Hoarders of Starcraft 2 Beta Invites: Why do it?

I've already began offering my available Starcraft 2 Beta invites here. Now, I'll begin to go offer my simple thoughts about the mindsets of the uncouth individuals who, unlike me, hoard invites for themselves.

If you don't know already, Starcraft 2 is the sequel to Starcraft, one of the biggest video games in the world. If you don't believe this, run a Google Search on "South Korea Starcraft". If you read through the first couple of results, you'll probably realize that South Korea has national leagues dedicated to Starcraft. These Starcraft games are also televised constantly, by the way. Starcraft 2 is the sequel to that madness.

Now that we've established the titanic influence that is Starcraft 2, let's discuss the Beta. Starcraft 2 has been in production for over 5 years, and Blizzard (the producer of Starcraft) has released a Beta for Starcraft 2. The beta is basically an incomplete version of the game, made available to people in order to evaluate the game so far, and collect data for how to improve it. 

Notice how I mentioned that it was "made available to people". Sounds good right? Not that simple. Starcraft 2 is offering a closed beta, which means the list of people allowed to sample the game is exclusive; only people who acquired a Starcraft 2 beta invite key previously are allowed to participate. Without much thought, you can deduce that Starcraft 2 beta invite keys are indeed extremely rare, and extremely sought after.

This brings me to my point: People who hoard Starcraft 2 beta invites. They do it for multiple reasons; to brag about the invites, to sell them, or to simply do nothing with them. It's any unfortunate reality that these types of people exist, because this hoarding is severely detrimental to Starcraft 2's popularity, and the video gaming community as a whole.

Yet little is done about the hoarding of these beta invites. Blizzard may state in their Terms of Service that selling these invites or receiving more than one is not allowed, but punishment can easily be avoided. Sales are being made on eBay for Starcraft 2 Beta invite keys for over $300, which is about six times the price that the full, non beta retail game will be. And all the buzz simply generates interest in Blizzard, which alienates the poor fans of the game who are left in the cold without an invite.

People in the video gaming community must take a stand against these invite hoarders. Encourage people you know with extra invites to give them away for free. Write suggestions to Blizzard to allow more than one user to use a given Starcraft 2 beta invite key. File complaints with eBay or other mediums where sales of invites are taking place. Without the input of the community as a whole, these beta invite key hoarders will continue to proliferate, and damage the community we cherish so much.