I give the OP a 10 out of 10

Fantastic thread

Nothing is free, someone, somewhere is paying for that online. It may be the game publisher, like EA or Valve. It may be the community or an ISP, like many PC games. Or it may be Sony charging publishers to serve demos and downloads. Or it might be MS charging users.

No matter what, while these services may seem free to use, they are definitely not free. And when you're scaling a single service to serve tens of millions of users, that's a big cost. So do you eat it and palm some of the costs off to publishers like Sony, or do you get a sub like MS?

I don't see what there is to discuss. When you have paid for a game, you should be able to use all it's features, especially when you can on the competing platforms. If MS insists on charging, I'll insist on not buying, it's that simple.

Almost all games on XBL use the XBL servers for matchmaking not to mention all of Live's features. The exceptions are games from mega huge publishers like EA who want as much control as possible. This is no different than the fee Sony or MS or Nintendo collects for every game sold on their system. What did Sony have to do with Black Ops 2? Nothing. But they still make money off of it.

MMOs require expensive servers to keep whole persistent worlds alive and running, it's different from simpler kinds of multiplayer where computing power and connection are provided by the users, and different from charging money for whatever online multiplayer. Obviously it's fine MS charge a fee for the additional features it adds to every kind of online multiplayer, but it's also understandable that many people don't want to pay for basic online multiplayer, unless they explicitly require premium services added to it.
You are incorrectly comparing three completely different things: online persistent massive worlds, premium services and basic online. The latter mostly relies on resources provided or already paid directly by the users, their local computing power and their internet connection, while the first two rely on massive efforts and resources by the MMO owner or by the premium services provider.

Google is so convenient for calling out bullshit.

kain_kusanagi (on 23 June 2010)

No thank you. I'm not going to pay to let Sony tell me what games I can have for "free".

kain_kusanagi (on 25 June 2010)

Hulu should be free. It's free on the internet. Why would I pay for TV when I already pay for TV? Playstation Plus is so stupid. If you're not paying for playing online then there is no reason to pay. I'm not going to give Sony money for the privilege of letting them hand pick games I can use while I subscribe but never own.

I honestly don't understand why so many Sony fans are so in love with PS +. You pay for Sony to pick games for you. What if you don't want those games? If you do you like the games you have to keep paying or you'll lose it. The sales are fine, but again you're paying Sony to choose what to discount for you. It's more like a rental system, but you only get to rent what Sony picks out from it's basket of stuff they that has already paid for itself or isn't selling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization

Wow that must hurt lol.

LOL. Pwned. Hilarious find Adriane.