I foresee that in incorporating more and more elements of the SIMs lies the future of role-playing gaming.
Not only because of the social interaction, which is almost completely missing in most mainstream RPGs, but also this will enable developers to incorporate women more and more as a target audience (speaking about getting the development costs back in), which would make the current target audience grow significantly.
I'm still surprised that so few RPG developers still develop RPGs so much that they'll meet only a rather male target audience (lots of combat, few to almost none social interaction).
Romances and NPC interaction like seen in BG is now about 10 years old - but developers still stick on the path (read: broad-sheeted main road) of fightings and ... well, things that appear to me sooo typical for male behaviour / role-playing.
Of course my opinion is subjective, but to me, things appear clear.
Besides, I'll be at the GamesCom; I bought my ticket for Thursday today. Which will be good, because it's the first day and it - hopefully - won't be as full as on the weekend.
Those who want to buy Vorverkauf-Tickets should hurry: The shop of the Saturn chain I was buying in was almost sold out except for the weekend.
