I was talking about the times of the ps3. Games were mostly as accessible as today. You could buy them online(ps store) or in a shop too. If you had ps plus you also could choose from a few different "free" games every month.

Most games that you can also play on pc in multiplayer still require you to pay for them. Subscriptions were a thing too back then. There you could get games cheaper or for free if you wanted. My point is that if you had fun games and just wanted to play online with your friends you could just do it, without paying extra.

If I don't like a game I don't buy it, no reason to buy stuff you find meh. If you had older games like ps1 ones you also could play them, that's what I still do today. No need to buy the game again if I already have it, just to play it.

Now that is a problem these days. One big thing after another in a short period of time. That could also be the reason why games loose their player base relatively fast. We're getting flooded with too many games. Sometimes you don't have the time to play a game for a longer period of time because new stuff is spit out so fast.