You're being over-literal, deliberately I think. 'MMO' is a gaming term. 'MMO' basically means 'MMORPG, except not necessarily an RPG'. It does not mean 'anything that is massive, has multiple participants, and is on the internet'.

As with pretty much every term defined outside of the sciences, it is not necessarily meant to represent a discrete category where everything in life is either in that category or out of it. Instead, it carries a list of connotations and correlations which imply certain characteristics. eg. Most MMOs will have a persistent world (and some may not). Most will have some sort of character progression like traditional RPGs (but some may not). Most are expected to be played over long periods (but some won't be). Most will have hundreds of open connections to each server (but some won't). Most involve real-time game play (but some don't).

This topic comes across as if you have some sort of agenda that you're trying to prove via other people's definitions. What are you aiming at?

This topic comes across as if you have some sort of agenda that you're trying to prove via other people's definitions. What are you aiming at?

Thanks for your input. Quite bluntly I am trying to gather data about myths, facts, and sterotypes, as well as the use of the word "MMO" which is most often when it has been hyped or trailed through dirt in advertising. I want to know, "why is the being overused by the same industry that is defining it?"

I want to sit back and read impartially, because I don't think someone will respond with the perfect solution. I'm reflecting what I can to prove everyone's opinion matters. Also I'm offering something each time so I don't behave functionally as a black hole, and more like a contributor.

Besides, if I tried to define an MMO I'd include this: it's a game where I frequently feel the weight of the game mechanics and carry entire groups of players and can only finally relax when I solo, although I think this is meant to be the other way around.

Most are expected to be played over long periods (but some won't be).

...

Most involve real-time game play (but some don't).

This an example: You're the first to bring up these three facts and talk this way, some are some aren't going to have things, long periods of play, and real-time interaction. If I felt like the meaning wasn't clear enough I'd ask.

Did you mean when played for a single sitting or non-consecutively over years? I would initially think you meant in one sitting. I believe console types took a criticism hit from requiring extended play in one sitting, this because they all came with a standard eye strain warning.

I think that MMO is a category of genres rather than a single cohesive genre. I'd define MMO as all multiplayer online games, excluding

1. games where there is no persistent world (such as lobby-based short duration pvp games)

2. games where the persistent world is singleplayer and all multiplayer interaction takes place in non-persistent arenas, or in formats that aren't really "worlds", e.g. forums

3. games where players cannot interact in a scored way, whether economic or competitive/combative. (Those are social sites instead.)

4. games with no graphics (those are MUDs, MUCKs, etc. instead)

There are always going to be borderline cases like:

- Wizard 101 (they did their best to eliminate all scored persistent player interaction except for the fact that bosses require players to fight cooperatively against them, including players being able to heal each other)

- GaiaOnline (it includes a small MMO within a larger social site, but the social site itself has a persistent money and avatar system as well as a full range of economic interactions between players)

- Evony (players fight over territory in a persistent world, but the actual interaction between two players is quite limited and the graphical world exists only at the level of buildings and maps)

The datacenters required to run MMO games cost tens of thousands of dollars PER DAY.

This sounds like exactly the kind of info that needs to be debunked, of course they DO NOT cost anywhere near that there's no reason why they would, bandwidth is pretty much free for any large company / datacenter with direct peering, processing power required to host a million players + is nowhere near 20K$/day, hell for 40K period (not per day, just raw cost minus electricity) so basically the conservative estimate of what you think 2 days would cost, you can buy a server with 160 threads / 1TB of ram capability, and a single one of those should be able to handle 20K concurrent players, maybe 2 or 3 for the most demanding games. Let's be extremly pessimistic and say you need 10 (that's 10TB of ram / 1600 threads @ >2.5GHZ of xeons, basically 1 xeon thread per 10 person, a person mostly being someone who just sends position data most of the time!) that's still just 400K total cost, far far from 20K / day, over a 3 year period that's less than 500$ / day, and it sounds like overkill, make that 1K and you've got redundancy electricity and bandwidth covered.

I want to know, "why is the being overused by the same industry that is defining it?"

That's a question like, "why are you still beating your wife?" It's a leading question and I don't agree with the initial premise.

Did you mean when played for a single sitting or non-consecutively over years? I would initially think you meant in one sitting.

I meant over a longer period of time, eg. weeks and months. But the fact that you misunderstood what I said is nothing to do with what MMOs are - it's about communication between you and me.

So the question remains - what is your actual point here? You're trying to imply something but won't admit to what it is.