In his latest Free Zone column, MMORPG.com's Richard Aihoshi takes a look at two larger than life news items that came across his virtual desk last week: CHampions Online going 'F2P' and The Governator taking on the EMA (Entertainment Merchants' Association). See what Richard thinks of Atari's announcement about Champions Online and whether or not the EMA can successfully challenge California Governor Schwarzenegger. Let us know your thoughts on the forums!

Predictably, it took somewhere in the vicinity of a nanosecond for the first comments to appear about this being the so-called "Turbine model", which isn't really F2P. It's certainly true that what Atari and Cryptic will implement isn't the "classic" scheme with an item shop as the sole means of revenue generation. However, monthly package options aren't new; while they're not universal by any means, they became available in some MMOGs years ago. Since that time, I don't recall seeing even a single instance where the valiant defenders of P2P - presumably some of whom are the very same people speaking up now - said this meant such titles weren't actually F2P. Might this be a convenient double standard?

Read more of The Free Zone: Champions Online, F2P & The Governator.