I wont say that solo games will die out but the new revolutionary thing IS online gaming just like before the 3-D aspects of games when N64 and PSX came out and the realism disease spread.
The cool part about online is that you can have a multiplayer game no matter where you live vs anyone in the globe as long as they have the same connection and set ups as you. No more needing to go to arcades to face off with others or go to a friends house and bother them (and limited people to play with that way too), just jack a cord in the wall and instant multiplayer no matter where. With that comes competition and other things like MMORPGs which is the new fad these days.
The reason i play MMOs? I like to play with others, single player RPGs are nice but only play during spare spare time and it does get that lonely feel after a while.
All we are paying is that we can connect to other servers around the globe. Internet is just a bunch of servers, in fact the only thing we pay for is the ability to tap into these servers. The thing is since you are connecting to theirs, you are draining bandwidth amongst other things. If you are going to complain about that then maybe we should also complain to people who offer good webhosting to give it to us for free since we pay for the right to tap in servers. Webhosting is the same deal like EoFF here, we pay to host this site up that uses up the server's bandwidth and electricity. Apply that to a game that requires constant relaying of information and thats what we pay for. Is it the only thing we pay for? No way they do this to make a profit like webhosters, so the same deal is they want profit and its normal.
Difference between paying for webhosting and paying for an online game seems similar enough to me.
No way will gaming become stale that easily..especially if the smaller brand game companies make games will be bought out by bigger companies. You must also know that although solo games out there are fun, most people know that playing with friends only multiply the enjoyment more. Hence where i feel online gaming will become mainstream one day and be a huge cash cow of companies. The problem is that we need the game to last else there is no reason to pay to play something that will die soon. Online game profit > Offline game profit if done right.
ONline gaming is still kinda new in terms of getting great profit in, it has the potential...i am pretty sure at least.