I wrote a comment some years ago at Gamasutra where I mentioned 13m players was the most players WoW could ever hope to achieve, based on growing trends. I predicted back then that by 2010 Blizzard would launch their new MMORPG, because I thought Blizzard would like to catch those leaving WoW in a new hobby, but I was mistaken, they instead launched an expansion.

It took almost 2 years to cross from 11.5m to 12m subscribers. Many dismiss the 600k drop, but take notice that it took almost 2 years to grow 500k, and they lost more than that in 5 months.

The thing is, it is very hard to keep the players interested for so long about the same game, even with expansions. In its 7th year, most of the areas are by now already known by heart, most of the enemies defeated, most of the quests finished, most of the equipment gathered... what else is left for players? A giant paid chatroom with avatars. But you have the disadvantage of not being able to run it in a minimized screen to do something else (as you would with other instant messengers)... Also, people grow, when World of Warcraft launched you might have been a teenager, but now you are an adult and have other obligations like working and taking care of children. And people who were 6 when WoW launched and are now 13 might not be interested in it at all, but instead prefer to hang in Facebook or Twitter, so the install base stalls and even drops.

They are the ones who said Wii was going to sell less than 15 million units in USA by 2010, while both the PS3 and Xbox 360 would each sell over 20 million units. A pity they missed Wii sales for, say, over 100%. http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/File:IDG_chart.png

...I I mentioned in a forum that "Multiplayer is actually the best way of not programming a good AI."

Use this Coral Cache link if you are also having problems connecting there like me.

It is not a bug, it is the Sony timer.

Yup, I bought it for my Japanese classes and like it. The bad thing is that its microphone is limited, so you need to sit down near the professor (or repeat what the teacher says yourself). Maybe if everyone here buys one we could get a Linux port for the Desktop application, I hate having it linked to my coworker's computer just because he uses XP there (while I use 2K at work and Ubuntu at home).

No, we want to play Counter-Strike in peace.

Nobody takes the industry seriously. I have been employed by a company that develops an EMR for over 6 years. First HIPAA, I remember our boss came once and told us that if we didn't implement HIPAA by April 15, 2003, we would be out of the market. Guess what? Nobody did know what the heck was HIPAA. We added a few passwords here and there, restrictions, things like that, and suddenly were HIPAA compliant. Why? Because you are not forced to make them, just "try in good faith to make them". What kind of regulation is that one?

Now we have CCHIT. One certification per year, since 2006. If you approve CCHIT, you can continue in the market. If you don't... you can continue in the market. Nothing happens. They are trying to consolidate the market, but without ideas. Just throw a lot of requirements you need to follow, and once they all pass them, bring more, and then bring more.

EMR help doctors, but these regulations are aimed at shrinking the market. Will they continue shrinking it until there is a single EMR/EHR so that they don't have portability problems?

Let's see if Obama is serious or not.

Look at the bright side: it is the fastest fix released by Microsoft. Ever.