Quote of the Moment: WoW without the "WOW!"

"Using Farmville as an example, I only needed to play it for a couple of hours to realise how closely it's modelled on an MMO framework. Everything from the grinding 'quests' and achievements system, through to peer competitiveness and in-world currency. The trouble is, Farmville doesn't quite have the thrill factor of a hard core MMO. It's not a fair comparison, but the point is that it's hard for Farmville to keep innovating so that the endless tasks don't seem frustrating or even pointless.

I've spent many an hour doing pointless / frustrating things in World of Warcraft for example – but it didn't seem that way as there was always an enticing goal at the end of it. Sure, Farmville offers bigger an better houses / sheds / farming equipment but it wears thin pretty quickly. The challenge for social virtual worlds, like gaming more broadly, is keeping it interesting, and it seems there's still some work to do. There's also the issue these social worlds aren't truly socially interactive: when my avatar can chat and farm with my neighbour, then I'm starting to get interested again."

- The Metaverse Journal Blogger Lowell Cremorne discusses one of three reasons social games don't interest him as much as traditional massively-multiplayer games