their routers and such however as we've seen...it's just not gonna happen.

So you're basically saying you want LAN on Blizzard games. Don't we all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUXHY6CnIR0

Deafening "We want LAN" chant as Bnet disconnects a crucial game between MarineKingPrime and ST.Parting for the Team League Finals, while Mike Morhaime, Blizzard CEO and Dustin Browder, lead designer for SC2 sit in the front row with the following expressions:

We used to have land on games like StarCraft...their whole backend was hacked so that people had up a whole ton of servers set up to connect to.  It was AWESOME.

Amazing, you still just don't get it. The benefit for a lot of us it ability to play games we prefer. PS3 has a ton of online games I could play for free... but I'd rather spend my time playing something I enjoy. I don't know your financial situation, but $60 is not a lot of money to me for something I will use all year.

"You're virtually buying the game and paying for a service that will not exist anymore in a few years. How you consider that money well spent is beyond me." I'm paying for entertainment now and its a relatively small amount. You ever go to the movie theater? You simply pay for entertainment for that moment. You ever eat out? Once again, you are just paying for a moment of entertainement.

Some sort of fee is justified considering its not free to offer online services. For many years PSN was in the red. I presume PSN Plus is finally making PSN profitable.

Its not a charity since I feel what I get from the service is worth what I pay.

For someone who claims to not care about how people spend their money... you sure care an awful lot. Anyhow, just bear in mind competition is a good thing. You think PSN would be as good without MS creating such a fantastic service? Its seems like almost everything Sony does is a response to Xbox. MS forces Sony to compete and make their service better. So even if you dislike MS, you atleast owe them thanks for making PSN great.

Holy cats.  Wow.  I won't lie, this post floored me.  Is it just Sony and people who have a Sony device who need to get on thier knees and bow to Microsoft in thanks, or should Nintendo and Nintendo fans also join the praise-wagon?  I guess you're right, though, in that Sony had done absolutely nothing in gaming until the Xbox came out.  And here I was thinking the Xbox was at least a tiny bit inspired by the PS1 and PS2.  Silly me.  And the fact that it would be impossible for you to enjoy any online game on PSN ... wow.  Now I feel bad for thinking Journey was a pretty good game.

Seriously, though, I give Microsoft a lot of credit, and I think they've done a lot of things right, but don't you think you're being a little over-zealous in you praise?  They really, really aren't the only source of inspiration in the gaming world, you know.

To be fair about this, no $60 is not much money at all. It's small in comparison to what MMOs usually charge but then again that is for that game specifically whereas they update it heavily and run servers. As for XBL there is a shroud over the actual cost of them running their service, is it really justified? It'd be nice to know.

The real issue is that XBL could be free and you could still play Halo, Gears, and all that. Elmininating the fee won't cause it to come crashing down. Competitor services are operating just fine under a free model and there has been discussion among companies that free models should be the established model. If a game needs to charge a service fee to operate then by all means charge a service fee, but to charge a fee regardless of use and regardless of which companies utlize it, doesn't bode well with me. Are third parties even part of this fee? Do they receive any of that money? Do they use Microsoft's servers? If they don't then there is defentily something wrong with this model. I wouldn't be opposed to Microsoft charging a fee to play 1st party games online since those are their servers and such. If third parties are brought into the mix then I guess it is alright but they seem to operate just fine without a fee in the past and on other platforms, that goes for 1st party games too. This also is aside from the fact Mircosoft doesn't allow access to paid services without an XBL subscription. Do you think Netflix isn't using their own servers? Why should you have to pay twice? Access to those services should be free but instead Microsoft needs to gather some money from their consumers, because if they are just using their Xbox to watch movies they probably aren't buying many games. This just screams unethical.

Enjoy what Xbox offers and XBL but you should really know that your participation in their service fee isn't because of any added value or guarentee of your entertainment, you have no other choice if you want access to those games. It is exploitation and in line with Microsoft's monopolistic past. Don't view this as an attack. If I was really into those games, and I was really into Halo 2 back when, I would be paying the fee aswell but only because I didn't have a choice. Really what should come out of this is a more active attempt by Xbox consumers to change the industry model, at least be met half way by freeing up services like Netflix and the upcoming IE9.

So I have to ask you the question. If XBL went free tomorrow, how would you feel?

THis. ^^^^^^^^