By 'the rules of the free market game' I presume you mean the Efficient Market Hypothesis. The EMH supposes that every actor has total and correct information,

By 'the rules of the free market game' I presume you mean the Efficient Market Hypothesis. The EMH supposes that every actor has total and correct information, every actor is rational and products are fungible. Whilst we might approach this on say a stock exchange to imagine most companies compete in an efficient market. When so much of modern business is about branding and advertising (destroying fungiblity and corrupting actors information and rationality). Is, I suggest, somewhat naive. Essentially modern businesses do not generally compete on product, they compete on their ability to distort the markets they're in.