Dead Man Switch

The game card is no dead man's switch.

My brother is addicted. So I bought him a game card for Christmas.

You see, I thought it was a brilliant move. If he was addicted then I was the only one who bought him something he would actually use.

If he wasn't addicted, I thought he could use it as a planned exit. It was intended to be a count down timer and a dead man's switch. i.e., stick that card in there, knowing you have 2 months to play and get those recurring payments off of your credit card. Then, in order to keep playing, you'd have to go in and tell it to start charging your card again.

Well that BACKFIRED. In TWO ways.

First: He never stopped long enough to put the card in (takes two seconds bro, go here).
Second: Look what happened when I added my card back in April:

All it did was postpone the credit card charge. So once the game card finished off, it didn't stop charging me. It just went back to charging my credit card.

So why did I buy him another game card for his birthday that just passed? Because I'm the only one that got him something he'll use. :)

(That is, of course, if he actually loads it.)