1) Every North American MMO Since World of Warcraft:  It was only a few years ago when the entire game industry seemed geared toward everything massively multiplayer. A quick look at 2004 and 2005's E3 rundown reveals dozens of MMOs either in development or planned. WoW killed or crippled all of them. The reasons are many, but a huge contributing factor is simply how good World of Warcraft is as a game. WoW perfectly balances fun and challenge, and keeps its players involved no matter where on the hardcore-to-casual spectrum they happen to fall. Its painless beginning quests and easy early-level progression are fun for more casual gamers, while end-game, 40-man raids and endless grinds appeal to the hardcore community. In contrast to WoW, consider The Sims Online and Star Wars: Galaxies, two games that veered wildly in opposite directions but failed the same way: Epically.

The Sims Online launched in December 2002, and we bet you don't even remember it exists. At the time, a Sims MMO seemed like a no-brainer. EA sunk ?25 million in the game in the hopes that the huge built-in fan base of The Sims players would love an online version of their favorite game. Can't lose, right? Sadly, while TSO was graphically impressive, EA forgot to actually include a game in the the game, seemingly because it believed casual gamers would run screaming from even the slightest challenge. The decision to keep it stupid-easy made The Sims Online little more than an animated chat-room that cost 10 bucks a month to play.  Pre-launch P.R. trumpeted the game's servers as being able to handle more than a million people, but they never got close. Today TSO is a virtual ghost town.

Star Wars Galaxies had the opposite problem as The Sims Online. Its complexity demanded so much of gamers, and its worthwhile accomplishments were so time-consuming, only the most super-dedicated players and lovers of the grind could hope to achieve the highest honor in the game: Jedi status.

Eventually, Sony Online got tired of hemorrhaging money and swung SW:G in the other direction, making "Jedi" a level zero character class, meaning everyone who earned Jedi status legitimately had all but wasted those many, many hours of grinding. The existence of thousands of Jedis (because what other class would you pick?) messes with the Star Wars Universe's mythology almost as much as the last three movies. Sony also gutted the game's complex crafting and abilities systems and generally nerfed the hell out of the experience, dumbing everything way down. All of this, of course, alienated the dwindling fanbase of the game even further. The backlash was strong, and current estimates of the game'smarket share hover around 1.4% compared to WoW's 52%.

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