So last week I discussed the importance of running on a minimum spec machine. Sure, this expands the market for people who might buy the game, but I think for an MMO, it may be even more vital for one obvious reason: the hand-me-down effect.

Simply put, your average household does not have two top-of-the-line, tricked out, Alienware boxes. They might have one. But if you are a game that depends heavily on Coupleplay (playing with someone you know in real life), this suddenly catapults in importance.  Nick Yee things Coupleplay is vastly important. And while I tend to question Daedalus’ data methodology in general, I tend to agree.

A lot of MMO gamers play with someone they know in real life. For example, 60% of female gamers and 16% of male gamers play with a romantic partner. 40% of female gamers and 35% of male gamers play with a family member.

MMOs take time. A lot of time. Significant others want to either play with you, or they want you to quit playing. WoW is actually attractive enough that them playing with you doesn’t seem out of the question. So the breaking point became how well WoW runs on the 6 year old hand-me-down machine that otherwise in the gaming arena, is only good for Bejeweled and the Sims.

While I have little interest in playing the game myself, few games have given me more hope for the industry as a whole than Team Fortress 2. When this game was first announced, the screenshots were all hyper-realistic army guys that were indistinguishable to the casual player from screenshots of Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Battlefield 1942. Look at the characters now.

 Team Fortress 2

They’re cartoon characters! But more to the point, the game looks like fun, instead of the horrors of war. The game stands out from your average, run-of-the-mill shooter, which have all started to look the same. When everyone chases after realism, well, that leads to one place.

As a bonus, the game probably handles large battles smoothly – which is good, because hardcore TF fans like big battles a hell of a lot more than they like being able to see the coldsore on Sarge’s lower lip in glistening detail.

Which brings me to the rule of Screenshot Identity: the most successful games in PC history are identifiable by a screenshot – even by non-players. If you look at a screenshot for Doom, Starcraft, the Sims, or Diablo, you almost immediately know what game you’re looking at. World of Warcraft passes this test as well.

How well does the next generation fare? I’m looking at Vanguard, Conan, Warhammer, and LOTRO.