Bioshock 2: I've Just Been Had

My kid convinced me to buy the Limited Edition Bioshock 2, for the sake of the book with artwork, the CD with the music, and the posters.

Fine, I pay almost a hundred dollars and a few days later get it in the mail. Then install. And run.

And find out that I CANNOT SAVE A BLEEPING GAME WITHOUT A WINDOWS LIVE ACCOUNT.

Let me get this straight, I just purchased a product I cannot use without further compromising my privacy? And nobody told me about that BEFORE I purchased it in big, bold, red letters?

I call it blackmail. I think I will press the "publish" button, get the phone and call Newegg to decide what will have to be done about this.

PS: And don't tell me scary tales about piracy killing developers. It's not about piracy, it's about establishing a revenue stream with me being at the spending end (and yes, bleeding my privacy along the way). I didn't subscribe to that.

PPS: Oh yeah, and of course, killing the resell market.

UPDATE

Turns out, there *is* a way.

So, let me see.

A bright white rectangle of a message worded so you think there is no other option other than to create an online account, and a very pale scroll bar next to the dark green background, so pale that people that do this crap for living don't notice it, and there is not a single hint on within the message tat the message is not complete?

Oh, come on. Don't tell me that there hasn't been a long meeting with Windows Live reps present (at least in spirit), and a bunch of suits making a decision to make it just so, so the vast majority of [unsophisticated] sheeple user base just shrugs their shoulders and creates an account, and others either see the scroll bar and create a local account (if their vision is good enough), or freak out and start ranting (if their eyes were burdened by decades of wading through crap just like this).

PS: No, it's not a conspiracy. It's a business model.