Your delusional if you think this is an industry standard. If I put up money to buy the retail copy of the game with free time included, that is what I am entitled to. Period. Its now free in the same sense that a credit card is free. You can still go out and "buy" something that you cannot afford on your credit card, your not gonna get stopped at the front door as you walk out of the store, but you now have a commitment to pay off that debt. I have to put myself into debt to Bioware to play the free time that I was already promised? This entire thing reeks of EA, and is indicative of the typical corporate greed that people have finally gotten around to saying "yeah, might be somewhat of a problem in this country." I think my man Stabs said it best. http://stabbedup.blogspot.com/2011/12/swtor-great-subscription-scam.html Bioware made a great game. But its pretty sad that the price of that was letting EA put their grubby hands all over their customers bank accounts.