Something that comes up a lot is people saying they're not REALLY supporting NCSoft by playing the game, because they got it on sale or only paid for the initial purchase or don't by gems or whatever.
What people mean by this is that they are not directly supporting them in a financial way, and they are right. In your eyes, however, you mean even using their product is support, and that can be true in a very, very broad sense. Like choosing to rent a Ford over a Chevrolet at Enterprise is "supporting" Ford.
If you somehow got the game for free, or found it via a third party who wasn't giving a share back to NCSoft, it might be tempting to go for it even if you had previously committed to the boycott. But here's why I think you'd be fooling yourself.
If you show up inside the game, and you're adding to its concurrent numbers, you're supporting NCSoft in one of the ways that counts the most. You might laugh it off, "No, I'm just wasting their bandwidth! Final joke's on them! Haha!" Listen. No. And you know why this isn't true. You don't need me to explain this one to you.
Actually, you do. If you are going to make such a bold statement such as
"If you so much as log in to a game, you are supporting every company that has anything to do with it in the strongest and most important way." you most certainly need to explain yourself, as nearly everyone posting in this thread so far as at least a slightly different view from everyone else. No one sees 100% eye to eye on this issue. From GG's "Traitor" comment, to Agge (a "redname," no less) bluntly saying "GW2 is awesome." Not to mention everyone in between.
But don't lie to yourself. If you show up to play the game, you're supporting the studio and the publisher. Directly, indirectly, intentions don't matter.
This is patently false. Intentions matter a hell of a lot. If I go into the game intending on picking it up as my new hobby and to just move on, fully supporting the game and the companies behind it, that's one issue. If I squeak by with the cheapest copy I can get and only log in to play with friends, not spending any money, and bailing from the game as soon as one of the incarnations of our heroic MMO is out, that is a completely different issue. Anyone here will tell you that.
The publisher will value your participation.
They care about the dollar/won/yen/euro/etc. If they aren't getting mine, I am invisible to them. They care not. They want my money, and any effort they take to pursue it will be fruitless and futile. Other than this, out of the hundreds of thousands that play they game, I will matter to none but my friends.
That is, if I ever chose to play, which I most likely will not.
I came here looking for opinions, and I appreciate yours. I do. But, without trying to sound like an ass, don't spout it as though it's unchallengeable fact.