I completely forgot you have to pay to play online on consoles

C

Conor_Fool

Banned
I just logged onto my Xbox One to play video games alone for the first time in years. It has been a Netflix/HBO machine for the past two years after buying a decent graphics card.

I just finally agreed to play with my friend and his cousin in ranked 3v3 Rocket League and, upon getting the invite, I get redirected to an add about Xbox Live premium prices.

How the fuck do you all do it? And how the fuck do they get away with charging for one of the most basic features of the internet?

I can't believe I forgot about this.

Worried fake edit: Can Nintendo actually charge money to trade/battle pokemon in their new upcoming Switch game? Because that idea is truly horrifying
 
Nintendo has said that paid online will be required for "most" of their games, but they haven't clarified what that means. Either way, you shouldn't have to pay to play somebody locally. That wouldn't require an internet connection.
 
This happened to me recently as well. I was waiting for the CoD:WWII beta to finish downloading on PS4, so I loaded up Black Ops 3 to warm up. Got slapped with a message saying I needed PS plus.
 
I haven't bought psplus for ages and im still playing f2p and mgsv online I think ... Yeah I guess I'll run into that barrier eventually again
 
You know what the worst part is? When you don't play that much online and you feel the money wasting away.

I never forget I pay for this shitty service and I am constantly disappointed by it.
 
Nintendo had a Pokemon Bank app for the 3DS that could store all your Pokemon from all generations. You had to pay a yearly fee to use it. It is what it is.
 
Conor_Fool said:
Worried fake edit: Can Nintendo actually charge money to trade/battle pokemon in their new upcoming Switch game? Because that idea is truly horrifying
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It depends. If it's not using Pokemon Company's own Global Link system and is using Nintendo's online, then yes. if it IS using Pokemon Company's own connection, then it will not be charged.
 
I blame Microsoft for showing others that you can get away with charging for online MP. It was even worse during Xbox 360 time when you didn't even get free games and just had to pay for online.
 
This ended up being one of the reasons for me moving over to PC. Didn't see the point in having half of a given game purchase be gated behind an arbitrary fee.
 
Conor_Fool said:
How the fuck do you all do it?
Click to expand...

I like the service, and don't mind paying for it. It's not hugely expensive and I use it at least two-three times a week.
I had to pay £40 for a green garden waste dustbin from June until March. Paying for PSN is nothin'.

It does stop me from buying an Xbox One though. There's lots of online games I'd like to try on it, but if I bought the console, an online subscription would definitely go to waste. So they lose my money in that sense (not that it makes up for what they earn I'm sure).
 
SinCityAssassin said:
It depends. If it's not using Pokemon Company's own Global Link system and is using Nintendo's online, then yes. if it IS using Pokemon Company's own connection, then it will not be charged.
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I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. Nintendo subscription is required for all online games, not just Nintendo ones.
 
Ostinatto said:
This is why i'm not a Giant Bomb premium member anymore, i have to pay PSN PLUS every year, sorry GB.
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Online fees have turned my consoles into dust collectors. Only use them for the occasional single player exclusive now.

Really glad I moved to PC when I did
 
I paid for a single year of Xbox Live last gen and it felt like a huge waste. Being gated out of such a basic feature is the sole reason I haven't even considered Sony or Microsoft's consoles this gen.
 
Well to be fair, you also get monthly games, discounts etc. which are more of a justification for the price. There's also the cost of use for the platforms network, but I don't really know how much online multiplayer functions use it and how much is handled by the game developer, so this might be a moot point. I personally use psn plus, and I would probably use it even if it weren't a requirement for multiplayer, so this isn't that big of a deal to me.

I do agree however, that multiplayer should not require paid subscription. I can understand how some feel like they are ransomed into paying.
 
ScaryShark said:
Do you actually need this answered for you? Really?
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Since it seems he does, I personally bought 8 years of PS Plus at about 35 a pop. No way I was even gonna stick around worrying about all the bullshit.

Also, if you forgot consoles charged to play online I really don't think you need to play online all that much do you now bud....
 
This happened to me recently, went to play a game after not touching my PS4 in awhile, and then it hit me I couldn't actually do anything unless I payed them.

So I put it back into my closet.

Where it will stay until MH World comes out.
 
BernardoOne said:
I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. Nintendo subscription is required for all online games, not just Nintendo ones.
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There are exceptions. For instance, all MMO titles that come to Switch do not require the player to have the Online Service function, as they are already paying for a subscription based service. So you can play PSO2 and DQX without paying for Nintendo's online.
 
It's rare I want to play online so I have forgotten this too at times.

Though I'm not a big multiplayer gamer I hate that people allowed Microsoft to get away with charging for it to the point that the others followed suit. I can't just drop into and try a game online, I instead have to commit to it for at least a month to get my money's worth.
 
Biggest reason I don't play multiplayer (and if I very occasionally do it's on PC). Fuck that shit, it's lame as hell that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo think paying for multiplayer access is ok.
 
Yep, it sucks for me because I never played online games a ton anyway, so I feel I can't justify the price. Like in the PS3 days, I would hop into an online game perhaps once a week, if that, and have fun with it. Not enough to consider paying just for the ability to do so. So now I feel like I have to skip heavily multiplayer games entirely.
 
PS+ is actually a per game basis but outside of free to play games I haven't seen developers choose to bypass PS+ for their online multiplayer. Which is a shame since PSN being free was the reason I bought multiplayer games on my PS3 instead of Xbox last generation.

It's a scam but what can you do.
 
Ouija Luigi said:
Well to be fair, you also get monthly games, discounts etc. which are more of a justification for the price. There's also the cost of use for the platforms network, but I don't really know how much online multiplayer functions use it and how much is handled by the game developer, so this might be a moot point. I personally use psn plus, and I would probably use it even if it weren't a requirement for multiplayer, so this isn't that big of a deal to me.

I do agree however, that multiplayer should not require paid subscription. I can understand how some feel like they are ransomed into paying.
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It's really just gating the multiplayer behind a paywall that bugs most people. I was a happy PS Plus subscriber during the PS3 era, then a reluctant one during the first few years of the PS4, now I'm waiting for the sub to run out. The discounts and free games existed long before the online paywall did.
 
Let's hope that Nintendo intends to keep the fee low like they said. Was it something like 20€ per year? That I might pay, I understand the need to keep services up but Sony/Msoft are just milking players.
 
Tapejara said:
This ended up being one of the reasons for me moving over to PC. Didn't see the point in having half of a given game purchase be gated behind an arbitrary fee.
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Fuck yeah. PC is looking more and more tempting simply because Sony and MS are fucking me.
 
Tapejara said:
It's really just gating the multiplayer behind a paywall that bugs most people. I was a happy PS Plus subscriber during the PS3 era, then a reluctant one during the first few years of the PS4, now I'm waiting for the sub to run out. The discounts and free games existed long before the online paywall did.
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Oh yeah, I get that completely. And I thought it was a stupid decision even back then. It's pretty much the same story for me except I'm still somewhat happy to subscribe. I rarely play online so to me the allure is mostly in the "free" titles, I've got to play quite a few games that I would never had played otherwise. The recent price upping ground some of my gears though, especially since to my knowledge there's no additional boon coming with it.
 
I recently remembered this as well. It's not a huge problem to me as my main platform is PC, but it's still really lame. I can't remember the last time I had PS+ (think it was sometime last year).
 
I just don't. Pc is my main platform anyway, don't like to waste any more time or resources on consoles if I don't have too.
 
SinCityAssassin said:
There are exceptions. For instance, all MMO titles that come to Switch do not require the player to have the Online Service function, as they are already paying for a subscription based service. So you can play PSO2 and DQX without paying for Nintendo's online.
Click to expand...
There's also the Just Dance series, which has its own paid Premium mode. JD Premium basically adds a larger library of songs (around 200, mostly a selection from previous games in the series), but you still can play online if you're a basic player, just not the Premium songs.

I wonder how they'll handle games like these, if you'll need to pay Nintendo to unlock the Online in addition to paying Ubisoft to unlock the full library, or if paying just one of them unlocks both.
 
Firstly "forgot", did you bollocks. What's that all about?

Secondly I pay it for the 48 free games a year. I've never paid more than 25 quid for a 12 month subscription and I don't even play online games. "but they're not free, you lose them after your subscription ends.. Blah blah.." that's fine I'll just renew it again, for the 48 games, it's only 25 quid a year.
 
The worst part is that the service isn't really any better that what you get on pc and a lot of games use P2P multiplayer or barely do anything through psn/live and use their own backend.
 
DarkLordMalik said:
I blame Microsoft for showing others that you can get away with charging for online MP. It was even worse during Xbox 360 time when you didn't even get free games and just had to pay for online.
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Right, but no one forced Sony and Nintendo to follow.
I blame the consumers for not even lifting the finger.
 
Xbox live gives me 24 games a year I can keep forever. That is good value even if I have probably never played an online game on my Xbox one.
 
I mainly pay the small sum (£4 per month?) for the daily save backups to the cloud and the extra discounts that PS+ members get, plus the occasional free game that interests me. If you take the discounts off the price, plus the vouchers etc I use when I pay for the service, it probably works out to be around £2 per month. I consider that value for money.
 
playXray said:
I mainly pay the small sum (£4 per month?) for the daily save backups to the cloud and the extra discounts that PS+ members get, plus the occasional free game that interests me. If you take the discounts off the price, plus the vouchers etc I use when I pay for the service, it probably works out to be around £2 per month. I consider that value for money.
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I've always been fascinated at the "pay for discounts" stuff.
 
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