Having Starcraft 2 being sold at S$109 here in Singapore, 44 pounds in Britain, and around 60-70 US$ in North America has its own justifications, based on the logic of business, profiteering in order to further invest in future technologies, capital and labour just for the sake of development so that they will be able to compete and hopefully gain monopolistic power in the long run. That is the way business works. When demand is high, you set your prices high up there. The CEO of Activision, Bobby Kotick, could not have done a better job at that.
What they are failing to realise however, is that this move is not without its moral consequences. Setting prices up high at way past the typical market price for games like the same thing which they did to Modern Warfare 2 is going to seriously impact consumer decision-making. For that much money, one would rather buy 2 or 3 different games which will give more bang per buck in the long run. Furthermore, what Blizzard and Activision have ultimately done is indirectly imprecate and burden themselves with accusations of greed which will surely tarnish their reputation in the long run. Already, we have 250000 signatures on a Starcraft 2 boycott site, and hundreds of thousands for other Activision products, showing that when a company acts way too far in imposing overtly high prices, the consumers themselves do have the power to oppose by forming a rally or coalition in an act of dissent against such "bear marketing".
S$109 may not seem big in absolute terms, surely a number that almost anyone above the poverty line can afford, but for that much money to pay for a single game, think of the opportunity cost lost, and how much would have been better used for that amount of money, and the psychological impact of having spent that much knowing this. Consumers probably will not know this until they have been put into the boots of guilt. Furthermore, if there another moral issue involved, this includes responsibility for being part of propagating the greed of Activision by feeding them with raw, green cash which will in turn perpetuate their unrelentless incentive for profits. Greed is now disguised as business as an accepted ordinary jargon of mundane life, at least through the adage, or the potentially brain-washing meme that: "taking something from a man is theft, but taking something from a thousand individuals is the logic of business." Think about that that aphorism before making such a purchase; you will, in the very end, fall into the abyss and trap of not just continuing to reinforce their lack of repentence for setting prices low, but also be part of the grand (immoral) scheme of feeding the rich, and making consumers lose utility in the long run.
Until they lower prices to a reasonable S$50-70 or so, people are just going to oppose this movement covertly or overtly. Openly through direct disapproval or disapprobation or boycott. Covertly through piracy, other illegal means, or simply by passive resistance by not making a purchasal. Capitalism might have made revolutionary breakthroughs in the past century or so, but it is certainly not without its vices. And for those vices, people will continue to resist. Perhaps if Activision and Blizzard had both understood the psychology of consumers beyond a linear, and overly simplistic model of hedonism and pure rationalism, this issue might not have arised in the first place. Now comes the scapegoating for piracy in an attempt to cover their butts using already dominant and prevalent property rights to justify their ability to reduce unemployment, lead to economical growth at the national or global level, at the cost of civil rights.
I have already signed up for boycotts against Activision and Blizzard. World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2 has shown what kind of companies you all are, tying people to their chairs through an addictive series of perks, leveling, and means of instant gratification in an attempt to get them to pay more and play more at the cost of their spiritual and intellectual development. Keeping them in the state of being obsequious and heedlessly nodding their heads in unison to demand more from you all while being in the chains of hapless addiction. Do I sense a new cyber-bourgeois and cyber-proletariat forming from the web of post-modernity? For those who are reading this, lift up your heads and starting thinking straight already: these are not companies that are going to be sustainable in the long run; neither are they the ones which we may prefer in the future if this trend keeps on.