Originally Posted by omega four
While I agree that the logic you articulated is inescapable, it still doesn't stop many gamers from being unable to see it in the first place.
The fact is the easiest way for-profit companies like SOE to make money is to offer advantages to winning to those who are willing to pay for it.
Whether some are willing to admit it or not, SOE is farming most PS2 gamers in some way or another. Even those gamers who pay nothing to SOE are fulfilling SOE's master plan by being served up as "cannon fodder" to those gamers who did pay SOE for a winning advantage.
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Okay... that is great and all, but how does that invalidate anything?
SOE can make money without being bastards and sabotaging themselves, and the resource boosts, when implemented really did not matter. No one in their right mind bought their membership or their boost because it granted resources... Because again, the resource system did not matter.
For the most part it -still- doesn't matter, but the manufactured hysteria that is GU11, has brought a good point to light. And anything they would do to correct the system in place would be undermined by the continued existence of these boosts. So, this comes down to: Does SOE want to make a breathtakingly idiotic decision, or do they want to make a system that will work.
People who simply say: "Oh, they are a for profit company, so they will exploit your every dollar" really just aren't looking at the big picture. SOE isn't bloody Haliburton, they don't ignore people to make money, even when it kills people... they are a game development company, that is tasked with creating a product, that is powered by the illusion that the long term consumers, the players of their game, have some kind of power over development. It is actively working against their interest to ignore this. Especially when they are talking about something that again, no one gives a flying fornication about, and most people have said they would willingly give up, because they realize the long term ramifications.