6. No. MMOs have average budgets in the hundreds of MILLIONS. A TV show is lucky to get a couple hundred THOUSAND. MMOs have much, much higher budgets than your average TV show. And well, the games could put focus on story and hope that their story is engaging, but the current gaming culture has bred a sense of "no, must make mechanics", when in truth mechanics isn't even the reason most people are attracted to games anymore. (At least not in the RPG genre, of which MMOs are a sub-genre.) So, I think the point stands.

7. I don't have the exact numbers. The only thing I've read is an announcement of STO hitting over 1 million users in 2016, and GW2 announcing breaking 5 million users back in 2014/15(?). So, according to what gaming sites have reported, GW2 player base is much, much larger.