Quite a few people then ... and look - it seems like it's generally the intelligent, politely-spoken types who go this way: the meek, the elderly, the downtrodden; those who've been burned too many times in the past by this industrys improbable ratio of cost to value-over-time.
Like a few others I've now all but dropped out of the bottom of the VG market, subsisting largely on a diet of demos, second-hands and friendy-lendies. The whole process has become so bitter and distasteful, I fantasise about surfing on a shield of jade to pastures new and usullied, leaving this atrophous hobby behind me for good.
Still, I'm drawn back by the unbrookable splendour of this industrys peak endeavours, which have by no means waned in this time, and which seem to have become easier to find than ever before. I think the way to game properly is to spend whatever you need or can afford to, but only on a very few, carefully selected titles, which you then thoroughly rinse over the course of the year.
It seems likely that more and more people will reign in their videogame spending, in line with general economic trends worldwide. I think the industry can rely for a while on further generations of fresh-faced fools, but I cannot imagine where we will be headed when 'new' loses priority completely (despite Nintendos - weak - best throes).