I wonder if Microsoft is "actively chasing people away" from playing these free Internet games.
Whereas up to a few months ago, the game server(s) were quite generally available, this has changed considerably. Servers nowadays are often down, and regularly for very long periods (even over a week!).
My theory is that MS is using this strategy to make people go look elsewhere to play free games, allowing them to discontinue their Internet games claiming that "interest had dropped below a level to justify the cost of keeping the servers running", while avoiding massive complaints of dissatisfied users.
Anybody else having an opinion on this?