Jim Sterling says PS+ humiliates the game industry

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The White Hunter

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Oct 19, 2011
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Treaos Serrare said:
Treblaine: Steam and GoG are all well and good for the PC community but what about people who don't have nor care to have a high end PC most new games REQUIRE, consoles don't have this problem and really all the complaints of a pay wall you mentioned are only a problem on Xbox, not PlayStation. you don't need PS+ to get at netflix, Hulu,or any of the other myriad video streaming services on offer, you need to pay THOSE companies for THEIR service but not PlayStation as well, the PA comic you showed is one of the very few i disagree with because like you they are giving what i feel to be a faulty view of the subject. You do get $50+ of value for the service the 20% savings you belittle is constant and ever growing to expand more titles both old and new, how often are sales on Steam and gog, not constant I'll wager and not consistent in the savings either. I have about 20+ games I downloaded for free from PS+ that are easily worth 10-20 bucks retail or more so that's roughly $100-$250 in savings right there, then there's day one downloads of new games if you buy them on psn.
As to your credit card complaint, um there are point cards, buy yourself a $100 allowance or however much you feel is a decent or adequate amount to have in your virtual wallet and go from there, no need to worry about lost credit card details or fraudulent charges, unlike steam where you HAVE to input a CC, GoG at least takes paypal if I remember correctly
Glad somebody gets it, though Steam does take PayPal, as does greenmangaming.
 

Treaos Serrare

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SkarKrow: I wasn't 100% positive that steam did, since the last time i tried to buy anything it didn't even give me an option of payment method, it just took from my registered CC

Really most all of the PC gamesi have I got from Humble Bundles, with a few outright purchases thrown in, though some of those are from Waaay back( gotta play my Homeworld 1-CAT-2 Thief games and System Shock 2)
 

Treblaine

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crazy_coug99 said:
I have a PS3 and have PS+. And you know what, IT WAS THE BEST PURCHASE FOR THE SYSTEM I EVER HAD. With the first few downloads, one can legitimately make up that $50 price tag with what's on there now. The most notable title now is Darksiders, which is a really good game which that alone is $20. One game takes up almost half of the yearly cost and every week something different is added. I completely agree with Jim and I support the article, Sony, and this incredible service that they provide.
Okay, take all that money you spent, including $50.

How much was it?

I guarantee I can make your money go further elsewhere. It's not about recouping the cost of the $50 you put in THAT PUTS YOU BACK TO SQUARE ONE! How much money did you save AFTER the $50?

You say you saved $20 on Darksiders? No. You paid $20 less THAN SONY'S ASKING PRICE! That's not necessarily "the price". I mean if Sony charges $30 more than everyone else and you "saved" $20 then you got ripped off. It's like a greasy car saleman seeing you coming, adding an extra 0 to the end of a car's price, then saying "since I'm so nice, I'll cut your 20% off".

http://www.steamprices.com/us/app/50620/darksiders

Several times in January, Darksiders went down to only $5 on Steam with a regular price of $20. And you don't have to pay a huge $50 up front to Sony to get an opening to these deals, anyone (and I mean anyone, anyone with a windows or mac computer) can go get these deals.

See, you're being played for a chump.

So, prove me wrong. Tell me how much you've spent - Including PlayStation Plus subscription - for what games?
 

Milanezi

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Supertegwyn said:
krazykidd said:
Ugh 4 $ a month isn't much , people spend more than that in coffee in a day . Plus i find XbL has a better internet connection than PS3, so if i'm paying 4$ a month to have a better connection with online games , i'll gladly pay.
Since when has that been the case? I have owned both in the past, and they each had equal internet connections.
I stick with Krazykidd, I own both consoles, and my PS3 always failed to deliver me a decent internet experience. I don't know how that makes any sense, but it's how it is with me. My Ps3 is always a pain in the ass whenever I need to update something, or download something (not going into multiplayer here, because I seldom play mp at all).
 

Snotnarok

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I find it very amusing that there are people that defend XBL with such resolve like they work for it when these sorta things are brought up. It was excusable in 2006 and on the regular Xbox but now competitors have come in and of course on PC where paying for a sub for such things as demos, voice chat,etc is laughable. To top it off they have ads on XBL, something I wasn't aware of because i haven't had an xbox in some time now, so all this stuff stacked onto something that's just not good is just stunning.

PS+ is quite interesting, I like owning the games in my hand so I'm not so keen on it, but it is a solid deal, I mean even on the Vita front you get Uncharted (30-40) game free to play while the service is active/paid for. So there's a lot of enticement and a lot of cash to be saved.
Something else to be applauded by Sony is Cross-buy, buy a game on the PS3 and get the Vita copy free and the same save can be used? That's ...brilliant in every way, granted the Memorycard space may become an issue considering the cost but that is truly something else.

However I'm wondering if this will lead to worse things, like always online to play such games, the most irritating and bullshit of DRM. I hope they can keep their heads straight on this I really do.
 

lazyslothboy

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At this point, I really pay for xbox live because I'm too invested into the service. All my friends are playing xbox 360s and my entire gaming library is on the console. So i'm not too keen on paying the 200 bucks again to buy a ps3 on top of rebuilding a library and then paying for ps plus. That said, its anyone's game next cycle, as I have no intention of paying for gold if it plans to do the same thing it does for me now.
 

Treblaine

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SkarKrow said:
Treblaine said:
Last time I read the Steam EULA if you don't play by their rules they will ban you and you will lose your games too. And I've never known anyone to be banned from the PSN outright and have their stuff stripped from them either, I was banned for a week because I got reported for telling a troll to go die in a fucking hole and they never stripped me of anything.

As for stores on PS3, you're right, there is only one place to buy digital titles from, though (at least in the UK) you can buy keys from other places for less quite often. Honestly with the exception of indie titles and download-only games in the £5-£10 bracket you'd be insane to pay the publisher dictated £60 for the game rather than toddle out to the shops or order from Amazon cheaper.

Or just buy a retail copy from amazon, shopto, zavvi, game, gamestop, etc.

At least you use GOG when Steam doesn't give you a good deal, there's no need to rag on Sonys store, apart from for the atrocious new UI they forced upon us all recently.

If the store rips you off, it's your fault, there are plenty of alternative ways to get your games, consumers need to be aware and if you think a price is unjustified then by all means, vote with your wallet.

Example: I think that Dead Space 3 charging £45 upfront and then having the audacity to have day-one DLC, an online pass, DLC within a month of launch, and microtransactions, is taking the fucking piss, so I'm just not buying it.
Nope. They can cut you off but then there is no incentive not to crack steam authentication, you still have your games.

And you're only going to be cut off for directly damaging their network. Consoles will ban you for ANY MODIFICATION AT ALL! Yes, you can with great difficulty mod games on consoles, but you get punished severely for it. That's what I mean by "playing ball". There is an obvious difference between texture mods and trying to hack people's accounts.

And I've never known anyone to be banned from the PSN outright and have their stuff stripped from them either
I don't know anyone who has been banned from Steam. I guess it never happens then.

I was banned for a week
Oh wait, that's a pretty big exception. That never happens on steam. Valve just aren't vindictive dicks like that policing what you say to each other, that is left down to admins on a server basis. It just focuses on stopping people from directly damaging or compromising the security of the network, what their job is supposed to be.

I don't even know why Xbox Live and PSN even allow personal messages, I mean what's the point? It's only a liability for abuse and having to police it.

Or just buy a retail copy from amazon, shopto, zavvi, game, gamestop, etc.
Playstation Plus discounts do not apply here.

In fact the such better deal you get on places like those, THEY humiliate PlayStation Plus.

there's no need to rag on Sonys store
Yes there is. I don't care about a massive faceless corporation's personal feelings.

If the store rips you off, it's your fault, there are plenty of alternative ways to get your games
No. DLC for playstation games you can ONLY get via Sony store or via gift cards that are sold for a fixed price.
 

Treaos Serrare

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kman123 said:
Iunno...I'm having trouble understanding how everything functions, but that's probably because I spent 99% of my time on the Xbox before my girlfriend got the PS3...

I just want to buy Journey....will you let me buy Journey? Please?

PS Live totally blows.
it's not even remotely difficult to use a PS UI versus using the Xbox UI
put money into your accnt like you do on xbox which is either through a point card or loading your CC up into your account
then go to the store and use the alpha bet you learned in school to find the game you want, or hell even easier use the search bar.

"PS Live totally blows" huh really now? so Xbox Live Gold gives you the same kind of discounts worthwhile games for free, early access to beat versions of games or demos, day one download of new games as they come out, and cloud saves so you don't have to worry if your console suddenly bricks(oh wait that doesn't happen to the PS3 anywhere near as frequently as it does to the Xbox360)
 

Treaos Serrare

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lazyslothboy said:
At this point, I really pay for xbox live because I'm too invested into the service. All my friends are playing xbox 360s and my entire gaming library is on the console. So i'm not too keen on paying the 200 bucks again to buy a ps3 on top of rebuilding a library and then paying for ps plus. That said, its anyone's game next cycle, as I have no intention of paying for gold if it plans to do the same thing it does for me now.
you could always hock console and library to get a new console and probably most of the games you had already if not all depending on their age and provided they weren't Xbox exclusive, I've gotten nearly 200 bucks just from 5-10 games much less a console too
 

bandit0802

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To everyone propping up PC gaming because of Steam and GOG, I definitely see and agree with your point. There's just this one thing: I LIKE CONSOLES! I like that when I'm done with a game or if I didn't like it, I can take it to another retailer, be it GameStop, Amazon, or someone else, and get some money back. No, I don't get my full investment back, but I get SOMETHING. I don't lose my full $50/60. You can't do that with PC games, especially digital ones. And then there's renting. Not every game has a demo, so if I'm not sure if I'll like it, I can rent it. And a demo usually isn't enough time to decide if I like a game. I've been fooled by demos before (e.g., RE6). If I rent the full game from Blockbuster or GameFly, I can see the finished product, play it for a few days, then decide if I want to pay to own it. Sometimes, I don't.

Microsoft and Sony are destroying what once made consoles great, and I'm pretty sure that's because they're not game companies. They're electronics companies that make consoles. And I will continue to kick and scream until the console situation is better than it is. But until they become completely unreasonable, they will be my main source of gaming.
 

lazyslothboy

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Treaos Serrare said:
you could always hock console and library to get a new console and probably most of the games you had already if not all depending on their age and provided they weren't Xbox exclusive, I've gotten nearly 200 bucks just from 5-10 games much less a console too
That is true, but then I do enjoy the xbox games that I have. I dislike paying for the online, but I'm very happy with the games i have purchased. Plus I'm a tad of halo fanboy and despite halo 4 being not as good as the others, I still heavily enjoy replaying the old ones haha.
 

The White Hunter

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Treblaine said:
A couple of my friends got banned from Steam a little while back, mostly for being dicks on the forum.

Most people playing on consoles don't give a fuck about mods. I play a lot on PC these days and I still don't really care about mods.

I've found DLC codes at a discount in retailers before. Though usually a while after it's been out, which is the case for steam sales too. And also at a good 50-70% off on PS+.

And yeah, I know there's very little policing for chat on Steam, it could do with someone, the chat in games of TF2 or BC2 are frequently vile and unpleasant to read.

And I can get Infamous 2 for what, £25 on Amazon? I could get it free on PS+. Yeah, I pay for the service, but like I said, I get enough back on it to cover the initial investment. I could get banned and lose access to some stuff, but I barely play online and I try to minimise contact with people I'm not friends with.

PS+ is a good deal if you play your games on PlayStation. It's simple. It's a better deal than Xbox live.

Sure, Steam has it's seasonal sales and weekly deals, and they're great too, but I wouldn't say that they're objectively better than any other outlet. Think about how many people have enormous libraries of games on Steam that they've never played, because a publisher catalogue was 75% off and they went "OOH! I want those 2 games out of those 30! That's a bargain!" Only to have wasted £40?

Oh and a massive corporation has no personal feelings, I never implied it would. Your arguments are inconsistent: you keep flopping between hating PS+ for offering an incentive to subscribe in the form of early access and heavy discounts, then the moment it suits you you flop back over to saying that Sony is an evil corporation.

Are you by any chance one of the Master Race enthusiasts who thinks that the Steambox is a glorious saviour of gaming? Even though you yourself won't be able to justify spending £350 on it rather than spending £10 on an HDMI lead to reach your living room?

Because if you are that kind of blind Valve worshiper, I think we have absolutely nothing left to discuss. Good day sir.
 

The White Hunter

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Treaos Serrare said:
SkarKrow: I wasn't 100% positive that steam did, since the last time i tried to buy anything it didn't even give me an option of payment method, it just took from my registered CC

Really most all of the PC gamesi have I got from Humble Bundles, with a few outright purchases thrown in, though some of those are from Waaay back( gotta play my Homeworld 1-CAT-2 Thief games and System Shock 2)
I got my PC games in sales, bundles or from GMG with discount coupons mostly. I only know steam takes paypal because I'd rather use paypal than my debit card.

Oh and use the quote button, that way it alerts me when you respond, saves monitoring the thread.
 

Treblaine

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lazyslothboy said:
At this point, I really pay for xbox live because I'm too invested into the service. All my friends are playing xbox 360s and my entire gaming library is on the console. So i'm not too keen on paying the 200 bucks again to buy a ps3 on top of rebuilding a library and then paying for ps plus. That said, its anyone's game next cycle, as I have no intention of paying for gold if it plans to do the same thing it does for me now.
Sell them all and go to PC.

Seriously, they resell at a price higher than games are sold new on PC, factoring sales price.

Once on PC your options stay open. Steam is there, but so is GoG and loads of other alternatives, you aren't locked down to one network. This is the thing, if you go with consoles again THEY WILL DO THE SAME THING, it's one network, on store, you've go no damn choice. Consoles locking you down to one store is anti-capitalist, it's anti-choice. The whole way capitalism works is every purchase you consider if someone else is offering similar or the same at a better price.

The next cycle is already here on PC, many devs are already developing exclusively for PC because they admit it's totally beyond what the consoles are capable of, even stripping everything down to the bare bones.

Thing is you need to move soon. You can't wait till a next gen of consoles appears, your games will be worth less.

Check out some of these prices:

http://www.steamprices.com/us/


Treaos Serrare said:
"PS Live totally blows" huh really now? so Xbox Live Gold gives you the same kind of discounts worthwhile games for free, early access to beat versions of games or demos, day one download of new games as they come out, and cloud saves so you don't have to worry if your console suddenly bricks(oh wait that doesn't happen to the PS3 anywhere near as frequently as it does to the Xbox360)
No, not for Free. For Xbox Live Gold, for $60 a year.

That does not "pay for multiplayer", not a penny, not a fraction of a cent that YOU PAY to access multiplayer does to actually hosting and connecting multiplayer games. All it does it send a tiny authorisation code that they are ALLOWED to access multiplayer. All that matchmaking in COD? That is done by activision, on activision servers, the games are hosted on the user's consoles and the connection is made by the Internet Service Provider, that each user pays for.

It's a racket. It's like some mafia thugs demanding money so that you can run your business, then they act like they actually add anything to your business.

No. The exact same thing is done and has been done on PC for years now, without any overarching network like Xbox live, games have connected via matchmaking and either joined a server or hosted on PC with best connection.
 

Treaos Serrare

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lazyslothboy said:
Treaos Serrare said:
you could always hock console and library to get a new console and probably most of the games you had already if not all depending on their age and provided they weren't Xbox exclusive, I've gotten nearly 200 bucks just from 5-10 games much less a console too
That is true, but then I do enjoy the xbox games that I have. I dislike paying for the online, but I'm very happy with the games i have purchased. Plus I'm a tad of halo fanboy and despite halo 4 being not as good as the others, I still heavily enjoy replaying the old ones haha.
Fair enough, some of the Xbox exclusives I would have loved to play but, yeah not gonna buy a console for a hand full of games i don't know are good or not. I loved when they brought Bioshock over to PS3, I got that game when it first came out an played it on a friends 360 because it was so awesome (to me anyway)
 

Baron_Rouge

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Treblaine said:
crazy_coug99 said:
I have a PS3 and have PS+. And you know what, IT WAS THE BEST PURCHASE FOR THE SYSTEM I EVER HAD. With the first few downloads, one can legitimately make up that $50 price tag with what's on there now. The most notable title now is Darksiders, which is a really good game which that alone is $20. One game takes up almost half of the yearly cost and every week something different is added. I completely agree with Jim and I support the article, Sony, and this incredible service that they provide.
Okay, take all that money you spent, including $50.

How much was it?

I guarantee I can make your money go further elsewhere. It's not about recouping the cost of the $50 you put in THAT PUTS YOU BACK TO SQUARE ONE! How much money did you save AFTER the $50?

You say you saved $20 on Darksiders? No. You paid $20 less THAN SONY'S ASKING PRICE! That's not necessarily "the price". I mean if Sony charges $30 more than everyone else and you "saved" $20 then you got ripped off. It's like a greasy car saleman seeing you coming, adding an extra 0 to the end of a car's price, then saying "since I'm so nice, I'll cut your 20% off".

http://www.steamprices.com/us/app/50620/darksiders

Several times in January, Darksiders went down to only $5 on Steam with a regular price of $20. And you don't have to pay a huge $50 up front to Sony to get an opening to these deals, anyone (and I mean anyone, anyone with a windows or mac computer) can go get these deals.

See, you're being played for a chump.

So, prove me wrong. Tell me how much you've spent - Including PlayStation Plus subscription - for what games?
If I could offer my humble opinion, I'm an avid supporter of PS+, and I don't think I'm being played for a chump at all. I spent $70 on a yearly subscription (that's how much it costs over here), and the games I've got at 100% discounts easily recoup my original investment. InFamous 2, Motorstorm Apocalypse, Space Marine, Darksiders, Arkham City, Guardians of Middle-Earth, Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One, Starhawk, Vanquish, Sly Cooper HD, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Gravity Rush, and, as of next week, Wipeout 2048 and Sleeping Dogs. These included a great many games that I really wanted, and would have bought anyway if they weren't free. I didn't have to pay my subscription fee to see what was being offered, I didn't have to pay and then pay more to unlock the full game, these weren't discounts, and I didn't pay a dollar over the original 70 for those games. That seems like a pretty great deal to me.

Also, I can play them offline. If I stay somewhere without WiFi and forget to configure Steam to go offline first, I'm stuck locked out of the games I paid for, including many I actually bought physical copies of, and then discovered they required me to use Steam to play them.

And I can't get them for cheaper on PC, because a great many are PS exclusives. When I can play Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, InFamous, LittleBigPlanet, Uncharted, Motorstorm, Wipeout, Starhawk, and Gravity Rush on a PC, I will. Until then, I'll stick to this fantastic service that offers me those games at a great price.
 

redknightalex

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Treblaine said:
lazyslothboy said:
At this point, I really pay for xbox live because I'm too invested into the service. All my friends are playing xbox 360s and my entire gaming library is on the console. So i'm not too keen on paying the 200 bucks again to buy a ps3 on top of rebuilding a library and then paying for ps plus. That said, its anyone's game next cycle, as I have no intention of paying for gold if it plans to do the same thing it does for me now.
Sell them all and go to PC.
I think your missing the point here and trying to turn this thread on PS Plus into a (somewhat enraged) debate between the benefits of PCs over consoles. Sometimes people want to play on consoles, or just don't have the computer to play games on, so I think trying to compare Steam and PS Plus is a bit ridiculous. I have both -- a great gaming machine with Steam and a PS3 with a Plus subscription -- and I use them for different purposes. I love them both equally and I play different games on them. I don't think one is better than the other because, in all honesty, Steam is not the be-all-end-all to gaming in the least. It's done a lot of great things, yes, I won't argue that, but some things it just implemented (like being able to mod games and reselling some games). Also, if you get banned or Steam takes a disliking for you, I'm pretty sure you can't get your games back from them as your account is locked. So much for "owning" those Steam games, eh?

It's ok for people to like consoles. There also is no master race of gaming. Let people play how they want to, alright?

Back on topic....

Plus is a great service. I buy it mostly for cloud backups, which has saved me a few times over, automatic updates, and, of course, the freebies. With Vita being added to the list of the Instant Game Collection, you really do start to have a great gaming collection, and all for the cost of one new game. It doesn't matter to me that I'm "renting" the game from them, probably because I keep renewing or some of the games are hit and miss, because the games are just an extra. They aren't the main purpose of Plus for me.

Think about it for a minute: you buy a new PS3/Vita with a 3 month subscription to Plus on it. You don't even need games anymore to get started with your console! Just get it connected to the Internet, download, and play. What's not to like?

And Microsoft...I gave up on them when deciding between (yes, between) having a 360 or a PS3. I can't afford both. When I found out that you had to pay a premium for being online, not to mention not having a wireless card included, the 360 looked rather bland next to the PS3. Why should I have to pay more for an Internet connection I already have, Netflix I subscribed to, or being able to game online, something that's included in the original game's design?! I think if Microsoft doesn't fix this quick for the next gen, they'll be loosing out on a lot more than just a few million. It could mean the next console generation.