Is it fair that MS charges Xbox users for online, but not PC gamers?

xbox players paid for online without thinking twice.

when microsoft tried on Pc the first time with games for windows live. PC players didnt even bother. gfwl had to be shut down.

so...PC players won. same thing would have happened when sony started charging for online but cows paid up and loved it.

PC gamers just wouldn't pay, console gamers accept the extra charge willingly.

millions of cheats hacker and glitchers on pc....good luck getting anyone to pay for that...denial is futile

hah

Sony plebs literally begged for that with PS+ for PS3. That shit was not required at all, yet a huge number of cows gladly paid for that, because...??? I still don't understand why 'til this day.

@KBFloYd: " PC players didnt even bother. gfwl had to be shut down."

So going back to 2002, if Xbox users hadn't made Xbox Live a success, console gamers in 2020 will be playing online for free?

yup.

cows followed'

and now sheep

no going back on console.

Microsoft charge for it because XBOTS pay it. They tried charging for it before on PC (GFWL) and PC gamers werent haivng it and simply went elsewhere. XBOTS have nowhere else to go.

Obviously compromises needed to be made to bolster the UWP ecosystem. Think of like a bar or club that charges admission, and so to prevent it from being a sausage party and thus having nobody come, they let women in free.

MS doesn't own PC gaming

You buy into a closed system so you really have no choice.

Is it fair that the PS5 DE only allows you to buy from Sony directly? No, but that's what you get for buying into a closed system.

The point of consoles is to make money by charging for online and games/game licensing, no one is profiting from the hardware. MS does not have PC hardware monopoly.

Not fair but console gamers have accepted this as the norm. I hope for its removal in the near future.

And this is the correct answer. PC is not a closed system so it is harder to force the issue and regulate it. Think about the various attempts at copying Steam that haven't panned out.

Whereas on consoles, you're "trapped."

It's not about fairness.

Xbox is a closed system.

The close system argument is weak. IOS is a closed system but you don't pay to game online. Android is also a closish system and you don't pay to play online. This is just a console thing that needs to die.

Yeah, PC is it's own separate market. Like others have said, Console players don't have a choice if they want to play online. They bought into a system that makes the rules for them. Most PC players who see the $10 a month charge for Live ($120 a year) and think "I could buy a ton of games on the next Steam sale for that much."

Hell, if you factor in 5 years of the service, that's $600 just to play online. That's a brand new PC component or gaming monitor.

@sonic_spark: Yup, Microsoft did try to make online on PC paid, with Halo 2 I think, it didn't work.

Shhhh, don't give them any ideas.

Your thoughts, @i_p_daily?

Hermits are pirates, they have to play with cheaters all over the place, and steal games all the time, so how would you govern a lawless society?

Hermits think its great they get free* mp and then complain when cheaters ruin MP games, well they're paying for it now lol.

Now aren't you glad that you pay to play MP on a closed system with hardly any cheaters and pirates?

The funny thing is, MS at the time when Gold fees became a hit, MS had plans to charge PC gamers paying a fee but it backfired when PC gamers found out and PC gamers started a riot but MS backdown on it and never brought it up again.

Why PC Gamers Hated Microsoft’s “Games for Windows LIVE”

Games for Windows LIVE was tied to Xbox LIVE. Everyone started with a Silver account. You could pay to upgrade to a Gold account, which cost $50 a year. A gold account was required for playing GFWL-enabled games online, just like Xbox LIVE Gold is required for playing Xbox games online. Luckily, if you were already an Xbox user, you already had Gold–paying for either GFWL Gold or Xbox LIVE Gold got you both. But many PC gamers weren’t Xbox gamers, and this meant GFWL games has a subscription fee for the same multiplayer features other PC games offered for free. In 2008, Microsoft realized it wasn’t getting anywhere with this strategy and gave up on the subscription fees, making online multiplayer free for everyone in GFWL games.

To sum it up, MS tried and failed spectacularly because PC gamers won't tolerate paying online. Reason why console gamers put up with it is because they have no choice but to pay online, competition on PC rightfully killed GFWL.

I hate to say it, but PC gamers are collectively a smarter bunch for refusing to accept an online paywall while console gamers seem to pay freely. :(

Honestly I really don’t care. I only concern myself with how I feel about having to pay on my system of choice. If I feel it’s worth it then I pay, if not then I won’t. 🤷‍♂️

I dunno. you don't have to pay it.

I'm glad I play my multiplayer games on privately owned servers to which I have rcon and I do not need to contact some third party overload to boot and ban anyone, not just for cheating but for bad attitudes.

We don't play with children, or those who act like children.

Have fun with the squeekers.

If they take that money and make the service better I say it's ok. PC or console.

If they charge to play online, I'll stop playing their games online. Simple as that. I won't pay for PSN and I won't pay for xbl.

When console gamers start to refuse en mass to pay for online like PC gamers is when the console makers will stop charging it. They should not settle with the argument that they have "no choice."

console users are clownshoes, nuf said.

MS tried to charge PC gamers, and they told MS to take a long walk off a short pier. Xbox gamers did the opposite.

PC is an open platform, we have options.

Console is closed, they have no options.

So it's not really about fair or unfair, because people can always get into PC gaming if it matters to them.

Pretty much this.

Yeah I'd sooner buy the game outright and play online for free than sub Gamepass and have to pay extra/yearly to play online.

@SolidGame_basic: You are wrong. PC has a load of 3rd party programs that simulate Xbox Live and are free. Can’t charge people money when the competition doesn’t.

Only reason Sony never charged during the PS3 days is because they were (and now are again), so anti consumer. Outrageous prices, complex hardware that developers hated. Held back Xbox games. Sony was a mess.

So in order to help sell the PS3 they lied about how users shouldn’t have to pay for live service. As soon as PS4 came out and they were able to, they changed their minds real quick.

I love seeing Sony play their own fanbase and watch how blind cows are as well as how they damage control.

@i_p_daily: Yea I don't usually hear about console gamers cheating, but I have heard of console gamers complain about PC gamers cheating in cross-platform https://www.pcgamer.com/call-of-duty-cheaters-on-pc-are-pushing-console-players-away-from-crossplay/

"And while cheaters exist on console, as we all know there are drastically more of them on PC. Several years ago we published an investigation into the million-dollar business of videogame cheating."

So do you pay for privately owned servers?

Oh and lets not pretend that gamers on PC don't act like children, SW is full of them lol.

I said gamers on our servers do not act like children. If they do, they're gone. No need to file a report and wait for action, just /rcon kick and then /rcon addip and it's over.

And no, we do not pay for servers. All our servers are running on hardware that we have removed from our gaming PCs and Frankensteined into dedicated gaming servers. You don't need a rack server to host a game.

Sure non one on "your" servers don't act like children lol.

Both them and Sony have to have something to cut the losses they get from selling the consoles.

Not sure why you tagged me to begin with, did you feel like you had a "gotcha moment" for you against me lol.

Yeah i saw the CoD PC cheating thread, like i said its lawless, why would anyone pay for that, i mean you are paying by wasting your time playing MP on PC because of the cheaters.

So you agree with me, which is sorta a "gotcha moment" for me against you, but lets be honest it always ends up like that lol.

This made me laugh more than it should have lol.

Not for more than a minute.

We get someone acting up or mouthing off, BOOT. BAN.

Though to be honest, it's not even that much of a big deal. Most kids don't know how to fly an aircraft and since we run 1% servers (full realism) that culls the herd even more.

Last issue we had was someone who started TKing up the formation on a co-op. That was December. No dumbasses since.

@br0kenrabbit: You play plane games in mp, i take it your talking about flight sims?

If so what is the point of that? The winner is the first person to get a snarge lol.

I've had to deal with snarge IRL. No need for that in a game. ugh.

The IL2 series and Guild Wars 2 are about the only games I play online these days. I had my FPS binge from Quake-when TF2 went Hats. Over it. Run and gun games bore the **** outta me.

We play via Hyperlobby. Our three servers are Co-op, Dogfight and Free flight. You're not going to get into co-op without a password, and only when we run missions. The other two servers are for public use, but we HEAVILY enforce our policy on being polite and considerate to other players. There's always someone around who can ban you, so behave if you drop in ('Bull Run 1%' servers 2,3).

When you put it that way, over the course of the lifespan of a console generation, you really do pay way more than the price of an equivalent or better PC. I guess that's how consoles recover the losses of the price of the consoles. $399 for a PS5, $60/year for at least 7 years equals $820. That's if you do not buy a "Pro" model at the mid point which would be another $400. You're up to $1200 over the next generation... You can buy a 3080, third generation ryzen 7, 32gb RAM, and have something BETTER than the mid-generation upgrade right now, and pay less overall.

It's because 1:

PC gamers can make their onw private servers

And 2:

We aren't stupid.

Attempting to charge PC gamers to simply play online (outside of some MMO's) is the dumbest move you could ever do and as many have pointed out this backfired hard on MS when they tried that.

You shouldn't have to pay to play online and I will forever hate MS for starting that trend with the Xbox. I respected Sony for not charging with the PS3 but really hated that they started to do it with the PS4 because it also made it ok for Nintendo to start charging and now it's a status quo on consoles.

I really hope they cut the crap.

What'll you or any of the people currently paying those subscriptions do about it? They're never going to stop as long as it's working.

Switch to PC.

@eoten that. That's what I did.