Epic releasing a rather succesful "free weekend" UT3 via Steam. Now Tribes in browsers. id software should put a little more devs or whatever is needed to "finish" QL already, otherwise it will be too late, the potential community will shrink noticiably.
QL is already done peaking and has started to shrink quite a bit. Battlefield Heroes will be out soon, official Tribes on instantaction soon (their tribes wannabe game is already popular), UT3 making a HUGE comeback, EA releasing a Need For Speed free browser-based MMO soon, and so on...
Not to mention that IGA, id's advertising partner, isn't doing so well, and is already looking to sell their company if they can't get investments.
UT games have notoriously been played against bots, but the popularity of the game all around is certainly up. I don't think it will last, but they did manage to steal some thunder.
They cand find another ad partner, or do it themself, dont know. If it keeps being popular ofc. The public beta peak might be shrinking, but im confident final release will make it peak again. Thats what im talking about.