Quake Wars pays for online through ads.

Namco charges for online upgrade for Tekken 5 on the PS3.

And there's not enough cheese in all of Europe to go with the whine.

I suppose director of PlayStation Network Eric Lempel's admission that while they're happy with free right now that PSN, as it grows, could eventually charge for their services would cause mass rioting in Gamestop.

"Oh noes! We paid $600 for the PS3 and pay $60 per game! And even though Sony is sinking millions of dollars into HOME and other PSN stuff, and publishers have to pay server costs and maintenance fees, its not worth paying for or putting up with ads for! Those bastards! We can't afford that! That's like charging for cable TV! Or food!"

Free is dead. You're going to pay for online gaming, be it out of wallet (subscription fees, a one-time fee, or some other sales model) or you're going to have to pay for it through advertising (aka "Free," costing you time or an in-game advertising presence). I personally like the paid-up-front model that tends to exclude ads (although Sony Online Entertainment's Matrix Online is a subscription game with in-game ads - done decently and helping keep a niche game going), but have no problems with the other revenue models.

A lot of these gamers need to realize that running an online service is a little more difficult than going down to Wal-Mart, buying a clearance eMachine and setting up a Counterstrike server on their college's network for them and their buddies. Costs a hell of a lot more, too. And when they point to games that offer "free," they need to look at how the publisher affords to pay for it, and realize that its not an option for all games and all titles (a game that only sells 100,000 copies isn't going to be able to pay for online for very long, unlike the multi-million selling Guild Wars series).