I think that the WSOP is giving up a bigger opportunity by focusing on the live aspect instead of the archived aspect of the WSOP. One of the big problems with the coverage of the WSOP is that you miss a lot of hands just due to the sheer number of players and hands in the WSOP. Instead of showing me something that live that I can catch on TV later, I'd rather see them use the PPV to enhance what's already on TV.

Rather then seeing the final table, I'd love to go back and be able to watch everyhand a favorite player played through the whole tournament. This would require a lot of tape, but they could make the raw footage avaiable through VOD and could even offer a few teasers to get players excited. If I were to run the event, I would pick ten players and make sure that one player gets knocked out early and one player ends up winning the event. Then I'd let viewers watch that player until they bust out or win. I wouldn't tell viewers which player was the winner to perserve excitment, but obviously people could get this info if it was the case. By doing this not only could Disney raise money through PPV subscriptions, but they'd also give hardcore poker fans a chance to see more of the action then just what they highlight on TV.

I'm pretty much a binge and purger with my PVR. I basically ignore it for about five days and then I'm forced to make tough entertainment decisons or else I won't have room for it to record America's Most Wanted by Saturday night. Sometimes this is marathon TV and sometimes it's having to make choices that I wish I wouldn't have to make. Such is life though with so many choices competing for our time, there will always be things that we will miss no matter how great the technology gets.

From the way that the survey reads, it sounds like that this would be a download directly to the motorola boxes like the Comcast deal. This means that TiVo could piggyback off of your existing dual tuner box instead of making you buy a new one. I'd love to see TiVo offer a no risk free month when they do launch the new service, but I'm not sure how difficult it will be to change the operating systems back and forth on the Motorola boxes.

Seifer - Finally some rationale I can appreciate. As far as the online retailers go, I have emailed them and as of today they have yet to make changes to the way that this is marketed online, so clearly some public pressure is in order. Amazon did a great job of responding to this issue, but even after being made aware of the issue, many stores have yet to even acknownledge my attempts at contacting them. I agree that the online retailer is at blame for more then anything, but do you really think Square ever communicated their pricing model to all of their retail partners? Considering that they either buried it or never even put it on their own website, I doubt that they'd be promoting a fee that will only discourage consumers from buying the game. Somehow I don't buy into that it's not Square's job to educate their retail partners, but if you want to blame Amazon then I'll accept that as being a valid criticism of my approach.

As far as "The fees ARE disclosed." You are sadly mistaken. It does say additional monthly fees, but it does not give the actual cost to consumers. This is where I take issue. Consumers are going to give this as a gift without ever being made aware that the majority of the costs are ongoing and service charges. Online purchases are especially suceptible to this level of fraud. Where on the box does it give the ACTUAL fee. Yes it's in the manual, but if you open the game your void your ability to take the game back and if you have the game shipped to you then it costs money to return it. Shouldn't this be disclosed at the retail level prior to taking the game home or should consumers have to read the manual prior to leaving the store? Is what I'm asking for really all that controversial, that game publishers be up front with consumers about the costs of the game. Even the addl. monthly fee logo is printed in the smallest font on the box. Do you think Square did this on accident? Of course not, they made it tough to read so that people wouldn't see it and would buy there game only to discover the charges after siginificant fixed costs had been expended.

The retail store that I purchased from never mentioned the monthly fee and I suspect that the kid at Wherehouse wouldn't of know it anyway. In my particular case, they didn't even have the game at the store front. They were holding it at the counter prior to purchase. I didn't even see the monthly fees until I got home.

Kent - I've addressed my failings as a consumer, yet your blind loyalism has prevented you from acknownledging Square's failings. We can get back to personally attacking me in a minute, but in the interim let's have an important discussion about IF square wants to charges these fees then WHY it's important for them to tell everyone. Are you telling me that you don't feel that Square should disclose the true costs of their product at the retail level? If this is what you are advocating, then please give me some good rational beyond I'm an idiot. If you'd rather just talk about how crappy of a consumer I am, then I'll take a pass on the flamebait and will stick to the entire premise of my post which is that had Square properly disclosed these fees up front then there would be no question about this issue. Did you even read the Amazon reviews? I'm clearly not the only one that fell into this trap.

Kent if you don't want to focus on Square that's fine I'm sure someone on this board will be happy to debate the real issues with me. Just so I have it clear though your official position is that Square shouldn't have to disclose these fees ever because customers should be on the cutting edge of gaming? Again if this was sooooo obvious then why not err on the conservative side and disclose the fee?

Kent,

Again you are focusing on me as the consumer. I admit that my due diligence wasn't up to par. Do you feel that Square and Softie did nothing wrong here? You don't want to see them put this pricing on the front of their games? Beyond me getting ripped off there are even greater issues at stake and yet you ignore these and instead continue to say the same thing over and over again. You can keep attacking me as a bad consumer if you want, but how about you focus on Square for a moment and at least try to defend their actions not my lack of actions.

Derbeste - I think a price increase would be very easy to implement because online retailers could instantly update their prices and tradition retailers could use a little thing called the "price tag" to let consumers know. I know that this is a revolutionary concept, but a lot of businesses have embraced this mysterious "price tag" that contains accurate pricing information on the product. If a retailer wants to put that the game is "only" $49.99 is that not at least misleading if not fraudulent? Just because it will be logistically challenging for Square to update all of their prices doesn't mean that it's impossible, nor does it absolve Square from their responsibility. At the very minimum they could print the price and honor it for anyone who bought that game. On future games they could put the higher price tag. TiVo didn't have any problems when they increased their monthly fee and Blockbuster never had any problem when they increase theirs. These retailers have even more promotional materials then Square Soft has yet they've managed just fine.

#159 - I hope that this never happens again. Consumers should expect more from the video game publishers. As far as the branch that oversees these issues, I believe it's your state Attorney General and the FTC that is responsible for making sure consumers don't get fleeced. I'm not sure what their motto is, but I'm pretty sure it's not buyer beware.

Of course fee's can change, but so can that sticker on the front of the box. Saying that you can't post the actual cost because it might go up sits even less well with me. Just slap a sticker on there and change it if costs do rise. This is totally feasible and it doesn't prevent the online retailers from needing to disclose the costs.

Again though, I've admited my responsibilty was less then stellar as a consumer and I'd like to focus on what responsibilities Square and Microsoft should have. Instead of saying it's OK to rip ignorant people off, I'd rather hear someone try and defend Square for not including this information on the packaging to begin with. Is there something inherently moral about this. If you really believe it's OK to rip off anyone stupid enough to buy something then there is something seriously wrong with your ethics. Just because there is a sucker born every minute doens't make it OK to mislead and steal from them.

If more game publishers then just Final Fantasy are not disclosing these fees, then it sounds like this should be a bigger consumer issue then just Square. I'm happy to go after WOW and the other online games, if they are in fact not properly disclosing the real costs of the game, but the issue isn't buyer beware, it's whether or not Square should be disclosing the ACTUAL costs of the game and I've yet to see someone give me a good reason as to why consumers shouldn't be made aware of this when making purchases.