I already reupgraded. Sure, I'd rather pay $40 to get a Blizzardlike deal - professional game by a professional staff and free patches for life. Unfortunately we neither have nor are likely to get the kind of investors Blizzard got - the market dried up. Still, 40 bucks a year's a hell of a deal. Most non-Blizzard games, you buy it, and that's it - no upgrades, no support, no network without a subscription.
For 40 bucks you get 8 weeks of video game rentals at Gamer's Edge (
http://www.actsofgord.com/ ). Or 8 matinee showings of Lord of the Rings, good for a grand total of 24 hours of entertainment (but what entertainment it is!) stretched out over a little over a week. Or a used copy of Goldeneye with no network support at all. Or probably a bunch of other things.
And if some of you are wondering why the price hike - even after firing our absentee webmaster, server costs went up, bandwidth cost went up, and 50% of the november and december profits were eaten up by 1337 h4x0rz who thought it would really assert their manliness to upgrade, play until they got their credit card bill, then swear it was stolen and that they never charged anything to Eurocenter.