I've read through your post, and while I don't have any advice to give regarding your predicament, I can tell you that this mistreatment of customers is all too common in the gaming industry these days.
At the forefront of this (in my eyes at least) is EA. To put it simply. They are garbage (IMO), and employ so many anti-consumer practices it genuinely upsets me.
Things like being able to walk into shops and trade in the hard copy of your game, they've worked hard and flexed their muscle to effectively stomp out. It's not as if the gaming industry was going down the drain, because of it.
It just comes down to greed, and unfortunately there are Armies, in there millions, waiting and willing to eat whatever garbage these companies want to throw out, and will happily pay them money for the privilege.
What's even worse is, they'll more than happily take you're hard earned cash (bearing in mind games are no cheaper than they used to be), and sell you the most half baked and broken games you'd dare to imagine.
Like I said before, the armies are more than happy to support this. And though I'm sure it'll do as much good as my recycling (which I'm sure gets dumped somewhere in Asia or Africa anyway), I'll be voting with my wallet, and will no longer be taking the warm shaft from these companies. Not as much of it as I used to, anyway.
P.S. Not saying everyone who buys E.A games etc. is a complete moron. I just wish we could all come together to stand up for our rights as gamers, without worrying about armies of snakes, back stabbing us in support of the enemy. Though I'm sure if we were capable of achieving that, we'd also be living in a lovely, conflict-free world. And really, that idea speaks for itself.
/practically unrelated rant