EA the Evil Empire?

So recently EA has been buying out development companies like they were Wii's before the 2006 holiday season, and pretty much a lot of gamers are not happy about this at all. In my latest issue of GameInformer, I counted 9 articles directly related to EA. They're everywhere! EA has a lot of great franchises under their belt now. But very few of them can they actually take credit for themselves. EA is buying out game developers that are making already successful games in order to cash in and milk the series. To me it seems like the majority of EAs "successful" games were successful before EA acquired them. A great example of this is The Sims.
The latest antics that those money mongering fools over at EA have been up to is that they reportedly are going to be charging real life money for weapons in their new Battlefield: Bad Company game. This comes from a Kotaku article released based on the beta. I have not played the Bad Company beta but there is absolutely nothing you can do to justify doing this. Sites like Sarcastic Gamer are suggesting boycoting the game because it it so rediculous. I'm leaning towards their decision if things don't change before the game comes out.
When EA heard the uproar being made over this article, they actually contacted Kotaku to try to clear up their name. While this statement directly from EA states that it will not give an advantage to players who do buy the extra guns nor affect the balance of the gameplay, it doesn't specify the point. Unless the new guns are the same guns with new aesthetics, I guarantee that gamers will find a way to manipulate and take advantage of something with these weapons within the first few weeks. Then EA is going to have to patch the game, but it will be too late and nobody will want to play the game. Plain and simple. EA is just screwing over gamers, and screwing over themselves because they think that since they're "top dog" in the industry, what they say goes.

Now to add in my personal gripe about EA's attempted monopoly over the gaming industry. EA bought out my favorite development studios, BioWare. They made my favorite game of all time, Knights of the Old Republic, and another one of my top 10 games of all time, Mass Effect. While KOTOR may not have another installment, 2 more Mass Effect games are already planned and I'm pretty sure at least one is already underway. If EA messes up the franchise by cutting budget to port to multiple systems or anything else, I will never forgive them.

But in the end, in relevance to the purchasing weapons thing, we just have to hope that there aren't people out there stupid enough to give into EA doing this and throwing their money at them. If anyone buys these weapons, they are feeding the gremlin after midnight.