[QUOTE="bogaty"]

I find most of them naturally devolve to the level of the level of the worst players. By worst, I'm not referring to their skill in actually playing the game, but in their attitude and level of maturity. As devs try to broaden their revenue streams by ensuring that the games can be quickly picked up and mastered, the trend only worsens. If the game requires little thought and provides instant gratification, it's soon overrun by kids in their early teens who tend to give free reign to the worst aspects of their egos secure in the knowledge that their annonymity is protected behind a computer screen. There's nothing fun about having to share a game world with hoardes of maladjusted, partially literate teens who think the ultimate in good times is going out of their way to annoy other players.

About the only MMO I've got time for is WWII Online as it requires a fair investment of time to learn to play. That tends to weed out the twitch crowd.

elemental_drago

I have to agree with this post. This is what really gets my vote.Thatjust grows old after a bit (2 seconds really).For the record though, I voted time, as it's my second choice. Sometimes it's nice to be able to just jump in and have fun for a short bit but MMOs aren't real attuned to that.

And while dead true, that REALLY confuses me.

I mean, why do game devs target THAT crowd? Figure, WoW, as wildly popular as it is, has 10 million subscribers worldwide. WORLDWIDE. There are almost 6 BILLION people on the planet. If that number was US citizens alone, it would still be only 3% of the population, of which ~50% has internet access. Do publishers really thing that huge gap in numbers is TEENAGERS who aren't playing because the game doesn't allow enough immaturity to entertain them?

Seems unlikely. The greater success of the "Sims" series would seem to imply that the massive market being left on the table are 'casual gamers', who want a social networking experience - an interesting story, and a place to share it or experience it in a group - and not a repetitivelevel grind.

I guess one is probably easier to code for than the other, though. :roll:

Odd you omit what would likely be otherwise the most popular reason:

- Rather than using deep/interesting story to keep gamer's interested, levelling and loot is used as bait. (IE., "too much grinding, not enough plot")