In theory, massively multiplayer gaming isn’t a genre. It’s everything else – a business model (or several), a technological framework, a social philosophy. There’s little to dictate that MMOs have to fit a particular style of design or gameplay.

In practice, of course, things have been very different. There are a number of reasons why the massively multiplayer online role-playing game has come to totally dominate the field. Online gaming’s roots in the early multi-user dungeons, or MUDs, is one of the most important, along with the RPG form’s relatively lax requirements when it comes to lag. But these reasons become less relevant with every passing year, while the need for MMOs to diversify – as well as the need for other spheres of gaming to access the gushing revenue streams of online gaming – becomes more intense.

Yet it still hasn’t quite happened. The overpopulated wilds of free-to-play gaming have seen all manner of gaudy and variously misshapen hybrids spring up in the bid for attention, but few have risen above the general hubbub. In the MMO mainstream, space sim EVE Online is just about the only departure from straight fantasy role-playing to achieve longevity and distinction. Realtime’s crime actioner APB has recently made a bold stab for new ground, but Planetside is barely more than a memory now, and the MMO shooter still remains a mystifying, distant holy grail.

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