Sometimes Massively seems massively behind the times. "Now" we're seeing a blurring of the line between the two? Where have you folks been exactly through all the many, many years when games like UO, EQ2, and Guild Wars have run successful stores to sell pixelcrack -- to say nothing of single-player games in which mods are distributed for pay both by the developer and by private designers, like the Sims? And these are just western examples. This isn't even remotely new in either hemisphere.

Top top it off, the "Trammel" analogies are vacuous. Let's ignore the insinuations that Trammel was a Very Bad Thing (it wasn't, judging by subscription rates) and focus on the fact that Trammel was introduced to UO after EQ1 -- which as you'll recall was effectively an entire world free of PvP, ie, an entire game of Trammel gameplay. The actual Trammel wasn't a paradigm shift at all, but a resigned and somewhat late-to-the-party mirror-image. Obscure Ultima pun intended.