Starmaker: Here's an important secret. People are greedy, lazy and forgetful. Before anyone says how the GOG community is totally awesome, I'll say these two words: selection bias. We're here because we buy games that we can get for free.
I'll use the example Frank Trollman provides in Waiting in Line. See, in the US one has to sign papers to be an organ donor. In the Czech Republic, one has to sign papers to NOT be an organ donor. So the result is that in a country mired in Soviet-style bureaucracy it is easier for patients to get organ transplants. Because people hate the idea of filling out forms more than they are bothered by the idea of being, um, disassembled into spare parts. Inertia can be a force of good. But unless some fundamental legislative principles are changed, it will never work for voluntary donations, for obvious reasons.
So what will work? Ransom (I'll make a game if people agree to collectively donate $5000). Subscription (continuous services). Pay-to-not-suck (a.k.a. free-to-play that works).
it is important to note that pay-to-not-suck will never replace subscription. Pay-to-not-suck games incentivize players to pay more and more money by making the community internally antagonistic. This arms race does not sit well with people both poor (I don't have the money to fight Baron von Prick; this means I'll always be a crap covered farmer; suddenly, flipping burgers sounds better than playing!) and rich (gently caress that noise; I'm playing games to relax with friends, not to engage in simplistic power struggles the sole purpose of which is to swindle me out of my hard-earned money). This is what's so great about WoW: have extra money? buy a Collector's Edition, or a gold-plated stein, or a hand-painted statuette of your character, or Frostmourne. No mechanical benefits. that being said, they might introduce a pay-per-quest rate for casual players in addition to the subscription.
As for the PC vs consoles debate, until there are restrictions on what consoles can run, they will never replace the PC. I'm kinda spent now, having written a huge wall of text on the very same topic at the NaNoWriMo forums: we are gradually moving away from brands and toward user-generated content. More input, more potential for input, more free marketplaces = better. For instance, if Halo 12 sucks, you make a mod that doesn't suck, and the execs hire you to design Halo 13. This requires a gaming platform that is not "defectivebydesign" (i.e. DRM-locked). My guess is that consoles will evolve into brand PCs and their respective networks into distribution platforms competing for titles but open to all users no matter their PC make.
