I love the comment "it's crazy" that MW2 players can just pick up the game and play for free. Well Mike, Activision is not providing jack for that service, the games are P2P and it's costing the players bandwidth for that. What's next? It's crazy that customers can just create a free forum account for support! It's crazy that patches should be provided for free! It's crazy that buying a game should entitle you to the privilege of playing it whenever you want! Hell, why stop there; It's crazy that people can send text/voice without paying per msg/talk time like cell phones! It's crazy that owning/registering a username doesn't have a monthly charge! It's crazy that any douchebag with a webcam can just spew a random stream of consciousness and people take it as gospel!
No Mike, gamers don't have to take it! We can just boycott the whole process or simply invent a way for gamers to play for free. Oh yes, possible and likely, thanks largely in part to the consummate greed that companies show and the anger that it will instill within many talented programmers and pirates. The mammoth money and attention that games and companies are getting is lulling them into the idea that they are invincible and can start charging anything they want for anything they want.
This wasn't the focus of the piece, it was in answer to
It's crazy that authors aren't charged for their video bandwidth!
