1. I pay for that service to play the games I love. I don't care about the other services so long as the games work.

2. WoW is only F2P up to level 20 and then it's a $15/month

3. It was a jokey way to make a point. I'm sorry it didn't make you laugh.

1. Right... But how are you refuting what I said?

2. Right... But how are you refuting what I said?

1. Paying to play games is the deal. It doesn't matter what the reason is for the charge or what the service is. You pay to play the games you love.

2.  Getting to level 20 is like a demo, the game ends unless you pay 15/month. It's kind of like giving crack cocain away for free because you know they'll be back with cash every day until they die, lol World of Warcrack. Anyway, it's not free to play if you really want to play it. It's only free to play as a sample. Free "Starter Edition" accounts only allow play up to level 20, cannot form parties, and disallow trading items or joining a guild. Can upgrade to a full account by paying subscription fee.

1. Yes, but people feel that Microsoft should not push the value of the game onto a service. I'm not sure if this is the best analogy, but it's like how people complain about Microsoft BUNDLING its software with the OS and charging more.

2. Almost all F2P MMO impose some kind of restriction, and require payment to lift those restrictions. I was considering that there could be MMOs that give you a full game and charge extra for additional features, but then that just really becomes a matter of perspective. Anyway, WoW is a F2P game. If you want to argue that there's a "spectrum" of F2P games (what % of the game is free), eh, fine. But it's still a F2P game.

So... Can we lock this thread? Not much more to discuss.

But you are justifying paying for XBLG because it has Halo. In fact Halo has been the only consistent argument you have given in favour of XBLG. You were pointing out how MMO players pay a monthly fee to play online when you yourself essentially have been paying $4 a month to play online. Let me reiterate: there is nothing wrong with that. If you like Halo so much then there is nothing wrong with paying however much MS charges for it. If you find value in it, then go for it because it is something that you can only find with MS.

But the people who are arguing against XBLG are not doing so against the exclusives it offers. We are arguing about the things that are common with other services. For example, take Black Ops 2. You can play BO2 online on PSN, Nintendo Network and Steam without paying any extra charges. This ability to play online is covered by the intial $60 we pay for the game. Then why is MS charging another $4 a month on a 3rd party game, who are handling their own online infrastructure, to access the online portion of the game? We already paid for the online once when we bought the game, but why do we have to pay more on XBLG to play the game? What exactly are they offering more that the other 3 platforms aren't offering? Same with other services such as Netflix, which we already pay a subscription for and is available on PC, PSN, NN, etc without any extra cost, but why do we have to pay more to access something we are already paying for on XBL? Is XBLG offering something more, like free movies in Netflix on its platform that warrants the extra charge?

You see if MS charged $4 a month for its EXCLUSIVE games or services such as Halo or Gears, then there would be no argument here, even though other platforms such as PSN and NN offer free online for their exclusive games. You could just say I like playing Halo (because it is subjective) for a monthly fee just like MMO people like paying for their games monthly, and this content is only found in XBLG, so I have no choice. And we would all say that's cool because to each their own. But when MS starts charging and blocking out content that we already paid for and are available on other platforms without any extra cost (like BO2 MP), thats when people complain that XBLG is flawed. That is the argument.

Thank you for your respectfull reply.

I'm not going to justify why MS charges for XBLG. If it was free I'd be happy. What I will say is that I pay for XBLA for the same reason that I bought a Xbox 360. For the games I can't get anywhere else.  The 3rd party games are irrelevant to me, even though I enjoy them, because without games like Halo and Gears I wouldn't have a 360 and I wouldn't pay for XBLG. Since games like Halo are so good I pay for it and enjoy it. That offends people and this forum is full of people spitting fire at those who enjoy their exclusives just because XBLG has a tiny fee and PSN doesn't.

There are servers MS pays for. Matchmaking is done via MS's servers. And Live handles party chats and a slew of other things. There's also much higher bandwidth costs compared to PSN because every single network game is required to have a trial. And unlike PSN, MS does not charge developers for that bandwidth.

Of course, one could easily say MS makes that money back in ads on Live. So then you're left with a lot of profit for MS. And guess what? Nothing wrong with that. Sony would love to be in that position.

Are Halo 4 matchmaking games run on Microsoft's servers, or is it run by a peer to peer network? And why isn't the option available for players to play for free without having stuff that are really run on MS's servers, such as cross game chat? That's why people are not really digging Live subscription fees. I mean you have games like Killzone that are run on dedicated servers that won't have a single player disconnect when the host leaves, and this is all provided for free...

I didn't bother reading the entire thread, but it looked like people were asking how one could be satisfied to pay for MMO's, yet complain about XBLG's fees.

I'll give my reasoning: WoW is easily worth the monthly cost. There isn't (or wasn't, at the time) a comparable game. It alone provided me with hundreds and thousands of hours of content, a full "console-worth" of playtime. I stopped playing WoW long ago, but I did buy Guild Wars 2, and it doesn't have anywhere close to the amount of content WoW does. Other free MMO's usually attempt to nickle-and-dime you to the point where you'd end up paying WoW costs for a similar experience.

Now, let's look at XBLG - what am I paying this fee for?

To play online games? I can play most of them on my PC or on the competing consoles for free. Only the X360 exclusives (Gears, Halo) will absolutely require it.

Voice chat options? If I want to talk to friends I have a vent server or other free chat apps, I don't need this.

Netflix, Internet explorer and other online XBLG-only features? Uh, these are obviously free on everything but the Xbox 360.

Basically, XBLG is a fee to "unlock" the 360's internet features. It's a monthly fee for having full access to your freaking videogame console.

Now, what's the difference between this and WoW? It's important to note, that if you're paying for WoW, you're probably playing a lot of it. People don't subscribe to a whole bunch of different MMO's all at once, unlike consoles, where people buy multiple ones to have access to all the exclusives. If you "quit" WoW, you're done playing that particular game - you can't login to play on your characters anymore, which is annoying, but considering you're probably already bored of it, that's okay. However, if you "quit" the Xbox 360, what happens? You lose internet play for all the games you've paid for on the console. No more online play for Gears, Halo, Soul Calibur, and all the shooter / sports games you purchased for the console... potentially hundreds of dollars of games, locked out from the internet.

If you want access to all your consoles, having monthly fees on each will really take its toll. This is what my costs look like, if I bought 3 games a year, per console, at around $40 (sale / used) today:

Wii: $120
PS: $120
XB: $160 (+Year of XBLG)
Total: $400

Paying 33% higher for one console, for the same number of games? That $40 may not seem like much, but if every company adopted this practice, including Steam, I'd be paying $160 extra a year, just to play stuff online. Ridiculous.

XBLG is really only acceptable for those who have made it their main gaming platform. People like me, who game on everything, PC, 3DS, 360, Wii U, whatever, it's unacceptable. Let's put it this way, I use Steam far more often than my 360, and I'd be pissed if it had an online fee.

For anyone who defends XBLG costs, do you play more than one console? Do you think it'd make sense paying ~$150 extra just to be able to play online games on every playform (PC included)? Or being forced to pick and choose (due to money constaints) which platform you'll pay monthly for, to access online features?

Killzone is peer to peer when you're playing the actual games. Only the stats and matchmaking are done on dedicated servers. Halo 4 gameplay is peer to peer. Matchmaking is done via dedicated servers.

You can't play a game online without using those servers because that would defeat the whole purpose.