As far as I'm concerned, people play MMOs because they operate like virtual worlds. In that context, people then pursue experiences that they don't get enough of in life. They can't struggle mightily to achieve great things. They can't get a sense of respect. They have no sense of control in their life. They can't lead others. They can't socialize enough. They can't bonk on things until they fall over dramatically.

When people find the exact thing in a virtual setting that they're really wanting from their life, they'll keep coming back to it over and over again. It's just like anyone who is a zealot of any other activity.

Think back through time of all the people who have had single-minded determination to engage in some activity, with all other activities taking a secondary role. Famous composers, builders, businessmen, scientists and engineers have all devoted themselves to a single activity - to the detriment of their family life and even to their health.

MMOs simply offer a virtual setting where people can experience an activity or sensation that they find tremendously appealing. Perhaps to the point of perceiving them as providing fulfillment.

Now trot out a personal holodeck for everyone in the world. A significant portion of the population would enter and never leave.

Games are games, but these things aren't defined to be games. To be honest, they aren't defined to be much of anything specific. They can be fiction, a game, a social experience, a workplace and many other things. Any given implementation can focus on whatever the designers are interested in.

As for the linked article, the author is a science fiction author, so his future is colored by the idea that storytelling is important. For me, just being able to experience new things online with other folks is important. I don't care about winning or losing, reading storylines or making friends online.

My future is colored by my hope that I'll get more of the sort of thing that I enjoy - those new virtual experiences. I also hope that y'all get more of what you enjoy so long as it's something that isn't going to mess up your life.

Done wrong, this could be a fiasco. That means that this would be a fiasco. That said, I'd welcome this sort of pressure on the software industry because developers would start to build things that they bloody well understand. Today, we've got people just cranking out code that looks like it will work, works okay for a few years, gets discarded when the next guy to come along thinks that he can do a better job, lather, rinse, repeat. Consider instead that once you invest of your time and energy to build something extremely well once (at ten times the current development cost), everyone else will desperately want to use it in their products. Businesses will have an incentive to build the highest quality software that they can in order to attract clients who want to reuse it.