Dionysis: Why hasn't anybody implemented permadeath in a major MMORPG until recently?

Brax: I think this comes from a combination of fear of the unknown, wanting to appeal to any and all markets and lack of foresight.

Fear of the unknown is certainly understandable and is usually the cause for businesses such as game developers to follow the "beaten path". After all, there is a lot at stake for a lot of people when putting together a game in this genre. Another aspect of the fear factor is how their customer base will respond to such penalties when it's "only a game". This too is understandable but only if the customer wasn't aware of the possibility of permadeath when he or she bought the product.

This brings me to the next point of wanting to appeal to any and all
available markets. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. What I am saying is that when you attempt to capture the general market of gamers you must create something that appeals to a very wide variety of likes and dislikes which usually results in the "lowest common denominator" factor. This in turn leaves the average level of satisfaction at mediocre at best which will cause a higher turn over rate of your customer base as interest is lost or "something better" comes along. Simple math dictates that it is more profitable and cost effective that you retain your subscribers longer versus incurring a high turn over rate with lower subscription life per subscriber.