Very well thought out, explained, and articulated.
The thing is though that I think the gaming industry as a whole is banking on the increasing rise of gamers who have never known anything but being exploited sheep. They pretty much rode the storm out, ignoring the complaints of gamers whom they realized would be coming back for their products no matter what they did... much like a Junkie does with an abusive dealer when there is nobody else to get their fix from. The big comment made by the publishers nowadays seems to be that there are a number of young 20-something gamers, starting to make their own money in substantial enough quantities to be a marketing force, who have never known anything but exploitation. It's easy for them to look at their angry elders, mostly 30 to 40 something Gen Xers, and be dismissive because for them this is how things always were, and they happen to be used to it. What's more for "Generation Y" there is a relatively bright future ahead as they are coming into their own when the Baby Boomers are retiring. The recession and sociological realities that decimated Generation X aren't as big a deal for them, and they generally don't worry too much about the cost of luxuries, especially in the future. Case in point in bebopping around a few MMOs nowadays it seems that the "hip" thing for
some people to do is tell anyone who complains about being nickeled and dimed, or aren't excited about the next big MMO or viewing it's suspected way of making money with alarm, that they are "pissed because they won't be able to afford it" complete with LOLs and other disparaging comments. In short it's a lot like what's being reported on twitter.
I think the gaming industry as a whole is pretty much looking towards this generation and that attitude as it's big salvation, and truthfully I am beginning to think that predictions of a crash might be premature simply because most of them are based on consumers from "our" generation getting fed up with this and how we're starting to wise up and turn our back on the practices. That doesn't consider what happens when a conditioned Generation Y hits the market and props it right back up. Like any new generation they outnumber us, and truthfully the industry doesn't care at that point if they lose our business or how loyal we were, or how integral to their development or becoming a big business like this.
I could be wrong about that, and hopefully I am, it's a fairly recent way of thinking for me, but it's something I can't entirely ignore. "Always On DRM" might have caused some problems with companies, but I think they are sticking with it, due to the benefits like how it lets them spy, limit used games, and just generally gives them intrudive power they can use for marketing if nothing else, but I think they stick with it for a reason, and I seem to remember they more or less saying as much during the Simcity debacle.
As far as big wigs in the gaming industry losing their jobs, I suspect it's because a lot of those people made promises about being able to succeed with the market as it is now, and failed. Their careers being a blip in the overall plan.
I will hopefully be proven wrong however.
That said, I'm personally against the entire "always on" idea, as well as the concept of DRM in general. With consoles I consider it paticularly terrifying, largely because it seems like an attempt to pretty much make premium gaming services nessicary. In order to have a console your going to have to pay an internet provider, probably top dollar for a very fast "gaming quality" connection, and then doubtlessly have to pay the console company money in addition to fully use that connection for their games. Normally it would sound insane, but just think of how many people pay membership fees to "X-Box Live", it didn't exactly die. To be honest while Sony never did go fully in the same direction (their premium online service mostly just giving extras) I think it would be foolish to assume that a company as greedy as Sony isn't looking at the success of XBL and making plans to charge for basic functionality.