If you’ve been subscribed to PlayStation Plus, Sony’s PlayStation subscription service, and you’ve kept up on downloading all the games available, congratulations– your fifty dollar subscription fee has netted you over $1300 in free games.
Launched on June 29, 2010, PlayStation Plus was initially an optional bonus for PlayStation 3 owners. On top of receiving discounts on items in the PlayStation Store, it also entitled members to free games every month. The service also extended to the PlayStation Vita upon its launch, as well as the PlayStation 4. However, with the launch of the PS4, it was also announced that it would be required to play online multiplayer. PlayStation 3 owners had always enjoyed free multiplayer, unlike Xbox’s subscription service, Xbox Live Gold, so while there was some opposition to the announcement, a year’s subscription of PlayStation Plus (fifty dollars) is still cheaper than a year’s subscription of Xbox Live Gold (sixty dollars). Between that and the free games, people saw the value of the subscription.
And what a value it turned out to be. Push Square, a PlayStation-oriented publication based in the UK, went through and calculated the value of every game offered throughout the year (based upon its price in the PlayStation Store), and averaged out the Metacritic score of each game offered in a month. And they weren’t just offering junk games; the average Metacritic score throughout the year was 79, well above average.
In fact, some of the games were huge critical successes, such as BioShock Infinite, Borderlands 2, and Batman: Arkham City. While the PS4 garnered many complaints throughout the year for offering up mostly indie games (likely because new consoles don’t have a ton of titles available in their first year), just this month Injustice: Gods Among Us was among the free games offered for PS4, and there’ll be many more big-name titles on the way, now that we’re more than a year into the PS4’s launch.
In January we’ll be seeing inFAMOUS: First Light as one of the free games for the PS4, hopefully kicking off another year of incredible value for PlayStation Plus.
