PlayStation Plus Gave Out More Than $1,500 in Free Games in 2018

12 months of PlayStation Plus costs $60 a year, or $5 a month. And it's an expense most [...]

playstation plus

12 months of PlayStation Plus costs $60 a year, or $5 a month. And it's an expense most PlayStation gamers have to live with in order to play online games and access certain online features. However, to sweeten the deal, Sony Interactive Entertainment dishes out a couple of games each month to PlayStation Plus subscribers for free. And the money saved on these freebies can quickly add up.

According to Polygon, Sony gave out 76 games to subscribers in 2018 across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita. And apparently the combined total retail price of these 76 games is $1,508.74 USD. In other words, PlayStation Plus subscribers saved about $1,440 on games after the annual fee is subtracted. That's a lot of money.

However, most of these games are probably titles said subscribers would have never purchased, and if they did, they may have picked them up on a sale. In other words, to say PlayStation Plus subscribers saved $1,440 is technically true, but it's also a bit misleading.

Polygon also notes that the average critical score of the 76 games is 69.5, which isn't exactly great, but it's not horrible either. But what it does mean is there is as many average to bad games as there are good games being offered.

Interestingly, the $1,508.74 figure is up $221.49 from 2017, but the average critical score is 1.8 points lower. So more monetary value, but less quality.

Other interesting statistics include that the average price of a free PlayStation Plus game was $19.85 in 2018, with the average age of 3.2 years old.

The highest critically-scoring month was notably December, while the highest value month was August ($206). The most common price range was the $5-10 range, which had 27 games. There were only two games less than $5 and four worth more than $40.

Of the publishers featured, Sony was the most represented, with ten games made available.

As you may know, starting in March 2019, PlayStation Plus free games will be dropping PS3 and PlayStation Vita support. Whether there will be more PS4 games added to compensate, is unclear.

PlayStation Plus free games is a shadow of what it used to be in many ways. The games simply used to be better, or maybe that's just how I remember it. But what I do know is there was hardly a time this year where I was really impressed with any given months' offering. Hopefully that will change in 2019.

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