Modern (consumer) Warfare 2

Activision, through their Sheriff of Nottingham - Infinity Ward, are stripping long-standing consumer benefits with the PC version of Modern Warfare 2.  Purchasing the game is nothing less than a declaration of your willingness to loss those benefits, and you're communicating that fact not just to Activision, but to all of the publishers who are watching closely to see just how little they can offer gamers in exchange for their money.  And don't pretend for a moment that this is just about PC gaming.  The trend in all of gaming is away from game ownership and towards gaming as a rented service.

The publishers' utopian wetdream is a market where the gamer owns nothing.  Instead, you pay explicitly for every hour of gameplay you experience, and even then are only allowed to play within the strict and permanent boundaries erected by the publisher.  And when the publisher decides you should stop playing an old game because it is no longer profitable enough, they terminate it and offer you the 'choice' of renting a new game, or nothing at all.

I've read a lot of commentary that is dismissive if not outright disparaging of the passionate furor exhibited over the MW2 issue, saying things like, "what's the problem, just let the market decide."  Yes, absolutely, the market should decide, but don't "let" it happen.  Realize that you, as a game-purchasing consumer, *ARE* the market.  The market is nothing but the cumulative purchasing decisions of all consumers.  The only power you have as a consumer is to accept or reject the exchange offered to you.  If you choose to purchase MW2, you are personally endorsing the continued erosion of value that gamers receive in their exchange with publishers.

A lot of people think that they can complain about issues like this, but then buy the product anyway, and somehow that influences publishers to react to their complaints.

The only thing that influences them is WHETHER OR NOT YOU BUY THE GAME!

Bitching about something and buying the game anyway is equivalent to buying the game and saying nothing -- it's equivalent even to buying the game and saying "Great job guys, keep up the good work and be sure to strip away more of my consumer benefits next time."   Because the only thing they hear is the sound of you purchasing the game - registering yet another gamer tacitly accepting reduced benefits, lowering the standard by which all publishers measure the market for all games.

There are more games than I could play in a lifetime, and no single one of them is great enough that it's worth trading away the freedoms that I want to enjoy as a gamer.  The only way I can compel publishers to respect and uphold those freedoms is by using my own incremental market vote to communicate the value of those freedoms.  And to hope that others do the same in sufficient volume to convince publishers in no uncertain terms that it's more profitable to provide these consumer freedoms than it is to take them away.

So, no, I won't be buying Modern Warfare 2.  Not on the PC, not on the console, not at all.  Just like I didn't buy Spore or Mass Effect or a multitude of other games that were wolves in sheep's clothing, threatening my freedoms as a gaming consumer.  And no, I didn't just pirate them either, so I could have my cake and eat it too.  Like I said, there are more games than I could ever play, and I don't bat an eye when I choose to skip any one of them as a statement of principle.  Fun is fun and there is no sole dispenser of it, nor is there any shortage.  I don't need MW2.  I'm not a heroine addict, unable to resist debasing myself just for the next high.  Or to put it another way, if I am a heroine addict, there are plenty of other dealers offering perfectly good heroine at reasonable prices, that won't make me fellate them in the alley and shoot up right there using their own dirty needle that they charge extra for.