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I’ll admit it: Borderlands is one of my favorite single-player/multiplayer RPG series du jour. There’s something about Gearbox’s tried and true formula of wacky humor, satisfying gameplay, and insane amounts of loot that gets me hooked and looking forward to whatever kinds of crazy DLC updates they have planned.

Sony Online Entertainment’s DC Universe Online launched with a simple premise: allow players to create their own superheroes, with unique power sets, and romp around in iconic locations and alongside beloved characters from the DC universe. Four years later, it’s still building on its solid launch, having already released twelve official updates and with much more on the way.

Once upon a 2002, there was a little single-player RPG called The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, which sucked up so much of my gaming time you’d think it could have moonlighted as an MMO. Fast forward to 2006 and then 2011, and you’ve got the fourth and fifth installments of The Elder Scrolls series in Oblivion and Skyrim, both vying for my attention almost as strongly as their predecessor.

One of the best ways to spread holiday cheer is to give presents to other people, but let’s be honest: getting a gift that you want (or one that you didn’t know you wanted) is sure to make you feel just as warm and tingly inside. Last week, David Jagneaux shared 5 Awesome Gift Ideas for the MMO Gamer, and I’d be just as happy buying one of those items for myself as I would be getting it for one of my guildmates.

When Guild Wars 2 launched, ArenaNet informed its player base that it would be pursuing a fairly aggressive update schedule, especially pertaining to its Living World. Rather than implementing simple content updates or full-blown expansions, the developers would focus on building out the world and lore of the game while taking players along for the ride.

When it first launched, WildStar was met with a mix of praise and criticism from press and players alike. Over time, Carbine Studios’ game has come under fire for a variety of issues, ranging from low server populations to deferred update schedules. It’s quite possible that the phenomenal amount of hype for the game resulted in its initial acclaim, which tends to happen with large scale AAA titles.

In a column last month, I took a look at the potential for good gameplay to trump other outdated systems and keep us hooked on otherwise mediocre games. The example I used was Destiny, which has a solid core shooter experience but is relatively uninteresting in the story, content, and loot departments. I’ve been playing more of Bungie’s pseudo-MMOFPS, and suffice it to say that even its fun twitch gameplay is starting to wear thin.

The video games industry is relatively porous, and it’s no secret that its subgenres have been borrowing from one another for quite some time. First-person behemoths like Call of Duty have been iteratively employing RPG-like mechanics to bolster their replayability, while MMORPGs such as TERA have taken cues from third-person action games to improve upon traditional MMO combat.

With BlizzCon ramping up for this weekend, there’s a fair amount of buzz here among the staffers regarding the Warlords of Draenor release. I myself have received the customary pre-launch emails from Blizzard encouraging me to re-activate my World of Warcraft account with seven free days of game time. Like with previous WoW expansions, I’ve given the thought of resubscribing more than a passing thought. Unlike previous releases, however, I’m not as convinced that I need to jump back in.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is a beast of a game. When we first took an extended hands-off look at Bioware’s upcoming action RPG at E3 this year, I was given the impression that its scope could far surpass the previous titles in the series, and that it could provide for a single-player experience heretofore unavailable on previous-gen systems. Having now played several hours of the game, I can say that it does a little bit of both.

As far as free-to-play monetization models go, there are a couple of different overarching strategies that dominate today’s market. You have games like ArcheAge, which offers convenience bonuses like elevated experience gain, increased labor points, and more. You can see titles like The Lord of the Rings Online steadily offering some convenience and cosmetic items in their cash shops but doing a great deal of business selling content through quests and expansions.

A few columns ago, I offered an analysis of Vanguard after its sunsetting by Sony Online Entertainment. I presented my case that the game could be considered a success in its presentation of an amazing open world, three “spheres” of gameplay, and a plethora of races and classes. I also touched upon how Vanguard’s bug-ridden launch, lack of features to justify its long-standing subscription, and inconsistent leadership led to its inevitable demise.

In our previous column, we took a look at four generalizations that are commonly made about the video games industry, and I offered some thoughts about how these myths can be debunked. Most of the forum discussion that ensued revolved around the issue that reviewers are paid by developers for good scores.

If we take a look at the video games industry as a whole, there are three broad groups of actors: developers, consumers, and press. Developers, of course, do the dirty work of creating within our favorite medium (and are often represented by publishers), while consumers shape the direction of the industry by influencing its supply and demand with their wallets.

Complex game mechanics certainly have their appeal, but there’s just no substitute for the simple pleasure afforded by flinging fireballs from your fingertips. OmniConnection’s new wizard-based, MOBA-inspired multiplayer FPS, Grimoire, will allow you to do that and more. Currently in Kickstarter and submitted to Steam Greenlight, the game is in a pre-Alpha-single-player-sort-of-Alpha-multiplayer state, and is already remarkably fun to play.