It's difficult to respond to all of the sentiments at once, but here goes. In regards to MMO's being a pay-for-play model and that they are not well supported, I almost agree. The one way that I sever my agreement is that they are better supported than any other games out there. Excepting only those games that have allowed community-based support (I can't say anything bad about such standards except for they have horrible tax consequences to the IP holder).
Well this is a hit or miss. Some MMOs have a long life and great support, great communities. Some stand alone games also have great support and great communities. My point is, however, not that MMOs are bad, but that they prove, so far, that just because there is a subscription involved, doesn't mean that the level of support, the quality of a game, that anything is going to be better. More money to the publisher/developer does not equate to a better gaming experience for gamers necessarily.
As for the idea that I would be upset that there is a mandatory subscription fee, I'm scoffing. I welcome a subscription fee. I hate that I have to pay full price for a game that I may play three times and then never play again (DoW2). Or a game that I buy at full price and then because they're scrambling to recover losses or make final gains, they sell for a third of what I paid for it (DG). You have to remember that with subscription fees comes new opportunities for competition (for example, groups like Team 17 might offer all of their games ever made for one subscription fee).
Please show me, outside of so called F2P MMO games, where we're looking out subscription fees INSTEAD of box prices. I have had this beef with MMOs for awhile, that they want their 50-60 bucks up front PLUS sub fees right out the door. I just don't see publishers walking out into a room and saying hey, here's the thing, we want to sell you Dragon Age or MW 2 not for a 50-60 dollar price tag but 10 dollars a month even though we know that most of you will burn through the game in one or two months. Or maybe they lump them together and toss in some throw away games and it's 60 bucks a month for one AAA title and bunch of crap no one wants.
As for abuse of fees for the cost of gaming this is already present in the ever-increasing introductory cost of games. You have a group of people in a small office meeting room that have some schmo pretending that he poured over the numbers to come up with the ideal price, when in reality, he got on Amazon and figured out how much the competitors were charging and he added five bucks. Then the publishers negotiate the right to put their surcharge on it and to have certain promotions. This system has to stop. It is not based on market demand as there is no immediate indication of whether people would stop purchasing at a certain price. An immediate indicator of a bad price is when 3000 people who were subscribing suddenly stop paying one month.
I can't speak to the security of pirates because for every better mousetrap there will live a stainless steel rat.
I think the pricing for games in general is all over the map. Some games are sold for 10x more than they are worth, fail and leave the customer with a fancy toaster and no support, others are very well made but get no attention because they don't make sexy cover art for IGN, Gamestop, or any of the traditional places games are marketed and don't hit retail shelves at all.
