"Analyize how addicion works, forge it into a piece of software, add stuff that seems new and increases the dose from time to time. Remember to make people pay for it".
Once people stop saying things like "obvious and predictable", yes, I'm sure we could. These people may be the devil as far as some are concerned, but they are largely responsible for the creation and sustainability of an immensely popular game.
I didn't find this article very good and its not even accurate. Seems like the author was paid or plays the game. WoW is not a pioneer in the MMORPG world, and isent even outside of the MMORPG formula we have had for the last 10 years beginning with UO and eq.