Dead Space was worse. They had superpowered versions of the standard guns just in case gthe game was a little bit too hard for you so it was not even a new model, just a retexture and you're essentially paying to unlock the new "piss easy" difficulty

I'm seriously not surprised. As the corps keep feeling "jipped" by the people who pirate, they'll take it out on us loyal people who buy their crap.
It's kinda like how Microsoft's Xbox charges you to fix their crappy hardware, while Nintendo will just do it for free.

And Nintendo hardware rarely breaks too. I think a block of wood falling 3 metres onto the screen of my DS is about the only thing that ever broke a Nintendo system I owned.

Yeah, so many people are blaming Valve for this... oh wait! No they're not.

This is why a lot of people buy Valve games and there's often scant little regard paid to the content the game actually ships with. Compare that to Codemasters - a company that won't even release patches for game breaking bugs and you've got a contrast.
Activision however, you can't blame. They're treating gamers like slavering morons with too much disposable income because that's actually true enough for them to get away with it.

Microsoft fixed an awful lot of its crappy hardware for free. Sony never extended their warranty past a year and its $175 to get your hardware fixed now. Its always taken a class action suit to get Sony to deal meaningfully with defects. Nintendo has a tradtionally made very durable hardware.

I'll tell you what's worse, games like Battlefield Heroes, and there was one that was originally a full price retail game from Korea (can't remember the name), where you had to buy guns, costumes, etc and the purchase only lasted a set amount of time before you had to repurchase it again.

Do you know what? This is a real travesty!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/49603/
Just laughing, so funny. I didn't see any DLC like this WTF?
With this download you can play non-DRM iTunes, mp4 and AAC files in Beat Hazard! The cost is to cover the per copy license fee needed for the patented AAC decoder.
Key features:
■Support for iTunes/aac/mp4/m4a file types
http://store.steampowered.com/app/49603/

Another reason to avoid I-tunes.
I've got nothing against DLC myself as long as it is optional. It's always a good laugh seeing people pay $25 for a WOW mount....
EDIT: I'd slightly increased the value of the WOW mount by using the incorrect currency.

The developer asked in the games forum is people were interested in it and that it would be the only way to make it available as well as the price they were willing to pay for it.

As far as I can tell ... the funniest part about that was the fact it made a large segment of obsessed WOW folks get mad at another seqment of obsessed WOW folks for buying the sparkle horse.

It's just each person who wants so play with those files essentially paying the licensing fee. To allow AAC access, a commercial program has to pay $0.98 per copy being used for the first 500,000 sales. http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/AAC_fees.cfm
And if you don't want to pay the $1, you aren't exactly being screwed out of anything.

Thanks for the info! Interesting site - explains why cheap mp3 players (AAA battery flash ones, that I like) no longer support audible books.

On the PC, perhaps, but not the Xbox 360. According to a Bethesda blog post, "every day, tens of thousands of people STILL play Oblivion and they purchase thousands and thousands of downloadable content — again, every day. Yes, even Horse Armor continues to sell daily."
To put things in perspective, Oblivion was released in 2006 and this blog post was made in 2009.

I'll just wait until 50,000,001 units are sold!

It's... two dollars... suck it up..