I can almost promise you that game companies will charge for special moves in the near future. Honestly, I think games will eventually be sold via expiring licenses as opposed to being sold outright.
Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.
Pope Benedict XVI
They did keep buying them, but they were also buying a 1 year warranty and they knew they could play there games on them no matter were they bought them. They also knew they could take their games to a friends house to play. I Think the hole blocked and locked thing will go very badly for sony and microsoft. Alot of gamers are already furious about it. Sure some will buy it but I dont think enough people will buy them to sustain them.
There were games like that - in the 80s and early 90s (and I loved them as a kid, and certainly appreciate them as an adult). Battle of Antietam. Solo Flight. A myriad plane/tank/sub sims. Infocom text adventures. When development costs were lower, you could make a profit selling 50k or 100k of a title, and these "niche" genres could survive. We got titles that were actually mature. Not in today's sense of the word, which is basically blood, boobies and swearing, but atually mature - serious themes and games that required thought. Nowadays development costs are too high for a big publisher to attempt these types of games, so there isn't a whole lot other tan "Hollywood Blockbusters." IMHO, the industry has devolved over time....can be taken seriously by older people so then older people who can appreciate things ... then the industry will evolve.
If you can't do it with 8 bits, you don't need to do it!