I prefer to stay away on principle but its hard.
I really don't understand this. Gaming is a luxury item, it's just entertainment. I agree that entertainment is wonderful and we all need it to remain sane, and gaming is a great example of entertainment, but the other great thing about it is that there's just so MUCH of it available now. If you really don't like the company, couldn't you just have, I dunno, played something else made by someone else? It's not like you have options.
Shit, EA's just announced you can get Battlefield 3 for free (permanently) if you add it to your Origin account (or make a new account and then add it) before June 3. It's tempting, but given EA's shittastic behavior as a company it's not too hard to resist giving in. Plenty of other stuff to play.
If we just decide that it's all too hard to resist, there's no motive for companies to improve is there? You might argue that there's too gamers who don't care if EA uses babies as fuel to run their servers so long as the games are good, and hence EA wouldn't change despite your own reservations. Sure, that might be true. But at least you'd be consistent with your own personal value system.