Downtime is disappearing in modern games. Is that really a good thing?

TLDR version: Games are very direct now. They have to be. You demand it. This might be a problem.

Diablonomics: How Diablo 3's Auction House Makes It Feel Pointless

  Enjoying Diablo 3 too much to bother with the Auction House yet? Heard some of the stories about the things you can find on the Auction House? Wondering whether or not you should check it out? DON’T DO IT.

Blizzard and Bioware's MMOs: Telling Stories From Opposite Directions

There’s a lot of presumption out there that MMORPGs can’t or don’t tell stories like their single-player counterparts. Me, I think it’s nonsense. Maybe that was true in the past. It isn’t now.

In fact, I’ve been amazed at how much they’ve evolved from oldschool monster-clubbing. Somehow, some way, MMOs started telling stories. Final Fantasy XI has character-focused missions bound together into a grand narrative, Age of Conan has its early-game switches between single-player and multiplayer, and Guild Wars has its hub-and-instance structure. Dungeons and Dragons Online actually has a narrator. Storytelling’s gotten big, and storytelling choices has become key to differentiation within the genre.

Even World of Warcraft (WoW) has evolved into a story-focused game.