It's Massive Multiplayer day! CGO has posted an interview with Raph Koster (Thanks Blues), the creative director currently working on StarWars Galaxies. Raph has a very interesting prediction on what these games will be like 10 years from now. Given his experience (Ok I dont know the guy, but I'm assuming he has experience) in the field his prediction is probably pretty informed:

Where will these games [massively multiplayer] be 10 years from now?

OK, this is where I get to put something on record so I can fall flat on my face later, right? Let's give it a shot:

They won't be games. You might not be covering them. They'll be accepted major parts of popular entertainment and the media. Online worlds are a medium—games are just one sort of content they can carry. It just so happens that the entertainment industry is the only industry seriously advancing the field right now. You could fit the entire current game industry into online worlds, because there's absolutely nothing precluding you from putting The Sims, Command and Conquer, Mario, and Quake all into one virtual world (well, except time and money). The reverse isn't true. I think embedded or tiered experiences is going to become a major trend—but that's hardly a prescient prediction since we're already seeing projects like World War II Online making the first gestures towards it.