Gamasutra - Rethinking the MMO

An interesting piece titled Rethinking the MMO is up at Gamasutra. Written by Neil Sorens from Dancing Robot Studios, the article asks why MMOs don't seem to have evolved:

Clearly, the trends show that the future of enthusiast PC gaming lies with games that can hold a player’s interest over long periods of time; at the very least, these games commute PC gaming’s death sentence for a few years, until game consoles can provide the features, depth, flexibility, and convenience that PCs allow.
The thing is…we all expected these games to evolve. We looked at Everquest and its addictiveness and reasoned that surely someone would improve on this formula, creating a breed of entertainment that the entire spectrum of gamers could enjoy. Instead, we have seen a parade of copycats that fails to appeal to a large portion of the potential market, despite far bigger development budgets than any offline games.

More information.

Honestly, this article hurts. The guy who wrote obviously didn't really think. So the "die-roll" combat that most mmos are using is boring? Hmmm… tell that to the millions of mmo players that seem to be perfectly fine with these gameplay mechanics. WoW alone has more subscribers than Oblivion (with its player controlled combat system) sold copies… but mmos do not appeal to the mass market? I'm serioulsy wondering in what kind of hole that guy was hiding the last 3 years.
On the other hand - so far every single mmo that has tried to use a more action-oriented combat system failed…

Originally Posted by Ionstormsucks
WoW alone has more subscribers than Oblivion (with its player controlled combat system) sold copies… but mmos do not appeal to the mass market?

Not to disagree with you (because I basically agree with your take on the article, but given that Madden '07 sold ~6.5 Million copies in the US alone - and did it in ~ 4 months … there is quite a mass market left to tap

Originally Posted by txa1265
Not to disagree with you (because I basically agree with your take on the article, but given that Madden '07 sold ~6.5 Million copies in the US alone - and did it in ~ 4 months … there is quite a mass market left to tap

But you imply that players that play Madden '07 are a totally different crowd than those who play WoW… and that's something you have to proof first. I have to admit - I just don't know. I'm sure there is still potential for growth in the mmo market, but I found the argumentation that today's mmo market is not a mass market fairly strange…