Yeah but they don't run the servers anymore. So I don't know what I'm paying for really.

Idk. I was always a PC gamer, and think the old, often modded, independently run servers were much more fun than the soul-less matchmaking I see on most modern games. It was fun to play UT2004, and join a server where the arena was someone's bedroom and all the sound effects were ripped from The Simpsons; or to jump into a clan's open server and shit-talk them while they dominate me, or to join a server run by Beyond Unreal's community, where the mods used were voted on by the community beforehand, IIRC. Good times.

I'm not so sure. Steam servers also cost money. They make way more money from their cut of sales. On console the same thing happens. If not requiring the subscription gets more users, then you make more money by not having it.

They aren't charging because it costs money to run. They're charging because it's more profitable.

I think it's simply a side-effect of the current state of gaming, which sucks more than people generally consider. We've been getting nudged here slowly over a generation, so it doesnt feel hot to most of us. I'm bitter though and i hold grudges. im old too, so listen to me while i shake my cane!

Everything the game companies currently do with their IPs (locking games to their own servers and charging us for the privilege for example) is all about maintaining complete control of their IP. Remember that fucking lawyer-ese we all have to check-off so we can play the game we paid for? the part where they call what we're getting a 'licence'? Yeah, this is what it looks like when we don't own the things we buy.

If the subscription costs were truly about the cost of running the servers then another option for companies would be to allow for us to make and host our own servers. The fact that a precious few game companies even allow us to host servers long after a game's natural lifetime is over means that they prefer this outcome. When they have control over the servers they get to control the game's lifetime.

Could them cats running Modern Warfare 29 or whatever we're on now keep releasing the same fucking game every year if players were allowed to host their own private servers for the games they bought? No way, right? That's the reason they do private servers, it is more profitable for them to do so.

Now if you made it this far, you're thinking

Hey old-head!! That doesn't really answer the question of why we pay for the privilege of paying twice, the thread you're responding to! did all that leaded gasoline go to your boomerbrain?

first of all kiddo the newspaper that i still read says i'm a xennial or some bullshit so get off the lawn i'll never own and second is i actually don't know. I suspect we pay for it because we can get fucked. The fact we pay is ancillary to the whole control thing. they just do it because now that we're locked in, they can and thats all there is to it

PC games do just fine without a subscription model (for the most part).

You don't need dedicated servers for online multiplayer. Locally hosting games used to be the norm.

game prices don't completely cover the cost of development and definitely don't cover server operation costs every month.

Nope. while it might be true for small independent game developers it's totally false for big company, like MS just a fifth of the profit they paid to shareholders is enough to run good server for like five years

Games from big companies, except the games that went flop, or F2P games, or the game that purposefully sell at low price in order to sell other forms of microtransactions, then most games are profitable

they don't have to rely on monthly subscription to be profitable but the problem for them is "the profit is not high enough" and that's why they do this

The cost is minimal. There's a reason why it's still free on PC. Additionally, you could offer a free option by letting users host their own servers, but that would go against the walled garden bullshit that lets them charge so much for such a cheap service. In fact, I don't know if it's changed since the earlier days, but many console games had games hosted on user consoles anyway, it's just the initial matchmaking which uses the company's servers.

How do you think it works for PC games?

Such a lame argument. 1) so you're suggesting they don't make money by selling the game? 2) you don't think gamers wouldn't prefer to host servers themselves if they had the option?

And raise the flag ⚓

I mean subscription gaming properly started on the PC with MMOs

-and I say this as a mainly PC gamer. I remember thinking how insane it was that my friend paid monthly to play the new Warcraft game..this of course before I understood what server costs were

It says "popularized"

Better than on pc, where it was completely free?