SharkJumping

With all of the focus on very high budget massively multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest, etc, a lot of people have missed an under the radar success known as Runescape.  This is a simpler, java-based, massive multiplayer game in the fantasy genre which you can play for free as long as you want, but  which offers a more robust set of features if you become a paying member at $5/month.   This is a similar model to a lot of casual downloadable games which give you some type of gameplay for free, but then ask you later to pay to own the game or to access the higher end features.  It's easy to get into and runs on a wide range of machines, although the graphics and overall polish are certainly not in the range of a WoW. 

Why is it interesting?  Because they report more than 300,000 paying subscribers, most of them in Europe where the company is based, and they're rumored to be quite profitable.  Take a look - with all of the hype around big budget titles, I think Runescape (and of course, Puzzle Pirates) show a more interesting way for smaller creative companies to address the massively multiplayer sector with far less risk, and I think it's a better area for investors as well.