Rhaegar, I would argue that there IS room in the MMO genre for indie developers. If games like Runes of Magic, World of Warcraft, Runescape and Maple Story have shown anything, it's that graphics aren't a huge factor in a game's success. An MMO lives or dies on how fun its gameplay is. The running costs of an MMO are relatively low per user. Assuming you're monetising those users well, an MMO with under a thousand subscriptions can remain cash-flow-positive.

The problem with indie games is that they have to be grown organically. They don't have the branding or the cash to advertise a game and hype it up for launch. As a result, most indie MMOs (of which there are quite a few) don't gain much ground compared to the big players in the market. Of course they do tend to suffer from the same lack of innovation as high-budget games. It's possible that an indie game could come along with innovative gameplay elements, get enough support and break into the market-at-large. Possible, but not likely as most of the talented new game designers entering the market get hired by established studios.