I know there's a good chance that this is bait, but I'll bite because I've got ten minutes to kill.
It's true that inconveniencing others is a core component of protesting, but this only works if people are made aware of the point of the protest. If you just inconvenience people without making those people - or the wider public - aware of why they are being inconvenienced, you haven't done anything. Unless someone checks this specific AOEZone thread they'd have no idea about what you're doing, and very very few members of the player base go on AOEZone at all. To 99.999% of players, you'll just be a "Game has been disconnected" message on their screen, with no way for them to know if you alt-f4'd as a form of protest or because you just really don't want to play Arena. To them, it's the same thing, and your protest has achieved nothing.
Additionally,
At the end of the day, money talks. You have, by buying many copies of the game, shown a much stronger signal to MS that "the game is in a good state" than alt-f4'ing will ever show the opposite. To MS, your overall actions are a glowing endorsement of DE, a positive reinforcement of all their actions so far, and a clear message to "keep doing exactly what you're doing".
Based on the way you write it's clear you're a pretty intelligent guy (and in fact I think it's pretty obvious based on subject matter and writing style who you are specifically, but that's beside the point) so I would think you have the capacity to actually reflect on your real motivations here. If you genuinely want to change the situation, how will your actions actually lead to meaningful change? If you are undertaking actions that won't change the situation, but will nonetheless make others lives worse (even if in a small way) what is the actual underlying good of your actions? etc. etc.
What you're really doing is giving yourself a feeling of accomplishment, which is actually a very negative thing. Not to get too side-tracked into off-topic (although getting this thread locked would be a nice little bonus) but you can see this in broader protest movements as well in the real world. Protests become more about making the members of the protest feel like they're "doing good", which results in less effort put towards meaningful action or change: Those people who might have actually undertaken action that could do something are now spending their time making themselves feel good at others' expense.
Again, I would think you have the capacity to reflect on your actions. Age of Empires II is just a video game, so it's no big deal, but if you carry similar behaviors into your real world day to day life, you will probably be hurting the causes that you care about the most.
Also this post took me slightly more than 10 minutes to write, so if it was really just bait, it was successful.
Are my actions selfish and do they inconvenience others, yes, but selfishness and inconvenience are qualities of almost every public protest. If I block traffic on a major road to protest something it is going to inconvenience and piss off a lot of people, but it is also one of the only ways to garner significant attention to a cause.
It's true that inconveniencing others is a core component of protesting, but this only works if people are made aware of the point of the protest. If you just inconvenience people without making those people - or the wider public - aware of why they are being inconvenienced, you haven't done anything. Unless someone checks this specific AOEZone thread they'd have no idea about what you're doing, and very very few members of the player base go on AOEZone at all. To 99.999% of players, you'll just be a "Game has been disconnected" message on their screen, with no way for them to know if you alt-f4'd as a form of protest or because you just really don't want to play Arena. To them, it's the same thing, and your protest has achieved nothing.
Additionally,
I have many copies of the game, family share accounts and a vpn service.
At the end of the day, money talks. You have, by buying many copies of the game, shown a much stronger signal to MS that "the game is in a good state" than alt-f4'ing will ever show the opposite. To MS, your overall actions are a glowing endorsement of DE, a positive reinforcement of all their actions so far, and a clear message to "keep doing exactly what you're doing".
Based on the way you write it's clear you're a pretty intelligent guy (and in fact I think it's pretty obvious based on subject matter and writing style who you are specifically, but that's beside the point) so I would think you have the capacity to actually reflect on your real motivations here. If you genuinely want to change the situation, how will your actions actually lead to meaningful change? If you are undertaking actions that won't change the situation, but will nonetheless make others lives worse (even if in a small way) what is the actual underlying good of your actions? etc. etc.
What you're really doing is giving yourself a feeling of accomplishment, which is actually a very negative thing. Not to get too side-tracked into off-topic (although getting this thread locked would be a nice little bonus) but you can see this in broader protest movements as well in the real world. Protests become more about making the members of the protest feel like they're "doing good", which results in less effort put towards meaningful action or change: Those people who might have actually undertaken action that could do something are now spending their time making themselves feel good at others' expense.
Again, I would think you have the capacity to reflect on your actions. Age of Empires II is just a video game, so it's no big deal, but if you carry similar behaviors into your real world day to day life, you will probably be hurting the causes that you care about the most.
Also this post took me slightly more than 10 minutes to write, so if it was really just bait, it was successful.