Crave

The average video game can give you anywhere from eight to 80 hours of solid, fun playtime. You pick it up, pop it in, play it until you're done, and put it away (or trade it in for far too little in-store credit). Some games can pull in gamers for far more time. They're called MMOs, massively multiplayer online games, and they offer a persistent online world for gamers to explore and conquer with each other. They're the digital equivalent of crack, and can easily turn the eight-to-80 hour playtime of a normal game into an easy 800 hours of obsession.

World of Warcraft comes to mind, but it's hardly the first. The crystal meth of WoW was preceded years before by the cocaine of Everquest, the LSD of Ultima Online, and even the opium of text-based MUDs. MMOs have gotten some major changes over time, but every one has shared some common features that make them undeniably addictive. These features are often very subtle, but they're the reasons I've seen friends of mine go on 72-hour marathon benders in Everquest, eight-hour blinkless raids in World of Warcraft, and 20-month burns on Ultima Online.

I have to confess that I'm a recovering MMO addict. I got hooked on World of Warcraft and quit the game three times before it finally took. I've been free of buffs and loot for eight months now. Before that, I dabbled in City of Heroes, Anarchy Online, and even an old, obscure sci-fi MMO called Earth and Beyond. I've been playing with Lord of the Rings Online lately, but I have it under control. Really. Honest.

Anyway, now that that's out of the way, here are the secrets to just how MMOs hook people in so thoroughly. I can't explain why or how, but these commonalities are what turn a normal, well-adjusted gamer into a sleepless online junkie.

Mad loot: Nobody knows why, but one of the strongest draws in an MMO is collecting stuff. Whether killing countless nameless goblins for a randomly dropped magical helmet or going on an obscenely long mining quest to get the materials for a flaming orange sword, you will go to any length to get the best items. In WoW, a raid of 20 to 40 people will spend hours in a dungeon just for the chance that one or two of their members will get one of the items to let them get into an even bigger dungeon with more items.

Exploration: A single-player game only offers you so many places to go. Even in huge, sprawling, role-playing games, you're going to eventually hit a wall of plot and geography. Expansions and patches can help add content, but they don't offer nearly as much ground to cover as MMOs. Whether it's a zone that requires a level 70 character or a raid dungeon that requires forty level 70 characters, you will feel compelled to see it all.

Camaraderie: It's easy to give up on single-player games after a while because you run out of things to do. Even in normal multiplayer games, you can turn them off after a while when everyone's tired and doesn't want to protect the base/capture the flag/kill each other anymore. A big enough MMO guild can ensure that there will always be a handful of friends online and ready to adventure with you, no matter what time it is. These friends make it all the more difficult to stop playing, whether it's for the night to get some sleep, or forever because you don't want to pay the monthly fee anymore.

The monthly fee: Strange as it might sound, paying a company $10 to $15 to play its game only makes that game more addictive. Single-player games mean you can still put them down for months at a time, and pick them up when you feel like it. When Blizzard or Sony or NCSoft is charging you every month, you feel a need to play the game, to justify the money. And when you justify playing because of the money, you end up justifying the money to play it. After all, a $50 game can only offer eight to 80 hours of fun; $15 per month for 80 to 160 hours of fun every month is a steal, right?

Being all you can be: Maxing out in characteristics is one of the biggest draws in the game. You start by getting your levels up to the cap, but you can't stop there. Now your level 60 character needs to max out his levels in crafting. Now your level 60 character has 300 points in mining and blacksmithing. But that's still not enough. You still can't go everywhere and get all the great items unless all the factions like you. So now your high-level master craftsman needs to become exalted to all friendly factions. But then an expansion comes out. Now the level cap is 70, the profession cap is 375, and there are twice as many friendly factions. Time to get to work again.

Know the warning signs of addiction when playing any MMO. They can be fun, they can also be dangerous. Now if you don't mind me, I need to get my level 70 Blood Elf warlock up to Revered with the Thrallmar so I can transmute skyfire diamonds.

Just kidding. Really. I'm not putting my WoW discs back in. I'm not. I'm not...

World of Warcraft has been a goldmine for Blizzard, but that can't be all it's working on. Back before WoW ate countless lives with its grinding, raiding, and leveling, Blizzard was known for awesome strategy games such as Warcraft and Starcraft, awesome action RPGs such as Diablo and Diablo II, and even awesome platform-puzzlers such as The Lost Vikings. All of these games seem to have been left at the wayside while Blizzard focuses on keeping its WoW servers up and running, and its players chipping in their monthly fee.

That can't be the whole story. Rumors abound about Blizzard's numerous, purely hypothetical projects. Kotaku recently reported about Blizzard hiring for a "next-gen MMO," and that a Korean Web site claimed that Blizzard will be announcing their next big project in May. All we have are rumors right now; Blizzard is indeed hiring new talent, but they might just be put to work on even more World of Warcraft content.

Still, rumors are fun, and it'll be interesting to see just what Blizzard might be working on. The company has a few great universes and a superlative back catalog of games. Here's a look at what Blizzard might be developing. Keep in mind that this is all speculation and shouldn't be taken seriously until Blizzard coughs up some concrete information.

World of Starcraft
The pitch: Terrans, Zerg, and Protoss continue their war with each other across different planets in a sci-fi MMORPG with plenty of cross-faction PVP action.
The case for: Starcraft is one of Blizzard's most beloved properties, and to this day it's an incredibly popular game. Tons of sci-fi fans would probably love to see Starcraft get the World of Warcraft treatment. Blizzard already has MMO infrastructure in place, so it probably wouldn't be nearly as complicated or time-consuming a development process as World of Warcraft.
The case against: Sci-fi MMOs tend to be tricky, with a lot more high-tech stuff that would be difficult to translate from RTS. Blizzard will have to get pretty creative with missions, since there are only so many Zerg holes a marine can clean out before he just gets sick of it.
The likelihood: Pretty good. Blizzard's already proven it can translate a great RTS property into a great MMO, and World of Starcraft would eat up all the Star Trek/Star Wars/Stargate nerds who are turned off by Warcraft's fantasy setting.

Starcraft 2
The pitch: Starcraft returns to the RTS form with better graphics, more units, deeper strategy, and possibly an additional faction or two.
The case for: The game is nine years old and people still play it to this day. A zerg-rushing celebration with modern graphics would be a sure hit.
The case against: Command and Conquer 3 and Supreme Commander are already wrestling for to billing in the sci-fi RTS genre, a genre that has shrunk in popularity in the last decade. It'll be pretty crowded in there, and Starcraft 2 will be showing up late to the game.
The likelihood: Pretty good. If done right, Starcraft 2 could completely bowl over Command and Conquer 3 and Supreme Commander and reclaim Blizzard's former title as king of the RTS.

Diablo 3
The pitch: The forces of hell are trying to take over the world once again, and you need stop them by creating a hero from a wider selection of classes and specialties, with bigger dungeons and more complex quests.
The case for: Diablo II was one of the most popular games of its time, and the addictive properties of leveling up, collecting equipment, and hacking through hundreds of demons simply doesn't get old.
The case against: Most of the developers of Diablo and Diablo II are working on Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London. Blizzard might not be able to make the same Diablo we knew and love.
The likelihood: Slim. World of Warcraft already satisfies most gamers' need for grinding, killing, and item collecting. Diablo 3 would add a little more action to the same basic, polished formula, probably without the lucrative monthly fee.

Warcraft 4
The pitch: Like World of Warcraft, only an RTS game.
The case for: There's a big fantasy RTS-shaped hole in today's game market that would easily be filled by Blizzard's biggest IP, Warcraft. It started as an RTS and would make sense to continue as one.
The case against: It would break WoW players out of the game with the inevitable major, world-changing storyline. Warcraft's story is already evolving through WoW's updates and expansions, and the sort of changes Warcraft 4 would probably make to the Warcraft universe would seriously unbalance that.
The likelihood: Slim, for now. When WoW starts to run down and Blizzard gets to work on World of Warcraft 2, it will be more likely for a Warcraft 4 to bridge the two MMO worlds.

The Lost Vikings 3
The pitch: Time-traveling Norsemen Erik, Baelog, and Olaf are back, and they're still trying to get home.
The case for: The Lost Vikings were awesome.
The case against: It's not Blizzard's most recognized property, and they've already gotten a respectable cameo in the Uldaman dungeon in World of Warcraft. It probably wouldn't translate well to 3D and modern graphics.
The likelihood: Not gonna happen. They might keep on making cameos, but we're not going to see a new, modern Lost Vikings game any time soon. Maybe a remake or two on the Nintendo DS or PSP, but that's the best we can hope for.

And before any of you ask, I didn't list Starcraft: Ghost because it's cancelled. It's not coming out. You're not going to be able to play it. It is not fated to be released on any platform. That is all.

I want to come clean about something. Not many people know this about me. It recently came out at work, and it's caused no end of grief from my co-workers. Still, I refuse to be ashamed of it anymore, so here it goes.

I like Pokemon. And I'm not the only one.

Before you judge me too harshly, I want to clarify this: I like the Pokemon games. That's it. I don't watch the anime or collect the toys or anything obsessive like that. I just really enjoy the game itself. I've been playing Pokemon Diamond over the past week. It's a fun little game, and I'm not ashamed to like it. I'm not alone, either; I personally know at least half a dozen people to pick up Diamond or Pearl over the weekend, not counting the thousands to go to the release event at the Nintendo World Store.

Pokemon gets a lot of guff for being hypercutesy and perpetuating Nintendo's image as a company that makes "kiddie games." Part of that is well justified, as the decade-long cartoonish hype hasn't exactly fostered an all-ages image for the game series. However, once you chip away at Pokemon's cute, colorful exterior, you'll find a solid, entertaining game that will provide many, many hours of gameplay. Pokemon might be really cutesy, but it's still a great game. I'm not the only one who thinks so, either; while GameSpot hasn't released their reviews of Diamond or Pearl yet, they've consistently given Pokemon titles scores of 8.0 or above since Pokemon Blue/Red (Of course, I mean the actual Pokemon games; side stories like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon or Pokemon Ranger don't really count).

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl don't really change much from their predecessors. They add better graphics and a few more features (most important, voice chat-enabled online play), but they still use the same 10-year-old formula: capture monsters, collect badges from eight gyms, beat Team-Whatever-The-Villains-Are-This-Time, etcetera. It's repetitive, but not necessarily a bad thing; Castlevania hasn't significantly changed its successful formula since Symphony of the Night. Both game series figured out exactly what works and ran with it. As long as the games are still fun, I'm perfectly fine with it.

Family-friendly games have a pretty terrible stigma attached to them, regardless of whether they're actually any good. Besides Nintendo's main, age-neutral properties, most kids' games are outright horrible adaptations of animated movies put out by Disney and Pixar. They take the property and turn it into a game with as little effort as possible. Let's face it, there hasn't been a really good Disney-branded game since the days of Ducktales on the NES and Aladdin on the Sega Genesis. To this day, Ducktales is a fun game that most post-adolescent gamers can admit is still enjoyable. And if you can't admit that, you're a liar. Uncle Scrooge using his cane as a pogo stick to jump on yetis was and always will be awesome.

I stay away from terrible kiddy games for the same reason I stay away from terrible violent games: because they're terrible. The age range shouldn't have anything to do with it. If a game is good, then play it whether it has colors and shapes or blood and guts. Of course, blood and guts can still be fun; I'm as excited about Suda 51's ultraviolent No More Heroes as I was about Pokemon Diamond/Pearl.

Any other adult Pokemon players who want to admit their guilty pleasure, then please sound in with comments! And if you're interested, share your Friend Code too. I'll go first:

Name: Will | Code: 3265 1484 1390

I have a Rayquaza, a Heatran, and a Giratina I'm willing to trade for an Arceus/Aruseus. Any takers?