is the MMO genre in decline?

we have seen the greats fall. WoW, RS, and other large mmos are declining. what is the cause? is it because people are moving to MOBAs such as LoL? or is it because of poor directional descisions? discuss below.

MMO's by nature are considered more "hardcore" games, not because they require immense skill to play, but because time invested into the game directly impacts performance and result. With gaming now becoming much more mainstream, naturally more people are going to play games that are easy to pick up and fun to play such as LoL and various FPS games. In turn, these games become more popular, while MMO's loose their popularity.

Kushpl0x wrote:MMO's by nature are considered more "hardcore" games, not because they require immense skill to play, but because time invested into the game directly impacts performance and result. With gaming now becoming much more mainstream, naturally more people are going to play games that are easy to pick up and fun to play such as LoL and various FPS games. In turn, these games become more popular, while MMO's loose their popularity.

Well stated.

I think the MMO genre is in decline because of the vast breadth of gaming products. Gamers want to be able to play multiple games, but being dedicated and good at one MMO takes an extreme amount of time and patience, thus luring gamers away from other games.