If articles in the NY Times, Washington Post, The Economist, and even (today) CNN Money weren’t enough to make you think that maybe MMOs really are finally gaining mainstream credibility, there was the recent announcement about startup Multiverse and its Advisory Board, which includes Oscar-winning movie-makers James Cameron and Jon Landau, among others (full disclosure: they’ll let just about anyone onto one of these, apparently).

In a separate online Business Week article, Cameron said that his next movie project was going to have a companion MMO that would be released before the movie's debut. So is this yet another lame licensing deal, a bastard child between games and Hollywood, or does this signal something different? And what do this and Multiverse's announcement mean for MMOs in general?