Paying for Online: Is it Necessary?

Consider this, you go to a well every day to get water. The water is not perfect, but you like it enough. Plus, it is free. Then one day, people take more control of the well. The promise to change the well to provide more better water. But now you need to pay to use it. This will definitely change how you'll live, but now you are forced to do so.

This is basically what happened to Playstation users.



During the years of the PS3, the PSN was a free service. People would be able to play online and interact with their friends online for free. There was subscription services like PS Plus, but they were not necessary. Then when the PS4 arrived. PS Plus integrated with the PS4 to the extent of making PS Plus as a requirement for online gameplay. Online gameplay was still free for the PS3 and the PS Vita. But now you needed to pay to play online for the PS4.

This certainly caused much dissatisfaction with many users on the Playstation side. This was a major surprise, especially since the PSN was always free for users. Why did Sony do it? Sony/Playstation has stated their reasons why this was necessary. But what is necessary for the fans is seen differently than what is necessary for corporations. Was this really necessary?

Let us consider Playstation's more notable competitor, the Xbox brand. The Xbox 360, the same generation in gaming as the PS3, required that you pay to play online. Xbox players needed to pay the brand's subscription just to play online with other. For a long period of time, other services such as Netflix was not even available unless you paid for their subscription. This was before the free goodies were introduced too.

Sounds bad, right? Well, this was extra money going to Microsoft. In turn, Microsoft was capable of providing a better online service to their customers. That is exactly what happened. Online experiences on the Xbox 360 became much better than online gameplay on the PS3. Much time passed by and many users accepted this for the Xbox 360.

This was a concept that PS3 users did not have to face on the PS3 side of gaming.

Sony/Playstation has stated that online gameplay and interactions were to be a very important part of the PS4. With new features such as the ShareFactory and SharePlay, as well as streaming and such, this was proven that online services were going to be more important for the PS4. It is also be noted that we are still in the early years of the new generation in gaming, and more innovations and changes will be on their way.

To provide these cool new features, extra money will be needed to compensate for implementing features like the ones mentioned. We all want a better experiance in our games. But it comes at a cost, and we can't expect everything to be free forever. The Xbox 360 has proven that paying for online is necessary for a better experiance, and we are currently seeing this for the early years of the PS4.

So why is it such a problem for many Playstation users to make the change? Because just like the well metaphor earlier, you cannot expect people to change how they live and act so easy. Sony/Playstation failed to see this. But this was something that the fans need to understand as well, since they are the ones that need to adapt to the changes.

The future of video games will always be changing. Better yet, it will always be developing into greater stages. But the industry of gaming itself requires giving in order to receive, exchanges better both sides. It may be hard at first, but taking that first step towards a new beginning is neccesary for a prosperous future.