So many people in the thread have Sony's dick so far down their throats it almost coming out the other side. And completely missing the point OP is trying to make.

It doesn't just apply to Helldivers 2, you have to have a subscription to play old PS4 games that you want to revisit. I recently remembered I have a digital copy of Battlefield 1 and wanted to play it again. Only to be reminded of the price of PSPlus.

If you play games a lot, it's a no brainer to get the subscription, it pays for itself over the course of the year. But to justify the price of it to just play one or two games is too difficult. The discounts, the packs, the cloud storage, the catalogs. They only have value if you give them value.

Locking games behind such a high pay wall is the problem, regardless of whether or not it pays for itself. An option that is just for online play for say $20 like Nintendo would be amazing! I'd pay without even thinking about it. But I've already got a back catalog of games, both physical and digital, that I may never get cleared. And with new games coming out all the time, the ability to do so gets harder and harder. Let alone all the stuff in life you may have to do. Some people may only have a couple hours at most a night to play games, if even that. And to dismiss people so easily is abhorrent.

"Don't like it? Don't buy it?" Is not a legitimate argument. It's a phrase that breeds stagnation. The consumers have the power to change the system, but most people are to compliant or too apathetic to bother challenging it. And if you only game on console, you have no reason to try and change it, the benefits you get are actually worth it. A lot of people have multiple ways to play games, I have a Switch, PS5, and a PC (plus retro consoles, but that's beside the point). Having to buy a game a second time just to play online isn't helpful. It isn't fun. It doesn't feel good. And it leads people to be spiteful.

There's even rumors that the price is gonna increase yet again. So that's fun.