Paying for online access on consoles

[Warden of the North]

Why is this still a thing? Why do we accept that we have to pay for XBL Gold or PS+?

In an ever increasing digital and connected world it seems really, really out of place. Its time for games media to actually ask and press for real answers on this.

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[McDavidCrushedLarkin]

Why is this still a thing? Why do we accept that we have to pay for XBL Gold or PS+?

In an ever increasing digital and connected world it seems really, really out of place. Its time for games media to actually ask and press for real answers on this.

I agree. I have a PS4 sitting in a box because my computer games cost me nothing to play, well and I prefer computer gaming as well. If it was free I'd have it set up for the odd time.

 

[Osprey]

I'm not a console gamer, so correct me if I'm wrong, but all online games are hosted on official servers, are they not? If so, that's a lot of servers that MS and Sony need to supply and maintain month to month.

In the PC world, when a game needs that kind of infrastructure and high quality servers, like World of Warcraft, there's a subscription fee. Console gamers don't pay any per-game subscription fee, do they? You just pay a single fee to MS or Sony, correct? You don't have to give your credit card number to a new company every few months, remember to cancel each subscription when you're tired of the game or renew when you're curious to try it again. It seems a lot simpler to me.

A lot of PC games can be played online without any subscription, but there are usually drawbacks. If a game is able to be hosted/served on one of the players' PCs, he/she tends to have a big advantage over the connecting players. Even without the unfairness aspect, it tends to not be a very high quality experience, and imagine if a lesser-powered console were to be acting as the server. If a game really requires powerful servers to host the games, then the publishers might provide some for free, but they tend to be busy or full. It's often up to the community to provide servers, such as through a provider. That means that someone has to pay for them, either out of pocket or monetizing them somehow. For example, some Minecraft servers utilize micro-transactions (selling of in-game ranks and cosmetic items) to pay for themselves.

Anyways, I can certainly understand how the subscription fee would be annoying and I might be annoyed with it, too, if I were a console gamer. That said, having high quality servers for every game and having only one account that pays for all of them doesn't sound so bad, either.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Just to clarify, all free to play games have free online on PlayStation, no ps plus required. Apex legends, fortnite, Cod warzone etc., if it's in the free to play section the online is free.

I do wish that it was left up to the developers whether to make the online free, but the thing that bugs me is that every single online element is blocked if you don't have ps plus for paid games. Simple stuff like leaderboards, ridiculous. Hell in Bloodborne and dark souls freaking notes and white phantoms are blocked.

 

[Knave]

I'm not a console gamer, so correct me if I'm wrong, but all online games are hosted on official servers, are they not? If so, that's a lot of servers that MS and Sony need to supply and maintain month to month.

In the PC world, when a game needs that kind of infrastructure and high quality servers, like World of Warcraft, there's a subscription fee. Console gamers don't pay any per-game subscription fee, do they? You just pay a single fee to MS or Sony, correct? You don't have to give your credit card number to a new company every few months, remember to cancel each subscription when you're tired of the game or renew when you're curious to try it again. It seems a lot simpler to me.

Depends

Some will have the game developer/publisher with servers
Some will have the console maker providing servers
Some will be peer to peer with hosts

I would imagine with Playstation and Xbox that it's almost entirely the first two whereas Nintendo would be mostly the latter.

In terms of subscription fees - DLC is invading console gaming, you can buy subscriptions or buy the DLC individually. And then you pay a monthly, 3 month, semi-annual or annual amount to Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo for online access.

 

[Caeldan]

DLC started with console gaming as soon as they had hard drives on Xbox.

Before that, PC gamers typically only saw full fledged expansion pack releases and none of this day 1 dlc crap that's shipped on disc but pay walled.

The Xbox and PS subscriptions justify themselves with the free games, but the hook is for multiplayer access. Again I think it was MS that made the first move in this regard and xbox owners accepted it. I think there was some weak excuse why the multiplayer access was hidden behind a pay wall but it's long gone now.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Yeah the Xbox live commercials with "Dark Master". They never justified why it was paid, they just advertised it with the voice chat or whatever. I remember even being a kid thinking how stupid it was to pay for online cause it was always free playing StarCraft and other PC games, I was shocked when it became a huge success.

 

[RandV]

I'm not a console gamer, so correct me if I'm wrong, but all online games are hosted on official servers, are they not? If so, that's a lot of servers that MS and Sony need to supply and maintain month to month.

In the PC world, when a game needs that kind of infrastructure and high quality servers, like World of Warcraft, there's a subscription fee. Console gamers don't pay any per-game subscription fee, do they? You just pay a single fee to MS or Sony, correct? You don't have to give your credit card number to a new company every few months, remember to cancel each subscription when you're tired of the game or renew when you're curious to try it again. It seems a lot simpler to me.

Does Microsoft/Sony provide the servers for all 3rd party publishers, or do the big publishers like Activision still provide their own for Call of Duty and the like? I've always been under the assumption that it's the latter. Anyways this is something that exists simply because it can, the owners of the original XBox accepted it the price and that's that.

 

[Beau Knows]

I think XBOX justified it at the time because their online service was far ahead of their console competition.

But now both Sony and XBOX have solid services, while Nintendo is still light-years behind. But all 3 charge simply because they know people will pay. They've created these walled gardens that they control, so unlike on PC, you can't just look elsewhere for online gaming. If you want to play with your friends on XBOX, you just have to pay up.

 

[x Tame Impala]

If you buy the year subscription it comes out to $5/month for Gold...pay up buttercups.

 

[God King Fudge]

I have much less issue with it for Xbox than I do PS4. I can at least bundle GamePass with my Gold, which is honestly the best value in gaming AFAIC.

 

[Hammettf2b]

Thinking about getting the Xbox Series X just for of Gamepass alone.

 

[bleedblue1223]

It doesn't bother me at all. Games have stayed about the same price for years. I remember when AAA games were about $50 in the PS2 days? But, staying at $60 all this time is one of the reasons micro-transactions came to exist in the first place. People complain about high cost of next-gen consoles too, but just wait a year and they get knocked down quite a bit.

Console gaming is still one of the more cost efficient hobbies out there IMO.

Also, lol at expecting games media to ever ask those companies the harder questions like that. Games media is a joke.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I used to grumble about it all the time, but I play far less online multiplayer games now so I don't subscribe unless necessary.

When I am reminded that I need it to play with a friend, I get cranky.


To be fair, I do think it does a lot more for you now than it used to....I remember the days of paying for Xbox Live to play peer-to-peer CoD because....reasons?

 

[Beau Knows]

It doesn't bother me at all. Games have stayed about the same price for years. I remember when AAA games were about $50 in the PS2 days? But, staying at $60 all this time is one of the reasons micro-transactions came to exist in the first place. People complain about high cost of next-gen consoles too, but just wait a year and they get knocked down quite a bit.

Console gaming is still one of the more cost efficient hobbies out there IMO.

I don't think that's true, games cost $60 because that's what publishers feel customers are willing to pay for them, and micro-transactions exist because they know some players will buy them.

Doom Eternal just came out and costs $60 US, and it has no micro-transactions, and on PC you can play online with no fees.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Why is this still a thing? Why do we accept that we have to pay for XBL Gold or PS+?

In an ever increasing digital and connected world it seems really, really out of place. Its time for games media to actually ask and press for real answers on this.

Personally I'm okay with it. I pay for my games membership yearly. I typically try to get the PS+ Christmas deals where you can get a year of PS+ for about $50 a year. I also pay for XBox Gamepass, which I think is an insanely great deal. I've gotten hours upon hours of fulfillment out of the games that I've had access to through Gamepass.

Given the free games they give out every month, even if I only like a small number of them per year, I generally consider that as something I would be okay spending a certain portion of money on anyway. (For example, I am enjoying Shadow of the Colossus, Sims 4, Uncharted, and BioShock collection. These are games I may not have gone out of my way to out-right buy, but built in within the cost of PS+ I can assign a mental price-tag to each of those and easily justify the $50 a year).

 

[bleedblue1223]

I don't think that's true, games cost $60 because that's what publishers feel customers are willing to pay for them, and micro-transactions exist because they know some players will buy them.

Doom Eternal just came out and costs $60 US, and it has no micro-transactions, and on PC you can play online with no fees.

Just purely from the economics of it, the cost to produce games rises every year, so naturally the main source of revenue can't be the exact same every year, that's why micro-transactions and game passes and DLC that cost money became a thing. It's been $60 for 15ish years? How much has the average salary for a quality game dev increased by in that time frame?

Now that doesn't excuse many of the scummy tactics that these companies use with micro-transactions, but those whales keep my gaming experience cheaper, at the expense of lack of innovation in game modes that I play.

 

[aleshemsky83]

I don't think that's true, games cost $60 because that's what publishers feel customers are willing to pay for them, and micro-transactions exist because they know some players will buy them.

Doom Eternal just came out and costs $60 US, and it has no micro-transactions, and on PC you can play online with no fees.

Plus, cartridges were extremely expensive to manufacture, CDs cost less than a penny to manufacture and the cost of games plummeted during that era with plenty of $20 and 40$ games. It's a myth that games have "always" been $60. In fact there's more $60 games now than ever.

An $80 game like Chrono trigger with inflation is almost $140 today. In Japan, where there was no rental market, it sold 2 million, in America where there was, it only 200k.

FF7 on PS1 launched for 49.99, sold 10 million.

 

[Warden of the North]

If you buy the year subscription it comes out to $5/month for Gold...pay up buttercups.

But why? Because they say so? It feels goofy in an ever increasing interconnected world. PC gamers dont do it.

 

[bleedblue1223]

But why? Because they say so? It feels goofy in an ever increasing interconnected world. PC gamers dont do it.

It still costs money to run and maintain the servers.

 

[Commander Clueless]

It doesn't bother me at all. Games have stayed about the same price for years. I remember when AAA games were about $50 in the PS2 days? But, staying at $60 all this time is one of the reasons micro-transactions came to exist in the first place. People complain about high cost of next-gen consoles too, but just wait a year and they get knocked down quite a bit.

Console gaming is still one of the more cost efficient hobbies out there IMO.

Also, lol at expecting games media to ever ask those companies the harder questions like that. Games media is a joke.

Honest question: what is the connection between game development costs and putting specifically online multiplayer behind a paywall?

Interestingly enough, it seems like a lot of big budget games put out by Sony and Nintendo are primarily single player experiences and a lot of people attribute their success to these games. I think Microsoft is hoping to capture some of that magic next gen as well.

In Sony/Microsoft's case, most of the games gated behind that paywall seem to be third party. I wonder, do they give a portion of the subscription money to the developers/publishers if they are third party?

 

[Warden of the North]

It still costs money to run and maintain the servers.

Id love to see the profit margin on these services.

 

[Commander Clueless]

It still costs money to run and maintain the servers.

I think the question there is which servers? The game servers? I mean I don't keep close tabs on that stuff so I could be wrong, but just as recently as Destiny 2 I recall Bungie talking about investing in servers and running partial peer-to-peer.

The digital distribution servers? Probably, but that's how they make their money off of digital sales.

To be clear - I have no problem with the subscription services as a game service (pretty decent perks, honestly) like it used to be with Sony to make extra money...sort of like Amazon Prime for your console. The question remains, however: why gate actually playing multiplayer on the game you already bought behind it? That just seems unnecessary.

 

[Warden of the North]

I mean, CoD Warzone works without PS+ or a paid version of CoD.

Whos footing the bill there?

 

[aleshemsky83]

I mean, CoD Warzone works without PS+ or a paid version of CoD.

Whos footing the bill there?

Yep, all F2P games have free online on PS, while all payed games have zero online functionality without it, including basic stuff like leaderboards. It's most likely to push the PS plus features even if Sony is not handling any of the server side stuff for say a publisher like EA.

I think the free online for F2P is a good idea, otherwise you have a huge section of your store that's useless to a large portion of customers. Instead PS plus gives you free monthly stuff for many F2P games (I think it's up to the publisher though as Fortnite doesn't really do this from what I've seen)