"Attention Theory"

Everyone and their kid brother is producing

'the game'. Some of them are actually good.

Many are network capable, though these new

networked games offer diminishing returns

to scales based on the network paradigm they

use. Maybe they don't realize that client-server

is the way to get the large scale player base that

would make the network truly utilized from a gaming

standpoint. Maybe they do realize, but don't have

the infrastructure to support it yet.

In fact, there are games coming out that

are client-server based even now. What's

important to realize is that these games,

while not as robust as empire is now (especially

since empire's been around for almost 10-15

years in some form or another) they have one

compelling feature that empire does not have;

They are GUI.

With all the games that are out, and the games

that are coming out, the potential empire player

may not even realize the existence of empire, and

if it is realized, they may opt to spend their time

elsewhere.