Comment on

Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Back when Xbox Live first hit the scene, that ~$4/month definitely got you a better experience than you got for free. Now that’s not the case.

  source

  • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Yeah. People very much forget how horrible most online multiplayer infrastructure was back in the early 2000s. Voice chat was a case where you used teamspeak/ventrillo for atrocious quality audio that optimally depended on using an actual phone line in conjunction or it just never worked. Messaging was basically xfire or AIM. And servers were generally listen servers that someone in your clan left running in the background when they forgot about it.

    Live provided a messaging system people would actually use and tapped into MS infrastructure for voice chat that actually worked… which was great for playing with your friends and learning all new slurs when you had it on in a pub. Game servers themselves were still generally all listen servers but that changed over time.

    These days? Discord has a LOT of problems but it actually works and is a much more universal platform. Server hosting infrastructure is such that there isn’t really a point in paying the platform for it. And EVERYTHING needs to be social media for people to not whinge so having a messaging system loses its value.

    But also… have any of the consoles really pushed the online infrastructure as why you pay for premium? Okay, Nintendo have but they REALLY shouldn’t considering what they are offering. It is all about the IGC and has been since Sony got involved as part of the PSN hack.

    source

    • Damage@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      teamspeak/ventrillo

      Roger Wilco!

      source
    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yeah, Microsoft got it to work, unlike Sony.

      source
  • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Well, it got you a better experience than whatever it was Sony were doing at the time, which was a weird ethernet adapter, and seemingly every game reinventing the idea of how online should work.

    I don’t think it ever needed to be charged for, it just needed to be designed.

    source

    • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Hosting servers isn’t free. Someone, somewhere, is paying for it. It’s easy to forget that that someone used to be advertisers via GameSpy for so many games. Now, on PC, you’re paying for it via digital purchases on the same store that hosts the servers.

      source

      • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Hosting servers isn’t free.

        And it’s game devs that pay for the multiplayer server upkeep, not the storefronts.

        And I highly doubt that any money spent on XBox Live or PSN subscriptions was ever sent their way.

        This is just flimsy defense for greed

        source

        • -> View More Comments
• makyo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I hope it inspires Sony to follow suit. In the 2020s paying for multiplayer access is absurd.

  source

  • HeyJoe@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    These days? I dont mind it. With the offering of the 3 games a month, it’s been fine. As someone who’s gotten old and barely plays anything, it’s nice only spending the yearly subscription and getting up to 36 games a year. Sure, not all are great, but there have been plenty of big games offered that let me play the big stuff I missed and probably still wouldn’t pay $20-$30 for.

    source

    • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      It would be a good deal if you kept the games forever, but since they’re linked to your subscription, it ain’t worth it to me😇

      source
    • Lfrith@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Seems worse to me than humble choice which you don’t need to play online, so you can just buy the months you like to get 8 games in your library as opposed to it being tied to multiplayer.

      Then there’s Epic which gives away games every month without having to spend any money and still retain multiplayer access.

      source

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I canned Humble when it became apparent that I was just buying next months free Epic games.

        source
      • HeyJoe@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I used to do humble years ago, then I remember something changed and the selections were never that good. It’s been a while since I found one worth buying. I also fo Epic every week. I have been for about 3 or 4 years now.

        source

        • -> View More Comments
    • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Really, I think multiplayer should be free (it’s not like multiplayer games don’t nickel and dime you on top of that anyway) and the game subscription peeled out of it. I’m only interested in the “free” games anyway.

      source
    • makyo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I mean I pay it and the free games are all that keep me from hating it

      source