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1. Are MMO subscription fees outdated?
I'm not an MMO player, but the choices seem to be between monthly fees (with timesinks in-game to keep you paying and playing month after month) or locking away key abilities in the "free to play" model until you either pay or sit through a lot of time-sinks... Either way, it does seem like a huge hassle that I have no interest in. Pick your poison, IMO.
2. Is it fair to charge beyond the initial purchase to unlock content already on the disk?
I find modern DLC trends laughable. I've gone more and more into the mindset of 'wait a year for them to release a "complete" version'... Because the kind of 5 and 10 dollaring of modern games is bull****.
3. Is it fair to pay full retail cost for a digital copy of a game?
I don't see why not. A disk and a box is mostly something that you have to store. As for what I, personally, am willing to pay, it's very low, since I don't have much time for gaming, and have a wealth of options available at 75% off of retail (often $5-$10 for an entire game, or less for indie titles) on Steam, and the rate the games go on sale far exceed my capacity to play them. I'll make exceptions, if I'm really exited about a game, but the last two games that I was able to justify full retail price were Skyrim and the original Street Fighter 4... two years apart.
4. Are virtual console titles (like old NES games) over priced?
Yeah. Some of the big titles may be justified, but for the most part, it's hard to justify those prices compared to newer, better games at the same pricepoints.
5. Should virtual content be locked to account instead of device?
Always account. Systems can and do die all the time. The key thing needed for digital distribution to work is that it needs to be better than physical media. Valve/Steam understands this, and their games will work on my desktop, laptop, work computer, and potentially anywhere else. They also have aggressive pricing that gets me to buy/try out games that I otherwise would not.
Now, if Steam betrays my trust (deactivating games I paid for or banning my account), things will change quickly.
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