Cliff, Mr. Blez...uh, Blizin...er...Cliff, if you're tired of EA being seen as "the bad guy," maybe they need to stop BEING the bad guy. TF2 is free to play and any of the sidegrade items you can craft or find as drops with the store being a way of guaranteeing you get what you want. The store is there to supplement the game. EA, however, is putting in microtransactions as the preferred way to get upgrades in the multiplayer add-on to a single-player focused game. There, the store is there to be the full focus of the side game.
As for the whole "vote with our wallets" thing, I agree with that, which is why I haven't bought any of the Gears of War games. Ah, gotcha! You should see your face, Cliffy. Yes, I can see you right now. I am an internet wizard, you know, we have mystical cyber-scrying powers. It involves rythmic chanting into our webcams, but I can say no more lest I incur the wrath of the Internet Wizard Secret Enforcement Commission (we're working on something catchier). Back on topic, though. Really I think it comes down to "maybe we would if Corporate would stop thinking about short-term numbers and care about long-term gain." I hate to drag this one out of mothballs, but remember Psychonauts? Awesome game, great premise, sold terribly, incredibly beloved by fans. Took a shot, didn't pan out monetarily. That's just how it goes sometimes. What I'm saying is maybe someone could come up with a business model where you make these big AAA games that are going to make oodles because that's what the online multiplayer crowd wants (Gears of War, for example) while you've got subsidiary companies making the deeper games that aren't going to break first-day sales records but are going to be held up as much-loved examples of triumph in video game storytelling. Yes you can make the AAA oodle-making games deep and tell complex stories, we're not going to begrudge you for that. Just leave some space on the "good story" shelf for the little games too.
