With so many games to choose from picking the cream of the crop is going to stir up some controversy. But from what I gather from the list, very few editors at IGN even play MMOs beyond WoW, which is their loss. What I really guffaw at are the trolls, the haters, the dolts who truly accost MMOs as seen in this Digg thread. News flash: MMOGs aren't the only "waste-of-time." Anything entertainment based, or any hobby that isn't saving the real world from lava penguins (lolz) is considered as such, and can be a huge time sink if taken serious. Nick Yee, the research mastermind, has built-up quite a bit of empirical evidence that the average MMOG player spends 20 hours a week and the national average for television watching is 28 hours a week. Our hobbies are merely switched around and invested elsewhere.
MMOG is a genre that is ahead of the console genre in terms of innovative multiplayer gameplay. In another ten years I'm sure a lot more console based games will be pseudo MMOs. Xbox Live, Microsoft's wildly successful online service is somewhat uncanny when compared to achievement type gameplay often found in MMOs. Other games have already gotten a head start, FFXI took the leap and is the perfect example on how it can coexist on various platforms. In the grand scheme of things, a computer is a computer even if dressed up in a plastic toaster. I just like playing my games on a better toaster with a keyboard and spending my gaming time frolicking with a bunch of other players in the same game world.
If you enjoy clicking links you can check out IGN's list here, one link for every pick.
[via, MMO Crunch]
