More Future of Online Gaming to read over the weekend. These guys are smarty man experts so they know stuff or at least they lied really good on their job applications. Both count!

4) Do you think photo-realism in MMORPGs is inevitable, or is there an advantage to having less-than-real life graphics in an online game? How far away would you say we are from said photo-realism?

Richard Garriot: Just like in the animated movie business, there will be a strong push for increased quality. This does not mean photo-realism. Plus there will still be room for the art house avant-garde styles of fuzzy graphics and off the wall game play, but the core of money making games will have high quality polish in all aspects. For Virtual Reality style MMP's photo realistic graphics will be the norm. What will set them apart is how uniquely the world they envision is conceived. Creating a compelling and yet unique world will be the next round challenge. This first round of MMP's has created a bunch of pretty much the same games. They vary slightly in sci-fi ness and easy versus hard core features, but there is little true innovation yet.

I'd think once the technology is available for photo-realism it'll be the hip new thing for a while, but then we'll probably see a separation of photo-realistic games and the more artsy fartsy kind of stuff as both have something to offer.