1. An Xbox Live/Playstation Plus is required for any online multiplayer functionality.

2. DRM Free still matters with multiplayer games. Minecraft is a perfect example, where you can run your own client/server and play with people, and there really doesn't need to be any other middle man involved.

3. With how good home internet is now, it's not a big deal to host game servers from your home on an old computer. Running big central servers really only matters if you care about matchmaking or games with a lot of simultaneous players.