Why the disappointed don't leave...

Is that why nobody has released an MMO in 10 years that has succeeded without having to give the game away for free? Many of them have failed outright.

When there hasn't been a single, concrete success in a decade, the genre is stagnant.

No, the reason why MMOs are at best a dying genre is that the novelty wore off.
Much like the music games (Guitar Hero) in the early 00s or pure adventure games in the 90s. Sure, new MMOs come out all the time, but let's be honest, they are all the same thing: some are more focused on PVE others on PVP, some copy a few ideas from Wow and have 1-2 new ideas, others just blatantly copy everything etc. Nothing has really felt "brand new" for a long time now.
When a new genre is introduced, it's cool and exciting. Doing a raid or grinding for gear used to be considered awesome content that people were looking forward to. Now, it's more like "meh, what else is new?".

Meanwhile, companies know that MMOs are slowly becoming less and less relevant and that they don't appeal to younger ages the same way they used to. So they try to make them more casual, while copying some of the stuff other successful MMOs have done in the past. And I don't really blame them - they don't want to lost money.

But I do blame the players.
Companies follow their lead and apparently a "casual" approach to MMOs is what they want. They have no desire to stay anywhere. They're always looking for the "next big thing" (which used to be Swtor, then GW2, now Wildstar and ESO, tomorrow...who knows?) which they are always so sure that it will be the best thing since bread came sliced.

I remember, back in the 90s, games had truly awful, game-breaking bugs. But we waited patiently for them to fix them, we didn't scream bloody murder every time one chestpiece had two hoods. We had some unbelievably frustrating times with those games, but at the end of the day, we really, really, honest to God, enjoyed playing them.

True enough

The only thing stagnant about the genre CK is your personal view about it.

A fluke of timing, opportunity, IP and commercial success called WoW forever changed the paradigm of MMO as a genre (in the west, as east is a different market with different drivers). Others tried to build on the success to prove it could be scaled and leveraged... and failed. Why? Because WoW was not a trend, but a unique event of circumstances and timing (as was Everquest before it, and in scale to the timeframe). SO..... the market adapted and adjusted to find customers, broaden the offerings, and create choices. And a decade later.... the MMO population base is much much larger then it was and creating much much more commercial success in total in the genre....just not in the manner that you personally demand. You are bent that it's evolved (or devolved in your view I bet) to the Hello Kitty generation of short attention span make it easy to do product... but you know what... that is true of many things in the world of entertainment these days.

Seriously... you want the old days. Too bad... the old days are gone. You can cry in your beer about it and taunt the forum about it all you want.. but it will change nothing. Products and the markets they serve change over time. In a free market.. they follow consumer demand. You clearly do not represent the current distribution of consumer demand. You are an outlier... for a long as you choose to be an outlier. Adapt or become extinct to the context of MMOs. The choice is yours to make. The beer crys, forum taunting and snarky demands are simply for show on your part IMO.

But hey... at least you have your vinyl record collection to play while digging in heels right?

Ha, now that is VERY eloquently said, and dead on.

So in summary...

I am right. There has been no clear-cut successful MMO released in 10 years but I'm also wrong because...

If you take out all the ones that failed and were shut down because... they don't count for some reason?
And you take out EQ and WoW, because... they were just lucky?

So yes, the MMO market is thriving as long as you forget about everything that didn't thrive, and your definition of "thriving" excludes comparisons to the only two MMO to ever actually thrive.

Got it.

I actually do not think that mmos are a dying genre. I also disagree with the concept that decreasing numbers in "current" games is a manifestation of novelty.

In my humble opinion, the issue is that the games being introduced are of poor quality. I also think that game developers are out of touch with their player/customer base and indeed some current mmos almost appear to hold their customers in contempt.

Before, at, and soon after launch swtor sold over two million copies. The sales were for a sub based game. That does not say that there was a lack of interest or that the genre is dying. Within six months the number of subs had dropped to lint. That says that most of the people who bought the game rejected it. WOW had twelve million plus accounts (whatever that means) at the end of Wrath, with Cata and Mists they are now (I believe) not many years later at eight plus million players. I don't believe that is due to a dying genre effect or a novelty hit. I think that Buzzard managed to take a product that appealed to many and build one that appealed to much fewer. I was there and remember the complaints on the forum with many of the changes and I remember the contemptuous responses by the devs (GC and others).

Although I do not have the numbers, there are currently a ton of people following TESO, W*, and other games that will be released in the future. That does not speak of a dying genre, but more of people not satisfied with the games that they are playing or have played and are still looking for a home.

I will end with a concept that I see stated by many people who still play their game of choice be it swtor, WOW, or something else. That is they are still playing that game because there is nothing better out there. Not really a high recommendation for a product.

The deal is, you are wrong because on the whole, the number of people playing the MMO genre has increased substantially, and you also seem to disregard the fact that there are MMOs out there that haven't shut down, or that continue to make money, because they aren't as successful as WoW.

Which is idiotic. Would you say Burger King and Wendys and Taco Bell and other well known, branded fast food joints are "failures" because they aren't AS successful as McDonalds?

The problem lies with your very narrow definition of what qualifies an MMO as a success.

Exactly.

The MMO genre is growing and will continue to do so for another decade. More people are playing, but the player base is fragmented and spread across more products. EQ and WoW were successful, to be sure, but there also just weren't many alternatives in the genre at the time. Now there are many to choose from, so gaining a sustained base of players really should be defined as "success."

Still waiting for an answer as to why, if MMO's are so successful, they must give them away for nothing to beat numbers EQ achieved 15 years ago... when far, far less people had the capacity (in PC power and net connectivity) to even play MMO's.

"The market changed" is PR nonsense. The games changed to become more mainstream and it didn't work so "give it away for free" became the safety valve to keep the genre afloat.