The time commitment MMOGs require is unique in the gaming industry, and this time commitment is a limiting factor in enabling friends to play together – pick any other genre, and 2 friends can usually have a meaningful game experience; that won’t happen in an MMOG. Here’s an example: if I have a friend who plays Battlefield, at any time he and I can hook up and have fun. The limiter here is general play skill. He may be a better player than I am because of how often he plays, but that doesn’t stop us from playing the game together. In an MMOG, that won’t happen because my playtime has made me a level 50, but my friend who doesn’t play much is only level 3. Therefore, when he and I hook up, the play experience – if there even IS one – is severely gimped since we’ll either be experiencing content too challenging for his level, or the content will be too trivial because my high level character easily defeats the monsters.