MMOs:Like em' or not?

[Jeunemaitre]

Two beers at a bar? That's like 15 minutes of pleasure (unless you use one of them to get a guy/girl as per your preference :P ).

A premiere movie? Usually 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

A MMO? As many hours/month as you can/want to find time for.
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True, you can take that $12 and figure out the amount per hour played and compare that to other sources of entertainment, but that measure will vary each month as your playing time waxes and wains. My problem is that I never have consistant amount of time to play. Most days I don't have time at all, while other days (lately its been week-end days when my wife is helping her sister with wedding preparation stuff) I have 3-4 hours to spend. This is the same reason I've been a fan of console games more than PC. Console titles have always seemed to be better equipped for starting up and playing for 15-20 minutes then turning off again. Sure, titles have gotten more cinematic and more involved of late, but most still have a few scenes that you can turn onto and whip up on somebody (best example is the ending sequence of MG:Solid, sometimes I'm just in the mood to pull out my stinger launcher and take on a 3 story walking battle-tank).

Paying a set fee for monthly play has never been something that remotely interests me because I can't predict how much play I'll get in. That's why MMOGs have never made sense to me: the publisher is looking to attrack avid gamers with lots of free time and a steady income. It seems that their target population is squeezed in terms of age: younger gamers aren't going to be able to cough up the fee regularly, and older gamers aren't going to be able to spend as much time playing. Although, that may be the whole idea: get as many people as possible who will pay their fee and then not take up server space. It all just seems like too much of a racket to me.