Hearing the trophy ding for the first level of Transformers: War for Cybertron made me look up at the clock; it was 1am on June 29th.

Two thoughts ran through my head. First: damn, it’s time for bed. Second, well, I’ll just pop into multiplayer briefly to check it out. When I tried to access it I was booted out, and asked to sign into PSN… odd, I thought I was. The screen cleared up my late night confusion: a firmware update was required and PlayStation Plus was upon us.

I performed the required update and clicked through the PlayStation Store. There, as large as life, was a PlayStation Plus advertisement. $49.99 for Sony’s enhanced online service. I bought it instantly. Why?

• I like automatic updates; I don’t need to have them, but it’ll get me into my games faster. My time is worth something to me, so this was a no brainer.
• “Free” stuff. The PS+ content isn’t free, but it feels like it. I was going to download the add-on to Fat princess last week, and I was going to pick up the Warhawk add-on as well. I forgot to and because of my laziness, I’ve saved $3 as Warhawk: Fallen Star is free and the Fat Princess DLC is a dollar off with PS+ this week. There’s also two PlayStation Avatars and a new dynamic theme.
• Deals? So far so good – all Midway titles are half off this week, and there are big sales on games from Create Studios (if you picked them up during the spring fever sale you’ll be happy to know the DLC for most of their games is free with Plus)
• As an owner of a PSP Go, I’m rather happy to see PSOne Classics included in the package. Though the first offering, Rally Cross, isn’t a long awaited classic, it didn’t cost me anything extra.

So why did I buy PlayStation Plus? There certainly isn’t anything you have to have involved, but it’s just a nice package of additional content that makes my PlayStation experience more fun. I’m cool with it, and for me it’s money well spent.

If the idea of PlayStation Plus makes your blood boil, if it’s everything you hate about gaming, if you don’t want to give Sony another red cent because of it… then don’t. But don’t take my word for it. I’ve been subscribed to Xbox LIVE since it launched, so I’m clearly the wrong guy to ask.