From Gamasutra, an “illumination”:

No, WoW has expanded to its player base beyond WarCraft and Diablo, but not to the mainstream. Many of these subscribers will not play another MMO in the near future. MMOs need to expand their playstyle from treadmills to focusing on fun factor. Mainstream players do not have the time or see any benefit in investing hours upon hours into an avatar that exists in a static treadmill world. Technology also needs to progress to allow MMOs to play like standard games, many mainstream people will not be willing to deal with the technical issues MMOs typically have.
-Patrick Lister, Computer Sciences Corporation.

The link is a collection of opinions coming from “professional respondents”. This is exactly what I meant when I wrote that I’m tired of the level of the discussion.

Alice may have more insight than those professionals:

MMOs have a tinsy audience still, and they’re PC based. Consoles kick PC’s arse. The mainstream aren’t playing MMOs.

Which is another well known debate. Maybe it could more useful to figure out why. So why? Again because of the accessibility. Consoles are accessible PCs aren’t. Consoles are cheaper, they plug directly on the TV, they basically come with everything you need, they are easy to use and easy to buy since you don’t have to understand what’s in the box to use it. They do not need to be opened, upgraded, updated, maintained, analyzed, get fixed and all the rest. They do not have conflicting or bugged drivers. Or they work or they are broken. If there’s a game it will run on it at its best possibilities.

Consoles are successful for the exact same reason why World of Warcraft became so popular: the accessibility. Lum praised the UI and the polish. In fact the UI and the polish make directly the accessibility of the product. Haemish praised the low hardware requirements, which is again about the accessibility. Others have noticed the smaller goals, the number and presentation of quests, the ease of levelling, the possibility to solo. Again all accessibility elements.

Building a mmorpg from scrarch can still be considered a complex and nearly impossible duty but figuring out (before the release) if it can be successful or not is just trivial. Because it’s all about the accessibility.

All the rest is about details.

Instead about these treadmills that have been the center of the debate for so long I have this image from Forrest Gump stuck in my head. He starts to run back and forth through USA without a precise reason. He just runs. Droves of peoples line up behind him. Then he stops and says: “I’m pretty tired”.

That’s about the same.