So an online service that has maintenance, support, and infrastructure cost should charge a monthly fee so as to offset said costs?  And a monthly fee that is far and away, more than enough to cover operational costs?

So you're arguing Blizzard should be a non-profit game developer ?

The monthly fee of the game isn't high compared to the content you get or compared to the competition It's not like Blizzard comes up with a new expansion pack every 6 months a la EQ2...We even get huge patchs adding whole zones for free in between expansions...

Blizzard might make a lot of money but I can't say I have been anything but extremly happy with their latest games or what they have forthcoming in the pipe.

I would rather have this than loosing money like EA and publishing mostly shitty games.........

Heck, how you thing Blizzard is able to attract some of the best talent industry ? Because they are very successfull and that allows them to provide their employee a good working environment ( having to crunch for a deadline at which you will release the game you are working on no matter its quality is really not that rewarding as a developer..)

Blizzard always keep making more and more content for World of Warcraft, dozens of patches and updates every year. But does it even matter? World of Warcraft is easily the best MMORPG ever, and 99% of people that play the game have nothing but praises about it.

I'm more interested in the fact that WoW's success was able to increase Blizzard's simultaneous teams from 2 to 4.

LOL. I absolutely have no problem paying monthly fees.  Just making a point.