Actually, what I’ve though would be a totally cool idea for an online game is to have components for people who don’t want to commit a lot of time, but would still be interested in the online competition. Something like being able to purchase the “shop running” module of the game, but not actually being able to log in and play the “action” portion of the game. So you could get up in the morning, check the markets online, set prices, order/ manufacture new stuff, etc. and then log off and go to work. You’d only have to interact with the game-world a few minutes each day, but you’d be competing with other players across the world. But what would set this apart from a simple “business simulation” is that the “action” players would really be buying and selling from your shop, thus providing a real economy and not just a simulation. That way you can get gamers who have little time at their disposal involved at (hopefully) a scaled down price (say $5 a month). Maybe the “shop running” idea is a little boring, but maybe you see where I’m going.

Another cool thing to add in would be a “weapons design” component where all weapons have to be designed before they are “produced” and players could sell custom designs. To pull this off you’d have to come up with a very complex “science” of weapon design that somehow forces tradeoffs and makes the “Ultimate Weapon” something of an unattainable holy grail. It’d really only be the engineering types who’d find this type of interaction interesting, but it would be yet another way to compete without spending gobs of time online. Again, users could just pay for the limited design part of the game without having to actually do any of the “action” stuff.

Of course, I could be totally off the mark here. It’s probably more likely that just about anyone who wants to play a computer game is more interested in blowing stuff up than designing a new cool weapon or running an online shop. Probably why I’m not in the gaming industry!