From this Gamasutra article about his return to the industry, Al Lowe (creator of the original Leisure Suit Larry) challenges us thusly:

Let me put this way, the shelf is full of racing games and shooters, RPGs and action games. Where are the comedies? Look at Blockbuster in the video section and compare it to Blockbuster’s game rentals section. There’s a huge hole on that shelf, and we’re not going to try to fill it so much as try to start it, and I hope that at some point comedy games will be as common as comedy movies are in the movie section.

A lot of people will respond that comedy is HARD. I would counter that writing a great action story is hard too, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it (and usually devolving to the worst cliches you can imagine).

Food for thought: the fact that WoW does not take themselves seriously is a huge factor in their success. Too often, designers forget that players virtually live in these virtual worlds, and some amount of levity is necessary to keep the environment from being overly oppressive.

Food for thought 2: Bioware’s story-telling is rightfully much lauded, but their most memorable characters are Minsc (and his lovable Space Hamster) and HK-47, the homocidal droid maniac.

Food for thought 3: When people mail around gameplay movies, they usually aren’t mailing clips of the Die Hard wanna-be script. Rather, they’re usually mailing some emergent behavior in the game that is, in some way or fashion, amusing.