Make it funnier, show us a maze and people trying to solve it in real time. Replace the mouse pointer with a colored token and constrain its movement to the walls of the maze.
This was a startup idea I had when I started Mibbit (I decided on balance webchat had more potential than multiplayer web games).
The idea was 'mouse games'. I had a similar setup where you could see everyones mouse cursor. I planned a whole load of multiplayer games where you could chase each other, complete puzzles, click on other people to kill them, draw circles round other players to trap them, etc etc. You could have messages show up like "First to draw a square gets a point". "Move to the left get a point". "Move as far away from everyone else as you can. Most isolated player gets a point". You could have objects being thrown at cursors, and you have to dodge them. Tons of potential to be a fun way for people to waste time :)
* Come back regularly to play it?
* Pay to play it?!! :/
* Click on ads? (If the creator were evil, they'd confuse
the users into clicking on ads, making them think it's
part of the game).
As with everything, it depends on the implementation ;)
I think it's probably tougher to monetize a web game, but flash game creators seem to be doing moderately well with advertisements that run before you can play the game.
There's an interesting hook in what you're talking about: I could IM a friend and say "hey jump on here, let's play together". It's much more social than most web games out there which is intriguing.
In general most web pages feel like you're there by yourself. The model of seeing many other people there at the same time is novel enough right now that it should be a little easier to get people to tell each other about it.
everybodyedits.com is very close to this; anyone can create a level and then you can play while you watch everyone else play at the same time. He's got $500 in donations so far I think.
