[Professor S]

I think RPG's lost the mainstream when the technology didn't favor them anymore. The heyday of the RPG was the PSX generation with epic titles such as FF7 that really leveraged the cinematics available in the format to push the story and give the titles a real wow factor. The gameplay technology itself wasn't that impressive, but wow... those cinematics and special power cut scenes were mind blowing at the time.

Now technology is at the point that you can have those kind of wow moments in game and have that same kind of storytelling power in any genre of gaming, not just a 100 hr long turn based RPG, or even choose when and where you WANT to take a turn by pausing the action. A game is as turn based as you'd like it to be. If you want to really think about it, Mass Effect is really the eastern style RPG v. 2.0... and I like it.

On a side note, we also have to include the mainstreaming of video gaming as it has progressed from a youth-based and "hardcore" pastime to something the whole family participates in as the youth have grown and had kids that they share their love of gaming with. Hence the rapid growth of casual gaming in importance.