Gaming needs more innovation

Just over ten years ago, I was introduced to my first MMORPG. My brother brought over his copy of Ultima Online, loaded it up on my computer and showed me his new world. He tooled around the world for a bit and then got up and forced me into the chair. A few minutes later, Roland Boone was born. He didn't last long actually. By the end of the first gaming session, I knew I was hooked and the next day, after work, I drove out to the office store and bought my very own copy of Ultima Online. It was a Friday night and I stayed in from the bar scene for the entire weekend skilling up my character. I haven't purchased a console game since that day. For me, if there aren't a thousand or so other people online with me, it just bores me to death.
So I am a MMO geek. At first, it was a secret shame. Most of the people around me had no idea what I was talking about if I said I played MMORPG's. Some actually looked at me like a deer trapped in the headlights. Eventually, I came to realize that we MMO'ers were actually pioneers. Television over the years has included more and more interactivity. The viewers at home are asked to vote via phone or internet, to participate in someway with what they are watching. From home game versions of their favorite game shows to interactive webisodes, more and more interactivity continues. And what could be more interactive than a MMO? Beyond that, I have always wondered how long before MMO's and Virtual Reality merge to become the ultimate immersive experience?
I came to the conclusion that MMO's are to 21st century what Television was to the 20th. The fact that games are now the number one money making entertainment genre only solidified that belief in my mind. And now, with the popularity of World of Warcraft, my secret is no longer my shame, nor is it others. Some folks have even started placing their gaming experience on their resumes. And to everyones astonishment, some employers are even taking that experience seriously!
So when I see how far we have come in terms of acceptance, it saddens me a little to realize how little true innovation there has been in the MMO genre. Some developers talked about different ideas but for some reason the truly revolutionary could never make it to market. A great example of this was a little game called Boundless Adventures ( or was that the company name? I was never quite sure. ) They developed a world which they would seed initially then let run for at least a month before any players were allowed on the server. Why? because their NPC's were programmed to congregate and build on their own. So each and every server, while having the same terrain, would have different city, town, village, camp and spawn areas which were to be completely decided by the NPC's themselves. This would allow for players to destroy towns and cities and they would stay destroyed but in a week or two NPC's would gather together in a seperate location and begin to build again. The concept excited many of us but alas it was not to be. Boundless Adventures died along with so many other forward thinking ( and backward thinking ) MMO ideas.
The next great innoovative game will be Spore. It will be the first MSOG, or Massive Singleplayer Online Game. But wait, how can it be massive and a single player at the same time? It does so in the space exploration mode. Every time a player advances into a new area of space, the game connects to the internet and downloads new content from other players. What this means is, when released, Will Wright and Co. will have created the worlds first infinite virtual universe. Yes, that's right INFINITE! Think about that for a day or so and get back to me. The game itself may not be any good. It may fail miserably. But, the technology and concepts that create an infinite universe will now be out there for others to expand upon and build whole new universes for us to explore. And that is truly innovative.