GO: So how do you pitch LotRO to someone who hasn't heard of it, or MMO players who haven't yet tried it?

JS: Well first of all, if they haven't ever tried an MMO before, I say to them we built this game with a more casual audience in mind, and that this does not have to be the all-consuming change your life, live in your house and be in front of your computer 50 hours a week game. In fact increasingly, we spend more and more time making sure the game is something you can play for an hour at a time if you want to. You can jump in and play by yourself any time if you want to, you don't have to get with a large group of people, though that's of course always an option too.

The first thing I'd say is that LotRO is intended for people to participate in different ways. You don't have to be that lifer to play the game, although we certainly have lots of those folks playing as well.

The second thing is that the folks who'd probably be attracted to the game have probably seen the movies and perhaps even read the books. This is just a natural extension of that. If they enjoyed reading about this place and all these characters and they enjoyed seeing 's vision of it, then it's really fun just to be in that world. We've created the opportunity for them to do that, even if they're just walking around and talking to people and enjoying seeing the places they saw in the movies or read about in the fiction.

There's that, and then there's also a lot of really interesting story in the game, and it's an extension to the stories they already know. Also, our audience is more casual and slightly older than the average MMO player.