I think you're on to something. This is the appeal of Second Life and The Sims, and to some extent Oblivion and various FPS games which ship with map/mod editors. I'd argue that part of WoW's lasting appeal is in the same vein with its deep UI customizability. The capability to personalize and alter a game (or a game client) draws a player from being a passive user who interacts in defined ways with an immutable world, to becoming an active creator and shaper of that world--which is precisely the goal that almost all MMORPGs have aimed for, yet failed to achieve thus far (UO being closer than most as regards a persistent world, and WoW being the closest to complete UI customizability).
Your synopsis is totally off the mark. It applies more to old-school console games, not online games.
PvE-oriented MMORPGs make the bulk of their profit from subscriptions, not box sales. (Guild Wars is an obvious exception that is more in line with FPS and RTS models, which depend upon a combination of box sales, user mods, and great PvP to prolong the game's lifespan.)
With PvE-oriented MMORPGs, hardcore players are irrelevant: they represent a miniscule portion of the overall population yet consume an inordinate amount of company resources (bandwidth etc.) by playing frequently, and consume content faster than it can be produced, quickly becoming bored/irate and at risk of quitting. Casuals, on the other hand, pay the same monthly subscription while consuming content at a slower pace and making low to moderate use of resources. For a game that relies primarily on prefabricated, PvE-oriented content, the casual player is better for profits in the long run.
It saddens me that the product of the loins beneath a mind like this will some day be running around in my world. Hopefully your daughter will have some streak of willfulness or independence and defy your paranoid, degrading assumptions about her. Or perhaps she's lucky enough to have a good mother, though I don't see how one would be foolish enough to procreate with you.
Please mod parent and his other posts down, they are egregiously off-topic and inflammatory.
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I think you're on to something. This is the appeal of Second Life and The Sims, and to some extent Oblivion and various FPS games which ship with map/mod editors. I'd argue that part of WoW's lasting appeal is in the same vein with its deep UI customizability. The capability to personalize and alter a game (or a game client) draws a player from being a passive user who interacts in defined ways with an immutable world, to becoming an active creator and shaper of that world--which is precisely the goal that almost all MMORPGs have aimed for, yet failed to achieve thus far (UO being closer than most as regards a persistent world, and WoW being the closest to complete UI customizability).
Your synopsis is totally off the mark. It applies more to old-school console games, not online games. PvE-oriented MMORPGs make the bulk of their profit from subscriptions, not box sales. (Guild Wars is an obvious exception that is more in line with FPS and RTS models, which depend upon a combination of box sales, user mods, and great PvP to prolong the game's lifespan.) With PvE-oriented MMORPGs, hardcore players are irrelevant: they represent a miniscule portion of the overall population yet consume an inordinate amount of company resources (bandwidth etc.) by playing frequently, and consume content faster than it can be produced, quickly becoming bored/irate and at risk of quitting. Casuals, on the other hand, pay the same monthly subscription while consuming content at a slower pace and making low to moderate use of resources. For a game that relies primarily on prefabricated, PvE-oriented content, the casual player is better for profits in the long run.
It saddens me that the product of the loins beneath a mind like this will some day be running around in my world. Hopefully your daughter will have some streak of willfulness or independence and defy your paranoid, degrading assumptions about her. Or perhaps she's lucky enough to have a good mother, though I don't see how one would be foolish enough to procreate with you. Please mod parent and his other posts down, they are egregiously off-topic and inflammatory.