Middleware + MMOG development = vapourware?

[CadetUmfer]

There are really two sizes of middleware you see in the market today.  Some of the middleware is so small you can plug it into your game and use it seamlessly, like a physics engine or a rendering API, anything like that.  The other middleware that's successful now is the middleware that's so large and all-encompassing that you license the engine and then you build your game within the engine, using its content pipeline, its art tools, and its overall code framework to structure your game.  And the Unreal Engine falls into the latter class of engines.