Excelsior?

We'll refrain from humming the opening bars to Another One Bites the Dust. Instead, we'll listen to the under-rated rocker: The Hero. And while we're rocking out with our...well...you know, we'll let all you fans out there know that Marvel Universe Online is officially dead.

No, Galactus did not come and eat it up, nor did Dr. Strange do something...strange. Instead, it looks like neither the eater of world nor any other super powerful comic book figure was the cause of yet another upcoming MMO's demise. No, it looks as if Marvel Universe Online was terminated because of the 10-million-ton juggernaut that is World of Warcraft. The developers felt that the current MMO industry just can't support another game that has no chance of challenging the dominance of WoW.

Since we canceled our WoW account some time ago, we're wondering what it means that pretty much everyone who currently plays an MMO is at least playing WoW for about a thousand hours a week. Ok, maybe we exagerate, but seriously, 10 million players are on WoW, and there are about 50 million MMO players. If the marketplace cannot grow beyond this, the industry is not doing well. This again leads us to the conclusion that MMO gamers may just be a very enthuthiastic sub-culture.

It's kind of like Mac users, at least in the olden days. They loved their product, but the appeal to the masses was never achieved. (Though it looks like lately Mac is becoming even more popular. Not only are their sales up, but they are expanding into Best Buy.)

But we'll see. There are a lot of talented people out there. Someone will come along and make something that can challenge WoW.

Some day.