As I said a few times, there are ways to compete with piracy outside of pricing it for free. With movies and music, I dont pirate because Netflix and Music Unlimited make things easy for me and offer a reasonable price. With VC games, all Nintendo is doing is taking a ROM, making sure it runs right, giving it off-TV play, and releasing it for 5 dollars. I can already play emulated games on a DS and emulated games on my TV, so all you're offering me is paying 5 dollars for the exact same thing I can get elsewhere for free. If Nintendo added some kind of concept art or bonus features or included the Earthbound guide, that's when the VC games feel like something more than "just a ROM that costs money".
But see, here's the problem. YOU find the pricing of Netflix convenient. But I have met ppl who don't, who think their library is pretty crappy and still download movies through piratebay, and there are tons of website that offer series or movies streamed for free. Those site are there cause there are a "market" of ppl willing to get stuff for free. Therefore what I want is for you to realize that this is your own preference, there is a line to be drawn, and I think that line is drawn by the market. If Nintendo's pricing sucks (and all what that involves, quality, how cheap was to convert the game, etc.), then they will suffer the consequences. Music has been stored in computers for a while now, most of the 10 bucks CD are samples from music stored digitally, and I bet the cost won't change that much in the future. Cause when things become digitally most of the cost are on the service (servers, network, etc) but most is on THE INTELECTUAL PROPERTY!! (workers at Nintendo)...that's what you are paying. Modern copies of 50+ years old books don't become cheaper with time either, a hard copy may cost 100 bucks or more, once they scan them (big deal right?) and make it accessible to you they lower the price a bit and that price stays. Similar to Nintendo, SNES cartridges are expensive, but now the give you a ported working version of the ROMs for a cheaper price, that the market likes, otherwise ppl wouldn't buy them.
Imagine if we wouldn't pay intellectual property. Name a game, music, creator that can create originals every single day....it's impossible. So what they do is, create something, and wish that something keeps feeding them (copies) until they manage to create the next big thing that will keep them bringing food to the table. Of course this example is oversimplified, but divide those 10 bucks for all the development cost and money that workers of Nintendo, who go through periods in which they create nothing, deserve.
- BTW I agree with the digital account problems though, for me that's a huge turnoff from Nintendo to people who are technologically savvy. Everyone knows that it is not rare to have hardware problems, and with Nintendo you are exposed to lose hundreds if not thousands of dollars cause their archaic system.