I hear people throw the boycott term around, without much weight behind it other than as a threat. Sounds to me a lot of the time like a kid whining they didn't get what they wanted so they're going to take their football home so no one can play. Problem is, most of the time in the gaming community, there's a strong majority of other kids with footballs who are ready and willing to play and put up with whatever "problems" might be present.
Truth be told, I am not at all pro-boycotting unless there is a significant value in it. Such as human-rights violations or gross animal testing or something along those lines. Corporations exist to make money, and they tend to do whatever they can to continue to do so. I don't boycott DRM for many reasons (mostly because I was a PC gamer when the registration key first came about and have put up with it to play my games). I've never experienced any real detriment to playing a video game due to DRM, with the exception of Neverwinter Nights 2 (which had to do with a firmware problem on my disc drive), nor have I seen a detriment to actual gameplay. A solid game is a solid game.
Diablo 3's auction house, for example, is not something to get up in arms about. Its not game-breaking, its not mandatory. So whats the big deal? They're offering people a chance to make money on something they do as a hobby, which no other game developer has ever offered in my experience (EVE doesn't count since you can't actually convert it to cash through the parent company). So Blizz takes a % off the take itself. Big fucking deal, its their system. And it prevents people from selling things through other sites.
The entitlist mentality is so backward... people think they are entitled to everything a game developer makes for a certain game just because they paid for it initially. While I do agree that day 1 DLC that is actually contained on the disc is highway robbery, the companies who offer it as part of new copies don't bother me. The used game market is pretty much a way for people to make money off of the game dev's without having to pay the dev's for that copy, and dev's charging a bit on top of the used price to get something back for that copy being transferred to another owner is not a big deal. They actually lost money because you did not buy that game new. If you think otherwise you don't understand the economy. If New/Used Store A buys 20 copies of a game new to sell to the public, then sells 10 copies of that game new on the release date, they then re-order those 10 copies and the publisher makes money off of those transactions. If those 10 sold copies come back to New/Used Store A as trade-ins, and Game Store A repackages them as used and resells them, then they don't order more copies of that game and the publisher does NOT make money off those sales. New/Used Store just profited off of those games and the dev's did NOT receive payment due. So publisher of said game has DLC that is available on New copies but not used copies that costs $10 extra for said used copies. If the buyer of the used game decides he/she wants that content to become available, spends the $10 and thus the publisher recoups a little bit of the money they lost on that used sale. That is NOT a crime in any way shape or form. But they are not making extra money either. In fact, they are taking a loss and mitigating that loss by locking some content (most likely not game-breaking) for new copies. That is business. Have a problem with that? Take it up with New/Used Store A, because its their business practice that has put publishers in that position.
Or buy games new.
Boycott when its feasible and reasonable, but don't boycott because publishers want their well-earned money for something they spent their money on to get to you, the consumer, in the first place. Development and marketing are not cheap.