What Does It Mean? Licenses usually mean a much wider audience, which brings a game more attention, reaches more people and convinces the company that it's worth keeping up; but they also bring in all the Yahoos and the k3wld00dz, who may bring more annoyance than character to the games' communities.

A bigger problem is that games based on movie and TV licenses almost always suck (cough -- Wild Wild West -- cough). Developers tend to rush shoddy games out the door, figuring they'll sell on the box cover alone; and unfortunately, they're right. But while a one-off game like Tomorrow Never Dies suckers you in with Pierce Brosnan on the box and then stinks to high heaven, at least it's over -- MMRPGs expect you to keep on paying month after month. I think we can expect to see a few really bad games bomb as ill-conceived licenses clutter the phone lines.

On the other hand, who doesn't want to play a Star Wars MMRPG?

Plot? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Plot
One of the drawbacks of a completely open-ended game with thousands of simultaneous users is that, in some ways, nothing happens beyond short quests. It's difficult to tell a story, because every user will approach the game differently and play at different times. We've already seen companies introducing "events" into their game worlds to spice up the game for players, which have been invaluable tools in keeping interest levels high.

Funcom's Anarchy Online (due by the end of the year) has a unique take on the MMRPG that I hope we'll see more of. Rather than an open-ended, repetitive grind broken up by occasional special events, AO actually has a beginning and an end, a four-year story arc with an overall plot involving world-changing events that will affect every player. The Anarchy Online approach also nicely follows the technology curve -- updates, patches and add-ons aside, after four years any engine will be due for a total overhaul.

Next page: MMRPGs hit the consoles ... but is that good or bad?