Youve been had = you've been ripped off. Saying MS is smart as a veil doesnt change that.

Trolling is intentionally posting hurtful, inaccurate, or misleading material with intention of causing backlash and shitstorm.

Pretty sure this isn't trolling but there's at least one thread on the frontpage that is.

Hey congrats, for once you're actually right about something. It is a dangling carrot and they are smart.

Of course, how that differs from anything Sony or any other business does, is beyond me. Sony also dangles carrots to PSN users to get them to sign up for PS+. HBO dangles carrots to people to both make them customers and to keep them as customers. Hey it even applies to games. The obvious example would be Call of Duty. The list goes on and on and on.

However, the comment about "being had" is nothing more than your biased opinion. Personally I don't mind spending a dime a day for superior online play and a more social/user friendly service and features slathered atop a great MP title. You're welcome to disagree. The difference is, you can find me a thread about whatever subscription type service you enjoy using, and I won't enter it trying to preach my opinion about its worth, or the mindset of the people who subscribe to the service, down onto the subscribers. You'd have to be pretty emotionally invested into services you don't even use to do something like that.

Thank you.

They aren't dangling a carrot. They aren't locking you out of anything, but rather adding to your experience by adding more gaming for a low yearly cost. Big difference. You paid for a full game and only get to experience half of it without Live. See where I am getting?

It's the same thing, regardless of what qualifier you want to try to slap on to make it MS-specific.MS will promote and put the new Gears of War on a pedestal because it's a great incentive to get Gold. Sony will put Darksiders or Infamous 2 on a pedestal because it's a great incentive to get PS+. Again, it's how businesses work. You can try to make it different for MS but sorry, most of us know better.

Put it another way. If I am in the store and want to buy a MP title, I can buy it on PS3 or 360. I'm going 360 nine times out of ten because I know what Live brings. And if my subscription runs out, I know I will find a sale and renew it because I sure as hell won't be playing Gears or Trials on PS3.

It's not hard. Quit trying to make it hard :)

'because I sure as hell won't be playing gears or trials on ps3'

Isn't that why you invested in a 360? You already paid for a console to play those games.

on mmo's you pay to play the game you bought

on xbox live you pay for the ability to play games you already paid for...

they are quite similar except xbox live locks you out of all.. the mmo game only locks you out of that game.. it doesnt block your other games or other usage on the pc.

Exactly, I can only play them on Live. And of course, I know that going in.

servers cost money!