Apathy

I think most of the people who are commenting are misunderstanding the message. He's not saying that MMORPG's are "better"; he's saying that normal single-player RPG's need to offer the one thing that MMO's cant: the ability to change or shape the game world.

Think about most single-player RPG's -- you might kill the big evil wizard at the end, but regardless of what the storyline says, there's no real evidence that you've impacted the game world (and so what if there is? The game is over now!) What if your decisions could cause or prevent the destruction of an entire city midway through the game? With the result that the city -- in-game -- is either a smoking ruin or a thriving metropolis. The storyline could branch depending on what happens, with powerful enemies or incredible treasures being gained based on the player's actions.

You just can't do that in an MMORPG. No matter how many orc armies you slay, there are always more orcs. If you kill an "endboss" like Nefarian or Illidan, he just respawns and nothing has changed. Nothing you do really matters, and it certainly isn't reflected in the game world. The appeal of the single-player experience is that the game doesn't have to be exactly the same for every player, every time through.

The problem is that most current-generation single-player RPG's don't allow for this, and that's the point of the statement in the newspost. To compete with MMORPG's, single-player RPG's need to start incorporating elements like this.

The people who are yelling "this guy is a moron" really should look up Feargus Urquhart (and his portfolio) on Wikipedia. He's the guy behind several of the most influential CRPG's in the history of gaming.