Dear Bioware: About Your Free "Gifts"

He was only suspended. Prob for like 3 or 4 days.

You cannot simply change the definition of terms as a means of supporting your argument. ;p Your definition would apply if there was an obligation laid out, as your "like us" example explains that would earn the "gift" as part of a requirement. That would be classified as a payment or reward. However, a gift granted without former agreement or requirement, in appreciation of some service, membership, event, relationship, or feeling is the exact definition of a gift. This was a gift, not subject to interpretation or redefinition.

Really you two? Call it Bonus Bucks or Courtesy Coins. That work?! Nondescript. Gift or free...it really doesn't matter.

Once again, there was no former requirement or agreement made in determining the reception of said gift. There was no promise or obligation on behalf of the grantor to grant such gift, and it was not a term of agreement written into the subscription package, as are many of the perks of subscription.

It was granted as a show of appreciation for a past aspect of a relationship with no past, present, or future obligation governing it. In simpler terms, no more a reward then giving a Valentines present to ones lover....unless you plan on telling your girlfriend that it is a reward for services rendered.

Best of luck with that. ;p

Once again, there would be some formally written, formerly agreed upon, per-established terms for receiving such rewards for those examples, "if you subscribe, you will receive a gift". That would apply to the game boxes originally purchased that had rewards conducive to the level of purchase. This does not fall under that category and is the exact definition of a gift.

....and yes, it matters greatly as there are those attempting to re-define the term as a means of bolstering an unsupported point of view as well as unfairly disparaging the grantor....not to mention the lack of manners involved in the entire fiasco.

Does it really matter what it is called? The only prooblem is what message is send with this so called appriciation.
Subscriber appriciation would be the perfect pretense to add more QoL features that make subscription more appealing to f2p players. Of course that is only a viable solution if you want a growing subscriber base.
Everything else is just nosense wether it is cc or some recolored armor.

Good point. I agree that there is a great opportunity with this idea.

See, now do you see why people are disappointed with cc and recolored armor? People actually want this game to improve and grow, thats exactly what I want.

EXACTLY!!! The message "I" received was "go buy more in the store...you know you wanna"

While I agree that there should be more QoL and what not added to reward subscribers and convert F2P players to subscribers.

It is actually important to not redefine this as anything other than a gift. Because once you start doing that it is easy to devalue everything the dev's do to show appreciation, to the point that it would require a year of free subscription to feel appreciated. To give you an idea of what I mean, my father always told me the if you constantly call people cockroaches, eventually that is all they are to you and it becomes that much easier to squash them under you boot.