When I was still a fresh-faced young lad just out of University, I interviewed for a job in “sales and marketing.” Yeah, I should have known better, but I was naive and still looking for my first job out of school. Well, the job involved selling those coupon books where you pay, say, 20 dollars, and get a bunch of coupons for local businesses worth a total of, say 200 dollars. Luckily, my BS detector had started to form at that point, and I didn’t pursue it any further. Since then, I’ve been offered this deal a few times, but always passed. Let’s forget for now that in some cases, this is a scam, and the coupons end up being useless. Even in legit cases, the reality is that you probably don’t end up using most of the coupons you get, and in many cases you end up not getting back your original investment. Great idea in theory, but in practice, a small percentage of people will actually benefit from it.

So, why did I subscribe to PlayStation Plus then? (Besides, of course, in the interests of research for our loyal readers.)

If you really break it down, PS Plus, at least at initial offering, is like an electronic coupon book for the PSN. Spend $17.99 for three months, or $49.99 for a year (plus three months if you sign up soon), and in the first month alone, you can save up to $88 dollars! It pays for itself, right? Well, let’s take a look (thanks to PlayStation LifeStyle for the list) at what is initially available for PlayStation Plus members, besides that wonderful little gold PSN icon next to your name that doesn’t make you look like a pretentious d-bag at all, shall we?

• inFamous game trial (60-minute trial)
• WipEout HD (Full Game) FREE [normally $19.99]
• Rally Cross (PSOne Classic) FREE [normally $5.99]
• Age of Zombies (minis) FREE [normally $4.99]
• Warhark Fallen Star (Add-On) FREE [normally $1.99]
  
• Collision Theme FREE
• Fat Princess: Fat Roles DLC $3.99 [normally $4.99]
• Fat Princess Pink and Blue Princess Avatars FREE
• Gauntlet II $2.50 [normally $4.99]
• Mortal Kombat II $2.50 [normally $4.99]
• Rampage $2.50 [normally $4.99]
• Rampart $2.50 [normally $4.99]
• Cuboid $7.99 [normally $9.99]
• Cuboid Booster Pack FREE [normally $2.99]
• Cuboid Bundle Pack FREE [normally $4.99]
• Cuboid Level Editor FREE [normally $3.99]
• Hamsterball $7.99 [normally $9.99]
• Interpol $7.99 [normally $9.99]
• Magic Orbz $7.99 [normally $9.99]
• Magic Orbz Witches Pack FREE [normally $2.99]
• Magic Orbz Jungle Pack FREE [normally $2.99]
• Magic Orbz Winter Pack FREE [normally $2.99]
• Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom $7.99 [normally $9.99]
• Mahjong Tales Ancient Wisdom Booster Pack FREE [normally $4.99]
• Smash Cars $11.99 [normally $14.99]
• Smash Cards Virus Run FREE [normally $2.99]
• Wakeboarding HD $11.99 [normally $14.99]

Certainly, there’s a lot of content, discounts, free perks, games, etc. as promised. But if you break down the list, the $88 figure isn’t quite so impressive (and that’s not even adding up how much you’d have to spend on all of this to save that $88). First, the inFamous game trial, which gives you an hour of play time. inFamous was my favourite game of 2009, to be sure, but what’s an hour of play time going to do for me when I’ve played it through twice already? Yeah, I know, it’s not all about me, but lots of folks have played this game already, so it’s really a demo for those who still haven’t jumped on. Should this have really been exclusive content? And it requires downloading the full game at over 6 GB, too. Further, if you want the full version, you can get it for… $29.99. The same price as it is at retail.

Same thing with WipEout HD. Who hasn’t bought this game yet? Well, for those that haven’t and are PS Plus members, congratulations, you got yourself a great title. But I would guess that most people hardcore enough to get PS Plus already have WipEout HD. As for the free Mini and PSOne Classic games, free is free, and I downloaded them, but only because I could, and because I needed the internal justification for my subscription. Other than themes, avatars, and some DLC, everything else is discounts. Don’t get me wrong, free stuff and discounts are nice, but I come back to feeling that I just bought one of those coupon books. And I’m not going to use the vast majority of them. I’m sure these are quality titles, but as a GamerPop, I don’t have time to play them.

Yes, there are other perks. Automatic Updates could be nice and convenient if done right, though having that as the main paid feature feels both insignificant and petty at the same time. It’s not enough to justify the subscription, yet it feels like it shouldn’t even be a premium feature in the first place. And then there’s cross-game voice chat. Or the lack thereof. If it’s going to be a premium feature, so be it, but where is it, Sony? How hard can it really be to integrate this? But, hey, you get a free subscription to Qore, a $25 value for something I didn’t care to watch before and very likely won’t now.

Now, there’s still lots of time. In fact, I’ll hazard a guess that any really “cool” enhancements to the PS3 will require PlayStation Plus in the future. And I’m sure we’ll start to get into free titles that not everybody owns already fairly soon. In addition, if we keep getting large amounts of discounted items like we got in the initial go around, eventually the percentages will work in everybody’s favour in terms of getting a solid title at a great price. One thing that had better improve is the early demo access bit. inFamous was a great game, but it’s old. You want to impress me Sony? Give me a playable demo of inFamous 2 in the next couple of months.

PlayStation Plus is still in its early stages, and admittedly we haven’t seen the true value yet of the service. Based on the first month, though, I’m getting the feeling that I’ve just said yes to some random person who showed up at my door promising huge savings for the low price of $50 per year. And now I’m holding onto a book of coupons wondering what I just said yes to and hoping I get my money’s worth. I expected a little better, and hopefully better is yet to come.