I bought it at Futureshop on Dec 30, 2008 - 4 days ago. Perhaps I got an expired copy? The Futureshop price sticker on the box was printed June 6 2008, The publisher's copyright sticker is dated 2008.
The problem here is that you don't get the 30 days unless you buy at least another 30 days additional time. So it is not free. $50 is as much as I'm willing to pay for a game these days.
Luckily I bought a cheap $10 game the same day: Full Spectrum Warrior. It's kinda cool, a cross between an RTS and FPS. I find I always get the best value on the $10 games. That's what Portal cost me and it kept me busy for a week. Good value.
Looks like you can get a free ad supported version of FSW too: http://files.filefront.com/Full+Spectrum+Warrior/;11928826;/fileinfo.html Interesting.
Moral of the story: do as I often do and buy a cheapy game too when you buy an expensive one, that way you're reasonably assured one of them will work. Makes it less of a letdown. It often turns out that the cheapy games are more reliable and have better gameplay in terms of actual game design, though I have seen some pretty bad $10 games too.
This is incorrect, Bonk.
When you register your CD Key, True you have to provide either a game card or a credit card to activate the account.
Once the account is activated, you go into your billing information and delete your credit card information.. you still have your 30 days free.. this is what I am doing.. to continue my account.. I will have them direct debit my account every 2 months for $25.. $24.99 = 60 days.
So you do get your 30 days free as I have not yet allowed billing information to be applied to my account.
Now when my 30 days nears the end of its run, then I can apply additional funds to continue playing if I wish to do so.
Also if you buy an American game, you can contact Funcom by their email address and tell them that your guild sent you a copy of the game but the Key is to the wrong server.. Funcom will edit your key on their end and change you to the EU servers.. you only have to make sure that you install the game and use the EU patch to play on the EU servers.. the patch will give you full EU content instead of the censored US content.
Anyhow.. I hope that this helps.