Online PC Gaming
When I was down in Oakland, I spent most of my time hanging out with the folks at the warehouse. Duncan and Ben were pretty jazzed about some of the new PC games, so I was thinking about current PC gaming on the bus back. Particularly the state of online gaming. It occurred to me that the advent of popular online gaming came at a bad time in PC gaming. RTSs and FPSs have come to dominate the field, with the formerly wide variety of sim games having been drastically overshadowed by the Sims. As a result, what we're seeing is a pretty limited spectrum of online games. A new FPS or RTS every few weeks, and MMO's which are basically some combination of a really boring version of Gauntlet and a virtual chat program, which of course are for furries and stupid people.

I think there was a great, wasted potential for online gaming in those sim games that proliferated pre-The Sims. The best evidence I think I can provide for this is that new MMO's are constantly trying to tap into this potential with various sim-game subsystems. The results are generally only shallow, momentary distractions from level-grinding, but I they might have really flourished had they been considered viable on their own.