>Or, looking from a different angle: what the complainers are saying is, they're sad they can't extract rent now that their past work became valuable for reasons they had no part in, and if they could turn back time, they'd happily rent-seek the shit out of their code,

Wrong and completely unfair/bitter accusation. The only people rent seeking are the corporations.

What kind of world do you want to live in? The one with "social games" or the one with corporate games? The one with corporate games seems to have less and less room for artists, musicians, language graduates, programmers...