You are comparing apples to oranges. RTS games (and other games with multiplayer capabilities) aren't a 10 hour affair. I have not played a PC game in over 10 years specifically for its single player campaign. I'm a multiplayer gamer. I played Age of Mythology, an RTS game, online for 7 years. It cost me a total of $80. Now, for AOEO, you've shown a pricing plan that could cost me $100 every 6 months for the same level of gameplay and enjoyment I got from AOM for $5.72 (average) every 6 months (or 3p per day). AOEO is not a good value compared to a lot of (better) RTSs. Ain't gonna do it, cap'n! Such a terrible situation! Blizzard must have been horrified that people have been playing Starcraft 1 for 13 years. Let's forget about pirating for a moment (which was common for SC1, especially in South Korea). I still see Starcraft 1 on the shelves at my local Walmart, right alongside Age of Empires Gold. These companies are still making money off of 10 year old games. That's fine and right. Blizzard found many ways to monetize the popularity of Starcraft too.I really have no point, just chatting. Yeah, I love being locked in to pricing schemes and DRM-lite, so I'll go with AOEO I guess. In all seriousness though, at this rate it doesn't look like I'll be buying any new AAA games for a long time. DRM malware junk, Internet registration, pricing schemes, nerfed multiplayer capabilities (check out the difference between Modern Warfare 1 and Modern Warfare 2 in the multiplayer dept.)... I'll be sticking with indie games for a while. Last AAA game I bought was Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare two years ago (at a discount). Gamers have to take a stand against this stuff. Call me a crusader... ------------------------------------------------- The ultimate problem with AOEO is not its pricing scheme or even its "social" aspects. The problem isn't its cartoonish graphics. The problem is that the core gameplay has NO innovation. The game adds nothing new to the franchise whatsoever. I like the customizable tech trees, but in the end, it's basically the card system from AOE3, and they aren't so much as "customizable" per se... they are basically unlockable features that should be available from the beginning. This is not innovation, but hamstringing. These are steps backward. AOEO is just not that good of a game.